The German state of Schleswig-Holstein is making waves with its ambitious plan to ditch Microsoft Office, Exchange, and Windows in favor of Open Source alternatives. This bold move has significant implications for digital sovereignty, public procurement, and the future of the European digital ecosystem. The EuroStack Project unpacks the plan and its broader implications.
they will save 188,000 € on Microsoft license fees per year
I admire the plan, but I doubt the public sector is going to completely acclimate to Linux. The average age of an employee in the public sector is something like 40+.
You might get lucky and get them to use one new program like LibreOffice, but there’s no way you’re going to completely revamp every desktop PC to Linux. I work in this field, and while everyone has been nice and friendly, they (and the entire system around them) are also hugely resistant to digital change.
If they ever make the move to a Linux Desktop environment, the IT support will go through hell.
There used to be skins for KDE that made it look and feel 1:1 like Windows XP, I don’t know if these things still exist. If yes, there you have it: Just make the system behave like Windows and they won’t notice a difference. They only have to use Office, Mail and print files anyways. Most other tools they use are browser-based and will feel the same way
The names have changed. I literally had that conversation with “an engineer” 20 years ago wherein he concluded “I don’t know, if I have to learn new names for most of the programs I use (Word, Photoshop, maybe two others) I don’t think I want to use that other OS.” I had to support his position, if you can’t retrain to click on “Libre Office Writer” instead of “Office Word”, then a move to Linux isn’t for you.
Except most people just click a link on their desktop that goes to a thing they have a completely different name for anyways. If you don’t tell them anything (or just say it’s a new version of Windows) they likely won’t notice the actual differences, just complain about missing a specific icon for something without being able to correctly name what it is
Yet they are fine with using Windows 11, which looks completely different to Windows 7 or XP. They complained in the beginning just as much but then they were fine with it. People get used to change, they just hate it in the beginning.
I admire the plan, but I doubt the public sector is going to completely acclimate to Linux. The average age of an employee in the public sector is something like 40+.
You might get lucky and get them to use one new program like LibreOffice, but there’s no way you’re going to completely revamp every desktop PC to Linux. I work in this field, and while everyone has been nice and friendly, they (and the entire system around them) are also hugely resistant to digital change. If they ever make the move to a Linux Desktop environment, the IT support will go through hell.
There used to be skins for KDE that made it look and feel 1:1 like Windows XP, I don’t know if these things still exist. If yes, there you have it: Just make the system behave like Windows and they won’t notice a difference. They only have to use Office, Mail and print files anyways. Most other tools they use are browser-based and will feel the same way
The names have changed. I literally had that conversation with “an engineer” 20 years ago wherein he concluded “I don’t know, if I have to learn new names for most of the programs I use (Word, Photoshop, maybe two others) I don’t think I want to use that other OS.” I had to support his position, if you can’t retrain to click on “Libre Office Writer” instead of “Office Word”, then a move to Linux isn’t for you.
Except most people just click a link on their desktop that goes to a thing they have a completely different name for anyways. If you don’t tell them anything (or just say it’s a new version of Windows) they likely won’t notice the actual differences, just complain about missing a specific icon for something without being able to correctly name what it is
Icons look different, etc. People are ridiculously inflexible.
Yet they are fine with using Windows 11, which looks completely different to Windows 7 or XP. They complained in the beginning just as much but then they were fine with it. People get used to change, they just hate it in the beginning.