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"Digital sovereignty": German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein ditches Microsoft for Linux and Open Source alternatives
(blog.documentfoundation.org)
this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2024
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Then the brutal reality hits: Your app vendor, "We don't support that."
What's an app vendor here? Or what does that mean in general? I feel like one of the reasons given on other (failed) attempts to switch to libre software has been that other public places / ministries etc still using MS had incompatibilities with e. g. Munich's FOSS stack. Though I think this is something you could overcome if you wanted to, it's not like these problems don't exist (and probably have solutions) elsewhere. I think FOSS software has come pretty far in the last years, I haven't booted my Windows partition in months, so I have a tiny bit of hope that they can make it work.
Libre office and Linux desktops are not line of business apps. They are platforms to run/supplement line of business apps. There are very few line of business apps that run HR, the finance department, EMR if you're in a hospital system, etc, etc, etc as open source or run on open source solutions. For decades Open Source advocates kept thinking it was the ability to run Office that shut down "The year of Linux desktops!!!" But that isn't it at all. It's those specialized apps that run the businesses that prevented it. I work in a hospital system, our line of business app is Epic or Cerner. Apps that digitize the health records. The requirements to run these apps is Windows Server, because that is what the front ends are built on. And these apps, especially the front ends, are heavy and complex. Any attempt to turn them into web apps has failed miserably because the performance just isn't there vs running say, the Epic/Cerner front end in a Citrix solution. Client-Server isn't dead, it just doesn't get sexy press anymore. Obviously if you work in web development, it is a very different story. But even in those shops, I'll bet the business support apps (HR, finance, etc) run heavily on Windows.
Lord knows I've tried to advocate for open source solutions where I can, but if the apps the business picks to suit their needs only runs in Windows? You're infrastructure has already been chosen for you. And THAT is what the average wannabe IT person on the internet doesn't understand in the slightest.
Most specialized software are web apps running in a browser hosted on the cloud these days. I'm sure they exist, but I couldn't name any HR, ERM, CRM, .. software that's not a web app.
The desktop OS is becoming irrelevant. That's why those who want a Mac or Linux notebook can make it work, at least from a purely technical point of view; i.e. if the company allows it. That's also, why there will never be a year of the Linux desktop. (I mention Macs here, because while OS X gets some commercial software that you won't get on Linux, it's not that much outside of some niches)
There will never be a year of the Linux desktop because you gain very little from replacing Edge on Windows with Firefox on Linux (a different software that does the same thing). However, you loose some specialised software and your IT supplier, your IT service provider, half of your IT staff and some of your non-IT employees' skills. This does not sound like a good business case.
Linux on the desktop never happened, because Linux on the server replaced desktop applications.
I understand your perspective but from a privacy* and cost perspective it would still be favourable for governments, companies and individuals if you run a Linux desktop instead of Windoge even if you only use it to run webapps, I think.
Plus govs / companies would have an incentive to make Linux desktop more secure / user-friendly if they'd use them instead of just giving MS money without having a say in the products.
*not even / only the "there is no malware on Linux" - which is untrue, see the recent xz thing - and would be worse if it got used more but esp from the ad-/spyware build into MS products.
Ah, ok. Thanks for the explanation. Yeah, I think that was one of the reasons given why it didn't work when other stated / towns tried switching to Linux ... I hope in the future governments might be wise enough to demand that the programs are platform independent / (local) web apps but I'm not holding my breath (see public money, public code which still almost noone does).
If talking about a closed source app, their whole goal is to move off of hosting closed source systems.
Article says the decision follows a successful pilot project, so they're willing to absorb the short term costs. Optimistically in the long run, the symbiotic benefits of having a government entity using and supporting a full FOSS system will be huge.
"Good thing there are other app vendors."
And you'll get the same story.
Depending on the field, perhaps, at least at first. But the more organizations that switch, the more demand there is for support, which is how we eventually get it.
In the meantime, there is usually another way to get things done. Props to this German state for stepping up. Digital sovereignty is important.