I hate when switches like these get advertised first and foremost as some huge cost-cutting measure, further solidifying open source ecosystem as some cheap knock-offs of their commercial alternatives.

How about instead you donate the same amount of money you would've paid to Microsoft anyways to fund open source projects you rely on? At least for one year, then drop it down to some arbitrary chosen percentage of that cost. That way you can still advertise it as a cost-cutting measure, and everyone would benefit.

You're not wrong, but this is actually what they're pursuing; the article just leaves it out.

> The goal is not only to save costs, but above all to gain digital sovereignty.

> [It's true] that open source is not necessarily cheaper, [..] it requires investment. But the money flows into internal infrastructure, into the further development of Nextcloud, LibreOffice, and other similar systems, instead of proprietary ones.

> Schleswig-Holstein pursues an "upstream-only strategy," meaning that developments flow directly back into international projects. The state does not want to maintain its own forks, but rather contribute all improvements directly to the main projects, thereby contributing to development for the benefit of the general public.[1]

On a side note, the real key to the project's success is that it's supported by a coalition of the conservative and green parties. They actually value digital sovereignty and longterm cost savings. Contrast that with Bavaria, where the MS lobbyist managed to get them to sign a longterm Office 365 contract…

[1]https://www-heise-de.translate.goog/hintergrund/Interview-Wi...

The German government actually started and funded quite a few projects supporting FOSS development over the past few years. For example, ZenDis was founded in 2022 to develop open-source software for the public administration. They are the driving force behind openDesk, which is shaping up to be a great office- and collaboration suite. Also, there's the Sovereign Tech Agency, where open-source projects can apply for direct funding. The available funds aren't as big as I'd like them to be, but it's not as if there's no funding coming from the German government.

An alternative would be to create jobs for people that take on part of the development of used software. They would be a close connection between their organization and the Open Source project in question. Paying money to the project would be one way to go. Providing development resources another. Both would be best :)

This has been my view too... all these years, all these organizations with collective billions, and didn't anyone have the vision to say, let's all pool some money together and actually get these open source alternatives to shed some of the papercuts, and maybe hire some UX/designers to make them look more polished?

True. Software and computers don’t even exist to save money. A lot of problems stem from the weird idea of MBAs that a computer, digitalization or even cloud are there to save money.

I hope Holstein prepared the switch well and kill off any Microsoft stuff as quick as possible. Nothing is worse than co-existence with something hostile which doesn’t want to be compatible.

   * No Dual-Booting
   * No VM
   * Especially no WINE (your ducked with every odd update)
   * And by the love of god, hit everyone with a bat which tries to ship incompatible files (MS-Office, ppt, xls, pst…) to you. Links to “Microsoft Teams”? Hit harder and show no mercy :)

    * Make plan.
    * Used standards wherever possible.
    * Switch file-formats and external platforms before. Use a standard distribution and DO NOT MAKE YOUR OWN DISTRIBUTION. If you have a big IT department with hundreds of employees, maybe an own repository with your custom software.
    * Enforce all suppliers hard to support Linux natively! If not? Drop them. Search a honest company which gives you also the source.
    * Avoid the usual mistake like “this a local support company” or “their offer is cheaper”
    * Don’t purchase shitty hardware. ThinkPads are a good start, but we speak about printers, NFC, label writers, scanners and so on.

    The remaining 20 percent of workplaces are currently still dependent on Microsoft programs such as Word or Excel, as there is a technical dependency on these programs in certain specialized applications. According to Schrödter, however, the successive conversion of these remaining computers is the stated goal.

PS: And don’t repeat Munich! Munich is “HOW NOT”. Three distinct IT-Departments. And the next major was “convinced ” with tax money and a Microsoft Headquarters. Result, it is worse than before.

There are plenty of decision makers who will not be sold on an abstract concept like software sovereignty, especially when it requires them to change. Tell the same crowd "$15 million saved" and more of them will listen.

They're out of their minds if they're donating nothing to Libreoffice, though.

The idea is sound but the feeling of hate is perhaps strong. It’s understandable there’s no incentive to pay for open source software, and doing so would be seen as an unnecessary allocation of resources that could better be allocated elsewhere.

Given this understanding, the best away to achieve the desired outcome is to get creative about aligning incentives at the top of org structures where resources are allocated.

Many years ago some people proposed to move open source to paid licensing to guarantee income for core open source developers. But the self-righteous community attacked them like it was the end of the world.

In the current cancel culture even if you use *GPL licenses you get attacked for not being MIT or similar. But mysteriously never a peep about Big Tech making billions off open source without giving back even a tiny 1% to the projects. Insanity.

That's a really good point actually. If you're self hosting, you're already eating some cost by having people, probably in-house, doing the work but the price difference must be quite large and they should use it to support the project.

I hope those are not mutually exclusive actions. Switching and contributing may be on the Schleswig-Holstein Administration's agenda.

>In contrast, there would be one-time investments of nine million euros in 2026 [...] and the further development of solutions with free software.

They are contributing actively it seems, so even better.

You hate that, but what I hate that so many of my tax dollars are funnelled into bloated software run by awful foreign companies with massive lock-in scams, when better free software is available. I hate that lobbyists and consultants get these systems into place and can’t be unseated despite its utter unreasonableness.

It’s a tremendous mis-allocation of public resources. Hiring local people to tailor the free software which already exists and contributing those changes back to the world would spend fewer of those dollars and spend them locally, and be pro-social at the same time.

So I don’t hate this story. I love it and see it as a massive win.

Because in Germany the price is the only thing that counts.

Building a new street? The cheapest bidder wins.

Cuts to social security? As long it saves money in the short term in doesn’t matter if the long term costs will be higher or if the cuts don’t make sense.

Why would a budget-conscious institution give away money for free?

Yes. But budget decisions are made by politicians. Who know that one euro spent on things they could get for free is one euro less for things that voters and other interests are endlessly asking them to spend more on.

It should be what the kids these days call 'sovereignty', but ain't nobody got budget for that.