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Switzerland mandates government agencies use open-source software

tomshardware.com

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Re: Switzerland mandates government agencies use open-source software

#31

Post by hulitu »

fetzu wrote: post #19

Really curious to see what turns up. A lot of stuff like geo-data and tools [1], as well as meteorological tools and models [2] were already partly public. Having worked for the federal administration and using their IT at least a few weeks yearly, the rest is mostly Microsoft and SAP software, or classified software that they can’t and won’t release. In Switzerland, a lot of public services are located at the « Cant…

> Really curious to see what turns up

Bill Gates and Nadella talking to the head of Swiss government and making him an "offer" ? /s

Re: Switzerland mandates government agencies use open-source software

#32

Post by hulitu »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #28

Good. I would like to see an industry wide movement away from proprietary formats as well, especially Office or Adobe related formats.

As long as companies can recover from Crowdsrike like failures and as long as the greed is big, it won't happen.

Re: Switzerland mandates government agencies use open-source software

#35

Post by rbanffy »

panick21_ wrote: post #27
AmericanChopper wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's either getting a positive RoI or not, if you just want to give Swiss people some tax revenue back, why not just give them a tax cut? Losing productivity is money that's just being thrown away, even if you ignore all the additional operating costs, I don't think you'd have to lose much productivity to make up the difference. I'm not sure what the average pay of Swiss civil servants is, but I can't imagine on…

First, I am a Swiss developer so that's my perspective. Because long term if we invest in domestic ability to support, debug and improve software is a benefit. Getting actual control over the software deployed, rather then just what Microsoft want's you to get. Switzerland is behind in Digitization, and having an increase amount of open software to interact and build with makes a hell of a lot of sense. A you do digi…

> I frankly don't care if short term it costs a bit more,

Indeed. It's an investment in developing local capabilities.

Re: Switzerland mandates government agencies use open-source software

#36

Post by rbanffy »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #14
rbanffy wrote: post #8

It’s only responsible to use tax money in ways the resources used revert to its internal markets as much as possible. What good is Swiss tax money that creates jobs in Redmond?

I think this is probably not seeing the forest for the trees. If using LibreOffice and NextCloud (or whatever) ends up costing more than ~€40/headcount/month in admin, hosting and productivity, then the Swiss citizens are losing out on this decision.

How much do Swiss citizens pay for LibreOffice support? My guess is they pay less than they'd pay for an Office subscription.

Re: Switzerland mandates government agencies use open-source software

#37

Post by medstrom »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #23
medstrom wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it'd be Swiss IT guys getting paid, right? That money goes back into Switzerland.

Well it's either getting a positive RoI or not, if you just want to give Swiss people some tax revenue back, why not just give them a tax cut? Losing productivity is money that's just being thrown away, even if you ignore all the additional operating costs, I don't think you'd have to lose much productivity to make up the difference. I'm not sure what the average pay of Swiss civil servants is, but I can't imagine on…

> if you just want to give Swiss people some tax revenue back

But they don't just want to do that. I'm not an economist, but I don't think RoI ("return on investment") means the same thing for a government that it does for a corporation. Any money "thrown away" comes back in some way, which creates many opportunities to kill two birds with one stone.

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