3w ago

This European military just ditched Microsoft for open-source LibreOffice - here's why

www.zdnet.com

11 comments

I really dislike clickbait headlines like these, it’s Austria if you’re wondering.
Austria's military has switched from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice.
The move was all about digital sovereignty, not cost savings.
Other governments are moving away from Microsoft to protect their citizens' privacy.
- I really dislike clickbait headlines like these, it’s Austria if you’re wondering.
  Agreed. Come on Lemmy, we have to be better than these clickbait writing/pasting fuckwits.
Because spying on your customers and force feeding them advertisements is bad for business. As with virtually all companies, Microsoft can’t prioritize the long term health of their platform over next quarter’s profits.
- They don' t need to care as they have corporations locked-in nicely.
  
  I totally agree, but that’s a “years” type of lock in, not “decades”. If a whole military can get off of Microsoft, so can most businesses.
The best part is that they are also funding LibreOffice development. If everyone funds FOSS with money that would be used for MS subscriptions, we can further accelerate FOSS development
From the article:
Austria isn't just replacing Microsoft software. Unlike typical public-sector and corporate migrations, Austria's military has heavily invested in LibreOffice development itself. The armed forces have been funding the creation of new features and improvements that are now included in public releases. These additions, ranging from improved slideshow editing to better handling of pivot tables, have been rolled into the latest version of LibreOffice.
- Or even better: set up in-house software teams which partly contribute to FOSS, and partly work on in-house software. This can justify a larger developer pool, because when there is less in-house work for some reason, you reallocate some devs to open source work.
  Of course contributing both money and developer time would be best.
Reason #9 will shock you!
- Austrian military cuts software costs in half using this one weird old trick discovered by a German housewife.
The more the merrier! 😊
I'm curious about the details.
Did they replace Onenote or Sharepoint?
Are they now running their own mail servers? If so, what are they using as an email client?

11 comments