Schleswig-Holstein [Germany’s most Northern state] started its open source journey early, becoming something of a vanguard in Europe’s move away from proprietary software [by ditching Microsoft and introducing Linux and LibreOffice].
Now, Dirk Schrödter, the Minister for Digital Transformation of the state, has shared some remarkable numbers (link to article in German language) that prove the financial case for implementing open source for government use cases.
…
According to Schrödter’s ministry, Schleswig-Holstein will save over €15 million in license costs in 2026. This is money the state previously paid Microsoft for Office 365 and related services.
The savings come from nearly completing the migration to LibreOffice. Outside the tax administration, almost 80% of workplaces in the state government are said to have made the switch.
The remaining 20% of workplaces still depend on Microsoft programs. Technical dependencies in certain specialized applications keep these systems tied to Word or Excel for now. But converting these remaining computers is the end goal.
There is also a one-time €9 million investment set in motion for 2026, which would be used to complete the migration and further develop the open source solutions for the ministry.
[…]
€15million! That’s not peanuts. And Germany has 16 “states”.
I wonder what fantasy problems the reactionaries will come up with that - in their minds - will also cost 15million.
edit: yep, the old, old, same, same argument:
Meanwhile, the opposition (…) says that there are still problems with the new software (…) “It may be that on paper 80 percent of the jobs have been converted,” says SPD member of the state parliament Kianusch Stender. “However, far fewer than 80 percent of employees can now work properly. Errors in the migration of jobs still exist.”
This is corporate-donations-driven bullshit as we have known since LiMux. Bit sad that the so-called social democrats engage in this.
BTW it’s only 80% because the planners know that some still depend on MS products (esp. Excel). But:
According to Schröder, these jobs will also be converted in the future. “We continue to consistently implement our open source strategy and strengthen the country’s digital sovereignty,” says Schrödter. “In this way, we reduce our technical and therefore economic dependence on individual manufacturers.”
I like the last sentence: switching to open source is more than just using free software.
I’m curious if the switch to FOSS software means they’re going to start supporting those projects, at least to some degree? I know quite a few FOSS devs for some very mainstream projects, and none of them make enough money to dedicate all their time to the projects. That lack of support really isn’t what you want in a government system. A lot of the costs from using M$ software is in the service contracts, not the site licenses, especially since it doesn’t sound like they’re moving the data infrastructure (excel integration and SQL server are m$'s other biggest money-makers besides office enterprise and azure). Even shifting a fraction of the savings over to the devs now doing the support work for your digital sovereignty would be awesome.
Don’t know about the monetary side but I read in an interview with someone from the Green-party who’s in charge in SH (ironically with the conservative CDU) that they’ll operate under a “upstream-only” strategy which means they won’t create forks of projects but contribute their changes directly into the original repos, e.g. they’re working on AI solutions with Nextcloud to accelerate buerocratic processes within the public sector (with a focus on the ethical aspect).
… I think I understand what you mean and that’s probably a good approach, but good grief the initial read of "governmental groups committing changes to main that enable AI for greater bureaucratic compatibility " is one of the most stressful things I can think of.
Oh you probably meant the Orwellian undertone, right?
I have quite some faith in them keeping their word regarding the ethical side considering their track-record on their FOSS stance. The Nextcloud “CEO” Frank Karlitschek has a very hard stance regarding privacy and also spares no words regarding the situation in the US. Don’t even know if this specific AI thing will go upstream as it’s very domain specific. I consider the government of the state of SH as one of better ones in Germany though I live in another state. I haven’t lost all faith in the Green party and their minister president seems a bit more progressive than most other CDU politicians.
