public services of an entire german state switches from Microsoft to open source (Libreoffice, Linux, Nextcloud, Thunderbird)
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I'm not seeing nextcloud mentioned in the article. If they are moving to nextcloud, I wish them the best. It's great for my personal use, but from my experience it's lacking in what I would expect in a work environment. With a government entity coming to use them, it would be fantastic to see some improvements on them because they're almost there.
Best I can give you is dataport looking for nextcloud admins, it's also listed as a component of dPhoenixSuite.
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This and software companies openly supporting Linux. For example, if Adobe and AutoCAD among others would build some tars then you could see it.
Ironically, Game Engines are ahead of the curve on this. You could build Unreal Engine from the github page on Linux for many years now and we also have Godot and Blender. I think several PCB design and also architecture tools already exist on Linux as well, so there is definitely room for a lot of industries and businesses to shift away from Windows as long as they can find a competent tech guy to maintain everything with minimal downtime.
Blender got ported to Linux in 1998, to Windows in 1999. The modal interface and key command language is no accident, it literally is a 3d vi.
Linux is generally strong when it comes to 3d graphics workstations, it inherited IRIX' market share, plenty of artists around, especially in the film industry, who'd go on a strike if you took away dragging windows with alt+LMB. Graphics, that is, CAD is dominated by Windows as CAD started out as 2d sketch software which ran on cheap DOS machines.
Houdini is also Unix-native and Blender's only surviving competitor (considered by features, not industry inertia), Maya started out as cross-platform IRIX+Windows.
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Embrace, extend, extinguish will accelerate.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]What makes you think FOSS cannot use the same strat ?
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they will save 188,000 € on Microsoft license fees per year
I think this has been tried before.
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People bitch and moan every time MS Office apps are updated, too; I can't count the number of times I've heard coworkers complain. TBF though, I refuse to hit the "Try the new Outlook" toggle on my work laptop - I tried it once and it was worse in every way.
I'm glad the only MS products I use at this point are work-issued.
Hey it's getting better! They recently worked hard for months to add the very niche and almost never used feature of adding a shared mailbox's folder to your favourites! I mean, with features like that you should expect the dev time to be long.
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It's not.
The problem is that one percent that does need Windows.
Unicorns suck in IT. It's a small number of systems that take a disproportionate amount of admin overhead.
So IT leadership has to decide if they support a separate OS for a small percentage of users, or one OS that works for everyone (Windows).
Those boxes will be unicorns no matter what, though, also, they're not necessarily part of the general IT infrastructure. Someone in catastrophe defence might be running fluid simulations using some god awful expensive windows-only software but chances are they can manage their own box, and if not, the ministry will still have IT staff who can deal with that kind of thing.
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they will save 188,000 € on Microsoft license fees per year
188K doesnt sound much
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If the trend continues then maybe the hacker community will start focusing on Linux. Can you imagine "I don't need a virus scanner, I use Windows, the under dog OS"
Please become a thing. Having viruses custom tailored for your OS means you've made it.
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it is just step 1
we will get rid of all closed source shit.
weak bavarians failed after successfull transistion to "LiMux" (their linux fork) they got bribed with 8k M$ jobs in munich.
but not the state of schleswig-holstein!
we will prevail.All I know about Bavaria is that their sheep seldom wear spectacles. Do sheep wear spectacles more often in Schleswig-Holstein?
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Please become a thing. Having viruses custom tailored for your OS means you've made it.
I don't wanna "make it". I just want fast, secure, private computing.
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If the trend continues then maybe the hacker community will start focusing on Linux. Can you imagine "I don't need a virus scanner, I use Windows, the under dog OS"
The hacker community it's very focused on Linux since most servers in the world run it. The fly by night script kiddies and botnet creators definitely prefer end user systems though.
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188K doesnt sound much
Some localities in Germany have been incorporating Linux into their systems for 20+ years.
That may explain why the financial benefits seem low.
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Same goes for any software.
I don't understand why people act like Windows is the holy grail of computing.
It sucks, it barely works for 90% of users, and the rest will use anything else.
Just as Linux will work for 98% of people, and those last ones are due to handful of evil companies.
The problem is education. People know how to use Windows/Microsoft products, and are too lazy to learn anything else. Saying "that other thing sucks" is easier than admitting "Idk how to use that other thing, and I'm too lazy to learn", especially in a corporate environment where you can't climb ladders by acknowledging your own shortcomings.
Get LibreOffice/Nextcloud/etc into schools, and the problem will be solved in a single generation.
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Just wait for Microsoft to start astroturfing the initiative.
Didn't the Trump admin suspend enforcement of foreign anti-bribery laws? Microsoft just has to write a check to the right person to kill this.
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Best I can give you is dataport looking for nextcloud admins, it's also listed as a component of dPhoenixSuite.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]
I wonder if they'll hire an American who barely dabbles in self hosting and doesn't speak 28.35 grams of German. Or would it be 29.6 mL? -
I wonder if they'll hire an American who barely dabbles in self hosting and doesn't speak 28.35 grams of German. Or would it be 29.6 mL?
Modulo everything, you need to have been a resident for at least five years to have any chance of getting security clearance. Also it would be "not a shredlet".
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The problem is education. People know how to use Windows/Microsoft products, and are too lazy to learn anything else. Saying "that other thing sucks" is easier than admitting "Idk how to use that other thing, and I'm too lazy to learn", especially in a corporate environment where you can't climb ladders by acknowledging your own shortcomings.
Get LibreOffice/Nextcloud/etc into schools, and the problem will be solved in a single generation.
People 'know' how to use Microsoft products. I'm a data guy and might spend less than a day a week in word, PowerPoint, excel. Most of the time I spend in them is checking other people's work. I'm still called on to help people with such tasks as switching from footnotes to endnotes, moving files in SharePoint, fixing formatting. My general knowledge of navigating the UI and googling fixes is better than what people 'know'.
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LibreOffice is a great alternative for 99% of people, but there is that 1% of people who is gonna be disappointment.
This is a great step though.The only thing preventing me from full adoption in it is the lack of being able to convert to table like in excel. I've moved to it for my word processing. But I can't shake excel because I use that feature almost every time I use the program.
After that i just need to find replacements for OneNote and OneDrive and I'll finally be free.
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LibreOffice is a great alternative for 99% of people, but there is that 1% of people who is gonna be disappointment.
This is a great step though.For me the trouble has always been interactions with other people. It's way better than 10 years ago. Just LibreOffices ribbon interface looks so much better today than 5 years ago. File compatibility is just going to be a continued growing pain until LibreOffice hits a major marketshare
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The only thing preventing me from full adoption in it is the lack of being able to convert to table like in excel. I've moved to it for my word processing. But I can't shake excel because I use that feature almost every time I use the program.
After that i just need to find replacements for OneNote and OneDrive and I'll finally be free.
You can do that in LibreOffice. Its just a few more clicks than in Excel. Its such a common feature they should really make it clearer. I think the feature is "Database Ranges"
