cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/60886715
Schleswig-Holstein, one of Germany’s 16 states, on Wednesday confirmed plans to move tens of thousands of systems from Microsoft Windows to Linux. The announcement follows previously established plans to migrate the state government off Microsoft Office in favor of open source LibreOffice.
I hope the switch sticks as other states in germany already went back and forth (munich i think?). I also hope that more states follow and move to linux.
In Munich “only” the citiy switched to a own Linux distribution named “Limux” with extra software (Wollmux) for Open Office to manage templates for all departments. After a few years and a lot of progress the new mayor spread doubt (e.g. with a study ignoring some costs) about the project and forced to switch back to Microsoft. Coincidental Microsoft Germany moved their Headquarter a few kilometers from outside Munich to the administrative area of the city.
The amount of excuses of things not working/missing functionality under OSS are getting fewer and fewer. For me, the last couple of years have been huge in closing the gap. Switching from Windows to Mac a year and a half ago brought some disappointment towards MacOS - it has more glitches/weirdness than I had thought, coming from the (apparent) Apple UI masters. Installing Debian 12 with GNOME on my old work laptop was a pleasent experience, but still requires some fiddling to get things (mostly apps) the way I want them. I imagine installing a more user friendly distribution would be an even more polished experience.
My point is, that OSS is better than ever and the excuses are starting to become tiresome.
Im many cases it can be cut down to different user experience.
I mean thats exactly why i fear that it wont take hold. Microsoft has their goons pushing their expensive garbage through lobbyists. The politicians in turn have zero knowledge about operating systems or IT in general so they are influenced easily.