public services of an entire german state switches from Microsoft to open source (Libreoffice, Linux, Nextcloud, Thunderbird)
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Would love to see further movements towards foss software in many other governments
Moreeeee MOREEEE preach it
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I have seen this happen before, for a while, then somehow M$ convinced them to switch back.
Yeah, I think this happens somewhere in Germany every few years. MS then makes a concerted effort to woo some politicians back, and a few years later we have news that a city or state is moving back to MS.
Yes, it is good that cities / states are trying Linux and challenging MS, but there is soo much more to any of this than technical superiority or licensing fees. -
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.I.wouldn't be so sure, the world runs on M$ spreadsheets and their shenanigans.
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You say that like it's not already focused on. The majority of Internet infrastructure runs on Linux.
But the vast majority of viruses focus on end users.
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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.
It's really close to OneNote so far and has an acceptable self hosting option. The import function seems good compared to other apps I've tried
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50 cents per user per month doesn't make any sense: I think for MS it might be cheaper to give products for free than to process these payments
Note that that number (180000) is per year, not per month
I'm guessing it's a really small state with not much IT going on.
As for cheaper to give for free: ABSOLUTELY. But, with free then they don't have their sales guys in there talking with them, they don't have the state "acknowledging the debt" and the legitimacy of their right to charge for their software.
In the 1990s M$ let the world pirate DOS and Windows with wild abandon, they were just happy that people were using their stuff and not others'. After the world was good and hooked, shortly after we all survived Y2K, they started turning the screws - requiring license keys for full functionality, getting serious about demanding payment.
Bill Gates net worth was "only" $30B before they got serious about charging for their software, today I see it's over $200B even after all of Melinda's philanthropy.
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Yeah, I think this happens somewhere in Germany every few years. MS then makes a concerted effort to woo some politicians back, and a few years later we have news that a city or state is moving back to MS.
Yes, it is good that cities / states are trying Linux and challenging MS, but there is soo much more to any of this than technical superiority or licensing fees.188K dollars or euros, is basically the cost to put one warm sales body in the territory, to keep the hooks in acknowledging that they should be paid for their software.
To me, it's about digital sovereignty, and the states should stand on their own two feet and know how their own computers work, not just rely on a foreign company.
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It's really close to OneNote so far and has an acceptable self hosting option. The import function seems good compared to other apps I've tried
I just checked it out and at first it looked perfect… then I started noticing local features like exports, notebook counts, etc that were paywalled behind a subscription. For an app that is “open source” that really rubs me the wrong way. I may look through the source code later. I have a feeling they’ve tied those features arbitrarily to web services to drive subscriptions, which would be really creepy… though not as creepy as if the code exists locally and is paywalled. sigh
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I don't see how this gives any insight into how your subscription price is being used for products relevant to you.
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188K doesnt sound much
I think the big money is in support contracts.
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Mate, are you sure you don't confuse per year and per month numbers? Those 180000 is per YEAR (for 30000 users)
Mate, are you sure you didnt confuse my comment with someone else's? I didn't put any numbers in my comment at all, I was just being cheeky and pointing out that M365 licenses come with a Windows license as well. Or at least business basic and above.
I am not German, and I don't know what licenses or how many accounts the German government has. That is irrelevant to my comment.
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they will save 188,000 € on Microsoft license fees per year
LETS GOOOOO
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I don't see how this gives any insight into how your subscription price is being used for products relevant to you.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Your subscription price is the source of those dividends. It pays the shareholders, it pays the sales staff's commissions, it pays for management, it pays for executive salaries and bonuses, it pays for legal counsel, it pays for political lobbying. Your subscription price is working hard, for the company, not for you.
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they will save 188,000 € on Microsoft license fees per year
I'm more surprised that a city in Germany didn't switch to Linux a decade or more ago.
Late to the party is still showing up, good for them.
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Your subscription price is the source of those dividends. It pays the shareholders, it pays the sales staff's commissions, it pays for management, it pays for executive salaries and bonuses, it pays for legal counsel, it pays for political lobbying. Your subscription price is working hard, for the company, not for you.
Ahhh
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It's really not though. Most of what you can do with Office can be done with other tools, you just have to learn how to use them.
In libre office I can't get copilot to turn my entire report to slop in 2 clicks.
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I just checked it out and at first it looked perfect… then I started noticing local features like exports, notebook counts, etc that were paywalled behind a subscription. For an app that is “open source” that really rubs me the wrong way. I may look through the source code later. I have a feeling they’ve tied those features arbitrarily to web services to drive subscriptions, which would be really creepy… though not as creepy as if the code exists locally and is paywalled. sigh
If you self host, all features are free.
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If you self host, all features are free.
Aha, I didn’t realize that was an option.
I see there’s a notesnook-sync-server project. Thanks for pointing that out or I’d have missed it!
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Mate, are you sure you didnt confuse my comment with someone else's? I didn't put any numbers in my comment at all, I was just being cheeky and pointing out that M365 licenses come with a Windows license as well. Or at least business basic and above.
I am not German, and I don't know what licenses or how many accounts the German government has. That is irrelevant to my comment.
Yes, I am 100% sure: you responded to my comment where I say that 6 EUR/year/user won't cover even Windows. I wasn't talking about license capabilities (what's included and what's not), purely regarding the cost.
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I'm guessing it's a really small state with not much IT going on.
As for cheaper to give for free: ABSOLUTELY. But, with free then they don't have their sales guys in there talking with them, they don't have the state "acknowledging the debt" and the legitimacy of their right to charge for their software.
In the 1990s M$ let the world pirate DOS and Windows with wild abandon, they were just happy that people were using their stuff and not others'. After the world was good and hooked, shortly after we all survived Y2K, they started turning the screws - requiring license keys for full functionality, getting serious about demanding payment.
Bill Gates net worth was "only" $30B before they got serious about charging for their software, today I see it's over $200B even after all of Melinda's philanthropy.
I'm guessing it's a really small state with not much IT going on.
A small organization will have higher software license prices per user than a large one.
