Why Denmark is dumping Microsoft Office and Windows for LibreOffice and Linux
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People complain different, government sees increased costs, and then they switch back
IDK if you read the article, but in 5 years cost of licenses paid to Microsoft increased 72%.
Also even if cost increase temporarily, it creates local jobs skills knowhow and tax revenue. Every "dollar" spend benefits the local community! instead of just sending the money to USA.
Servicing with open source and Linux will rapidly become cheaper than Microsoft, because there will be no artificial disruptions caused by Microsoft planned obsolescence or forced updates or whatever crap Microsoft is pushing. -
tl;dr: "digital sovereignty". "EU leaders are seeking to reduce Europe's dependence on foreign technology providers, primarily those from the United States, and to assert greater control over its digital infrastructure, data, and technological future."
Fair enough and makes sense. Every country should be trying to be as independant as possible IMO.
15 years ago this statement would lead to accusations of being anti-globalist, communist, economically illiterate.
15 years ago this made economical (just not political) sense and was the right approach.
Now it still is, but there's an additional quality - I think the incentive is not of public good, it's of strengthening authoritarianism on both sides of the Atlantic ocean. Domestic authoritarians always want to play with their toys without foreign authoritarians meddling. But if the domestic environment is not authoritarian, only foreign is, then they are not in conflict, and the other way around too.
So this may mean that both USA and EU are changing for the worse, for now.
Not attacking Linux or LibreOffice.
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People complain different, government sees increased costs, and then they switch back
Local libraries here and there in Copenhagen have already switched to Manjaro. Haven't heard anyone complain about it.
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15 years ago this statement would lead to accusations of being anti-globalist, communist, economically illiterate.
15 years ago this made economical (just not political) sense and was the right approach.
Now it still is, but there's an additional quality - I think the incentive is not of public good, it's of strengthening authoritarianism on both sides of the Atlantic ocean. Domestic authoritarians always want to play with their toys without foreign authoritarians meddling. But if the domestic environment is not authoritarian, only foreign is, then they are not in conflict, and the other way around too.
So this may mean that both USA and EU are changing for the worse, for now.
Not attacking Linux or LibreOffice.
I would argue that switching to an open-source model for all your tools is more globalist. Open source projects are being maintained by people all over the world, and any group or branch is allowed to modify and redistribute their personal version of any project.
It's the opposite of being subject to an ever growing corporation you can't even put checks on. Every government using the product of a single small group of massively rich corporations is giving said corporation unprecedented power over the world.
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IDK if you read the article, but in 5 years cost of licenses paid to Microsoft increased 72%.
Also even if cost increase temporarily, it creates local jobs skills knowhow and tax revenue. Every "dollar" spend benefits the local community! instead of just sending the money to USA.
Servicing with open source and Linux will rapidly become cheaper than Microsoft, because there will be no artificial disruptions caused by Microsoft planned obsolescence or forced updates or whatever crap Microsoft is pushing.I feel like there has to be a push in education for open source success
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I feel like there has to be a push in education for open source success
A couple dozen of Danish municipalities are working on replacing Google and Microsoft entirely in schools with a project called OS2Skole (skole meaning "school"). It's expected to save them around €3 million in yearly and the intention is to de-Googleify and de-Microsoftify children already from an early age and to make it open source.
Mind you that the project was started before Trump got re-elected.
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I would argue that switching to an open-source model for all your tools is more globalist. Open source projects are being maintained by people all over the world, and any group or branch is allowed to modify and redistribute their personal version of any project.
It's the opposite of being subject to an ever growing corporation you can't even put checks on. Every government using the product of a single small group of massively rich corporations is giving said corporation unprecedented power over the world.
Unless you use Redhat or just fork anything yourself without upstreaming changes.
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north germany is doing the same.
anyone remember limux? bill gates attacked german democracy bribing munich to drop limux in favor if windows in exchange for 8000 jobs.
fuck the windows user too though.
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LETS GOOOOOOO
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north germany is doing the same.
anyone remember limux? bill gates attacked german democracy bribing munich to drop limux in favor if windows in exchange for 8000 jobs.
fuck the windows user too though.
The funny thing about that story, and the outset that no one covered after the fact, is that Munich reversed direction again and ultimately did go with Linux and open source stacks.
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I’m a Dane and I approve this, massively.
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It's because libre office doesn't spy on you.
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Also Microsoft products have become enshitified beyond recognition.
All of the M$ office apps have premium features now too. Pay extra monthly and you can use python in excel. Pay extra monthly and Teams will... I dont even know because I closed that popup so fucking fast. FFS my company must pay M$ at least 7 figures a year - why are they trying to nickel and dime us?
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Also Microsoft products have become enshitified beyond recognition.
I teach boomers how to use SharePoint. Last week Microsoft updated office.com to be 95% copilot. The only way to find “All Apps” (word, SharePoint, PowerPoint, excel, etc.) is to find the tiny little “apps” button all the way at the bottom of the screen.
Everything else is copilot. Everyone is confused and my job just got 100% harder.
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Because they are free and any government getting rid of all Microsoft licensed software will save hundreds of millions per year.
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Is it because they're better and free? It's because they're better and free. I bet that's it.
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The funny thing about that story, and the outset that no one covered after the fact, is that Munich reversed direction again and ultimately did go with Linux and open source stacks.
not really true.
so 20(!!!) years later they as the last of the states woke up.
Nach LiMux-Aus: Wie sich München langsam wieder an Open Source annähert
Das IT-Referat München hat einen 5-Punkte-Plan für die Stärkung freier Software weitgehend umgesetzt. Für "Sabbaticals" können sich Interessierte noch bewerben.
heise online (www.heise.de)
bavaria is pathetic. "LANGSAM" is their word for being backwards and ultra-conservative. i mean Freie Wähler? Aiwanger? What a shit place.
And it is just SAD that they just NOW started to civilize. worst of the west. -
I feel like there has to be a push in education for open source success
The majority of Internet infrastructure runs on either something Linux based or something FreeBSD based.
A lot of the tools used are also various flavours of open or semi open source.
I'd say open source already has success. Just not in places where you see consumers using it. Except... Wait a minute, Android is a fork of Linux, and Android is open source too.
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Also good and free: Sumatra
You can read any pdf.Libre office drawer you can sign. No need for acrobat or any of that garbage.
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I feel like there has to be a push in education for open source success
Yes average people need to learn the open source stack instead of Microsoft.
It used to be most people could just learn some Microsoft thing, and they were almost guaranteed a job. Obviously a lot of people will be unhappy that isn't the case anymore, and they'll be annoyed they have to learn something new.But this should have been done 20 years ago when Linux was obviously ready for it, and sensible people have advised it for just as long.
In the old CP/M days we had lots of good software developed locally, but when IBM became dominant, and chose to use MS-Dos, Microsoft was verycleverlydeviously leveraging that to sabotage the competition, and take mostly every main stream market.Trump is kind of a blessing in disguise, because he finally got people to wake up to reality.
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