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.
[…]
Hmm. Maybe I’m just cynical, but I have yet to see one of these “digital sovereignty” moves to FOSS software that appears to be anything more than a cost saving measure. It’s good to save money, sure, but shifting your government to rely on an already overbudened volunteer-run system is a recipe for disaster, and without reliable ongoing support (which one-time grants are not) this is not going to end well. By all means kick Microsoft, but where is that €15 million/year going now, and why is some portion of it not going to The Document Foundation?
Why wouldn’t that be enough? But often it’s also much safer.
Tech support for FOSS solutions exists and is completely separate of the grants I mentioned.
You’re being a bit contrary here with no ground to stand on. Maybe just do some web searches first? Like the Gendarmerie using Ubuntu (which is very much professional and not “an already overbudened volunteer-run system”). Honestly I think you don’t really grasp how most of FOSS works these days.
Wow, overly insulting much? I’ll just stick with Libreoffice as the example here since I don’t want to get into “cops using ubuntu”:
The Document Foundation does not provide professional support services for LibreOffice. It does, however, develop and maintain a certification system for professionals of various kinds who deliver and sell services around LibreOffice.
So no, their hypothetical outlay for tech support can’t go to supporting The Document Foundation, that isn’t something offered. Instead it will go to commercial services built around that core piece of FOSS.
Because modern software suites aren’t static products. Security updates alone are a huge outlay of effort, and that is currently being done entirely by free volunteer labor. I know that most modern countries were developed through the exploitation of free labor, but I’m pretty sure we’ve agreed that’s a bad thing to do and in an article about how they’re saving a ridiculous amount of money, there is no mention that any of that money saved will go to supporting the people enabling their espoused ideals of sovereignty and digital independence.
If the goal truly is independence and not just cost saving, why not redirect that budget to allow some of the actual workers to survive off their labor? And why do you think it’s okay for them to take that budget and give it to commercial, non-contributing interests instead?
And why not create, if it doesn’t exist, a team of public servants to do that job? Fixing the problems they encounter and giving those fixes to the community.
If that can be done without (the only phrase I know for it is “Digital colonialism”: where a group takes effective control of another project because they have paid devs to throw at it. Descriptive but a bit dramatic.) that would be a huge help. To a degree that’s what they’re doing, releasing their in-house developments based on the LibreOffice source on their OpenCode platform, but I have yet to see anywhere that shows/says they’re supporting said original developers they’re relying on themselves (though in this process I have had my lacking german skills pushed to their limits).
I laud the effort to oust microsoft, but I have yet to see any of these efforts come to fruition in a “my friends can afford to eat now that their code is running huge parts of the government of the 3rd largest economy in the world” way.
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