public services of an entire german state switches from Microsoft to open source (Libreoffice, Linux, Nextcloud, Thunderbird)
-
I was thinking about trying it out on my server. Why does it suck?
Personal/Family use is fine, it's kinda fiddly but so is most selfhosted software.
At an organizational level, that fiddliness spirals into a ton of work, which doesn't really overlap with other IT Duties in the way that troubleshooting OneDrive usually ends up solving problems with the whole Microsoft suite.
-
Holy fuck, that's the clearest sign for war prepararion ive seen from Europe yet, they don't want the US in their computers.
A small part of Germany, but maybe
-
That is such a crazy amount of money on license fees, especially when you consider that there are mostly free alternatives. I am always choosing foss options as I build my small business.
Right now, I am using onedrive, and Microsoft for my business email. Which I think comes out to like $5 a month.
My understanding is that for reliable email, you need to host with microsoft or google otherwise you are more likely to get sorted into junk mail. If that is incorrect, please let me know.
My understanding is that for reliable email, you need to host with microsoft or google otherwise you are more likely to get sorted into junk mail. If that is incorrect, please let me know.
I don't know. I never had a problems with a smaller mail provider.
-
Replace OneDrive with a NAS. You can roll your own with something like OpenMediaVault.
Replace OneNote with Obsidian. It’s not FOSS, but it’s free and cross platform.
If I could afford a NAS I would have done so by now. But I can't afford the drives. Most other hosted solutions either don't offer the capacity I am after, or lack other features that I want from a cloud storage.
I didn't like using Obsidian and I'm not going to learn markdown so it's out. I'm looking at notesnook, but it's still not quite what I am after. But might be as close as I get.
-
I sometimes wonder what if everyone who spends money on licensing fees instead takes the same amount of money and puts it into FOSS. Imagine what we could achieve? Likely the money would be used more efficiently because they could donate it to non-profit companies which don't need to pay tax.
And there could be insight into whether the money is actually used for developing the relevant application.
-
Holy fuck, that's the clearest sign for war prepararion ive seen from Europe yet, they don't want the US in their computers.
Don't worry. They'll get a big discount on licenses and swap right back again.
-
What makes you think FOSS cannot use the same strat ?
Mostly because the FOSS community doesn't have a single point of leadership that is maniacally focused on becoming a total monopoly.
And that's a good thing
-
If I could afford a NAS I would have done so by now. But I can't afford the drives. Most other hosted solutions either don't offer the capacity I am after, or lack other features that I want from a cloud storage.
I didn't like using Obsidian and I'm not going to learn markdown so it's out. I'm looking at notesnook, but it's still not quite what I am after. But might be as close as I get.
I haven’t heard of notesnook. I’ll need to check that out.
I don’t love Obsidian, it’s just the best free app I’ve come across so far.
-
Mostly because the FOSS community doesn't have a single point of leadership that is maniacally focused on becoming a total monopoly.
And that's a good thing
Yeah but we can aspire for FOSS to take over the world right ?
-
they will save 188,000 € on Microsoft license fees per year
It would be nice to see the European governments start a genuine effort on funding open source development, and start laying the foundation for a migration to their own Linux distro. Microsoft isn't trustworthy. Hell, most American big tech is untrustworthy. Moving your government offices to an in house developed OS is going to be paramount for their security in the future.
-
I know what you are saying, but it is not so bad: First of all, most things people are doing at work is not really related to the OS underneath. So if you are responsible for creating passports, you are using the special government program for passport creation. If you are a policeman, you are using the special police software to do your policework. Yeah, you need additional training, but in the best case your usual software keeps working. Most people are not really interacting with the OS during their work day.
(and let's be honest: Microsofts totally insane UI changes are also requiring lots of training. If you are used to just click on some specific buttons that somebody told you to click on, you're totally lost in Microsofts crazy wonderland of ridiculous UI changes )
Look im an IT guy, and enforcing 2FA for all accounts at our company directly caused at least 2 people to quit at my company.
People are enormously resistant to change. It doesn't even matter if it actually impacts their job or anything, they will freak out and complain.
Hell 2 weeks ago I added a 3rd AP to one of our offices and just the act of moving the APs around caused enough of a disturbance that HR heard about it. And that was me giving them better internet! There wasn't even any downtime! I just moved the things that sit on the ceiling and nobody notices!
-
This has been planned for quite some time, so not really.
Also, other states insist on using Palantir so there's that...
I have seen this happen before, for a while, then somehow M$ convinced them to switch back.
-
My understanding is that for reliable email, you need to host with microsoft or google otherwise you are more likely to get sorted into junk mail. If that is incorrect, please let me know.
I don't know. I never had a problems with a smaller mail provider.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]These days it's really about managing SPF and DKIM records. But I usually tell people just "use an email provider". It doesn't have to be a big one or anything, just someone else because email is an enormous headache and it's just frankly not worth it.
Even if you set up all of your records correctly, every other email provider is going to look into the reputation of your email server and a lot of them will still filter your stuff into junk mail because its 99% of people running their own email server are using it to serve junk mail.
-
Don't worry. They'll get a big discount on licenses and swap right back again.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]At that scale it starts to be about the cost of support, and if M$ will hold their hands for the installation, configuration and maintenance, at some point that costs the state more to provide for Linux than the M$ licenses... Of course, when they lean so heavily on M$ for keeping their systems running, the temptation for abuse becomes strong...
If I were "head of state" I would insist on development of homegrown talent to at least maintain the systems, hopefully configure and even build them too, not as a matter of money, but as a matter of security, independence, etc. I would try to pull back before reaching the point of developing locally used systems that aren't used elsewhere, that's not good long term, but if you develop the local talent to run the things, and they naturally build some of their own things, encourage that to be shared with the larger world in addition to leveraging the best shared (locally vetted, secure) tools from elsewhere.
-
Certainly not this one: 6 EUR/user/year doesn't cover even Windows
wrote on last edited by [email protected]It actually does now. Your M365 license also includes a windows license.
-
This right here. Linux security is so good that the easiest way to break in is via Phishing someone with a windows laptop.
Yeah exactly. Nobody actually "hacks" anymore. They just send Pam in accounting a funny email
-
I sometimes wonder what if everyone who spends money on licensing fees instead takes the same amount of money and puts it into FOSS. Imagine what we could achieve? Likely the money would be used more efficiently because they could donate it to non-profit companies which don't need to pay tax.
Just remember, the license fees mostly don't go into development, or maintenance, or security, or any of that, they mostly pay for "sales" which includes a strong component of end customer support. When you divert "all that money" into FOSS, FOSS development and maintenance might be lucky to get 20%, the other 80% will be spend training and employing tech support.
-
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.
In October they are forcing everyone to new outlook too! I can't wait to have a shittier interface with less functionality!
-
And there could be insight into whether the money is actually used for developing the relevant application.
-
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.
Actually this was a huge update. Shared mailboxes are extensively used at any company I've been at so being able to just open a shared mailbox without having to dig through 93744847 folders or opening another mailbox is a great addition.
