Technology

59105 readers

3344 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

1158

A German state is ditching Windows and Microsoft Office for Linux and LibreOffice on the 30,000 PCs it uses for local government functions (www.theregister.com)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

165 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Schleswig-Holstein, Germany's most northern state, is starting its switch from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice, and is planning to move from Windows to Linux on the 30,000 PCs it uses for local government functions.

Concerns over data security are also front and center in the Minister-President's statement, especially data that may make its way to other countries. Back in 2021, when the transition plans were first being drawn up, the hardware requirements for Windows 11 were also mentioned as a reason to move away from Microsoft.

Saunders noted that "the reasons for switching to Linux and LibreOffice are different today. Back when LiMux started, it was mostly seen as a way to save money. Now the focus is far more on data protection, privacy and security. Consider that the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) recently found that the European Commission's use of Microsoft 365 breaches data protection law for EU institutions and bodies."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago (9 children)

Switching to an open-source project is easy, but the concern is more about the context in which they are used and how long they will persist in using these. It might be more convenient for the government to initially try Linux for some pilot projects that require less human intervention. This is because I’m not sure how familiar civil servants are with Linux and LibreOffice. On the other hand, open-source projects don’t provide after-sales services and may have technical or compatibility issues. It requires time for them to get accustomed to them.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

They've thought about that too, and see training as vital where others before them have failed. Also OS and programs will look somewhat similar to what users are used to, from what I can recall.

Producing documents or e-mails can't be that functionally different, right? Many don't need much more than that. However, I could see integration of third-party software as a challenge, but one that in most cases could be easily overcome.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Producing documents or e-mails can't be that functionally different, right?

If you do complicated stuff in docx and then try open it in something like Libre the formatting will be interpreted differently.
Source: I partly create forms for templats in Libre/OpenOffice at work.

load more comments (7 replies)