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Danish government agency to ditch Microsoft software (2025)

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Re: Danish government agency to ditch Microsoft software (2025)

#121

Post by kakacik »

Izmaki wrote: post #92
bradley13 wrote: post #80

That's great, but it's always just one agency, or one very local bit of government. If we (Europeans) really mean it - and we should - the top level of government just needs to make the declaration: as of X, all Microsoft licenses will be terminated. No exceptions. Adapt or die. According to the CLOUD act, the US government can demand access to data from US companies, regardless of where that data is stored. That mus…

The “that’s nice but Denmark is small” comment is getting tiresome. Whether the country had 6 million or 60 million the bureaucracy is the same. It’s not about the size or the economics, it’s about the message. It won’t be long until the rest of the public sectors follow along. There has already been plenty of consideration and desire to follow through. What’s holding them back typically is not the desire to stay wit…

But those investments will only get bigger over time and vendor lock-in will get more complex. I get that there is no unlimited budget to this but proper will to migrate for good would look very differently.

For example detailed plan for next 5-10 years how gradually everything moves. Now it feels like 1 step ahead 3 steps back, nice pat on the back for doing something, while overall transition will take 2 centuries unless magic happens. Not enough, not at this point when all cards are on the table.

Re: Danish government agency to ditch Microsoft software (2025)

#122

Post by hermanzegerman »

lukan wrote: post #120
lpcvoid wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's Nextcloud/OCIS/Owncloud for Sharepoint (god I fucking hate Sharepoint) and Onedrive, there's Libreoffice/Collabora (and Onlyoffice, but that's russian...), there's Thunderbird for Email. Windows is absolutely replaceable also, of course, maybe even easier than the Office365 subscription mentioned above. The lock in only exists in brains of (old) people that can't adapt. MS products can all be replaced, and sh…

Have you worked in government services and know what their needs are? I did not, but as far as I know, they require a bit more more than some office solution, shared drive and some email client. (How do you imagine how it works internally if you apply for a new passport, they just send some office documents via email around?)

In what way do they need Microsoft Software or Technology except maybe Windows for their Passport Application?

That's special software developed for one customer only anyways. So it's perfectly possible to target another Platform or do this as some kind of WebApp.

And until then run some Windows Desktops for those special applications/services

Re: Danish government agency to ditch Microsoft software (2025)

#123

Post by heikkilevanto »

Tarq0n wrote: post #99
bradley13 wrote: post #80

That's great, but it's always just one agency, or one very local bit of government. If we (Europeans) really mean it - and we should - the top level of government just needs to make the declaration: as of X, all Microsoft licenses will be terminated. No exceptions. Adapt or die. According to the CLOUD act, the US government can demand access to data from US companies, regardless of where that data is stored. That mus…

Not everything is a state secret. There's no need to immediately migrate every trivial email and permit request, but having a parallel infrastructure for the stuff that needs it should be a no-brainer.

> Not everything is a state secret.

No, but almost everything is a potential DDOS. And slight modifications to emails, documents, and calendars can cause a lot of havoc that may be hard to detect.

Re: Danish government agency to ditch Microsoft software (2025)

#124

Post by m000 »

Gigachad wrote: post #88
lukan wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I genuinely do not understand why other countries put up with this." Maybe because there is no drop in replacement of microsoft and microsoft dependant tools? So yes, one can (and should) build them. But the market right now is not offering this yet.

Google has drop in replacements for most of it. But that doesn’t solve the problem of using US tech.

France have already developed their own (recently posted here) [1][2].

Also, the "there's no drop in replacement" line is just making up excuses for not acting. Yes, you will not get 100% of the Office 365 features out of the box. There will be some friction.

It's simply ridiculous seeing EU bureaucracy preparing e.g. to ban russian oil [3], making life more expensive for all people, and balking on being forced to switch their stupid word processor.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46923736

[2] https://github.com/suitenumerique

[3] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/eu-propose-permanent...

Re: Danish government agency to ditch Microsoft software (2025)

#125

Post by hermanzegerman »

Tarq0n wrote: post #99
bradley13 wrote: post #80

That's great, but it's always just one agency, or one very local bit of government. If we (Europeans) really mean it - and we should - the top level of government just needs to make the declaration: as of X, all Microsoft licenses will be terminated. No exceptions. Adapt or die. According to the CLOUD act, the US government can demand access to data from US companies, regardless of where that data is stored. That mus…

Not everything is a state secret. There's no need to immediately migrate every trivial email and permit request, but having a parallel infrastructure for the stuff that needs it should be a no-brainer.

It's not about state secrets, it's about being able to provide services when the US is turning Hostile.

Hospitals or Police aren't guarding state secrets too, but if they would loose access to their IT Infrastructure because Donald had some strange brainfart this morning like the Judge of the International Court of Justice it would impact the State critically

Re: Danish government agency to ditch Microsoft software (2025)

#126

Post by Forgeties79 »

m000 wrote: post #124
Gigachad wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has drop in replacements for most of it. But that doesn’t solve the problem of using US tech.

France have already developed their own (recently posted here) [1][2]. Also, the "there's no drop in replacement" line is just making up excuses for not acting. Yes, you will not get 100% of the Office 365 features out of the box. There will be some friction. It's simply ridiculous seeing EU bureaucracy preparing e.g. to ban russian oil [3], making life more expensive for all people, and balking on being forced to sw…

What France is doing is great but, as you’ll see discussed in that HN comment section, it is hardly an office suite. It’s not a full replacement by a long shot. I hope it will be one day though!

Re: Danish government agency to ditch Microsoft software (2025)

#127

Post by Hard_Space »

teekert wrote: post #81

I do like this news, but I wonder why they choose LibreOffice. It's the most widely known MS alternative, but things like OnlyOffice [0] and Nextcloud Office [1] (which is based on Collabora Online [2], which in turn is based on LibreOffice) offer much more compelling collaborative features, imho. Just plain office (like it's 1997) is quite a step back, no? Especially OnlyOffice looks extremely similar to MS Office,…

I checked it, but at $149 per year for the home server (and don't forget to click in the 'information' button on the 'Lifetime' License Duration option), there seems to be a bit of a premium on that MS styling, considering the functionality in competing F/OSS suites.

Re: Danish government agency to ditch Microsoft software (2025)

#128

Post by pjmlp »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #71
pjmlp wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big problem, and I say this as someone that appreciates some of the Microsoft technologies, is that it is always first and foremost about Office, and nothing else. Forgotten are Windows, XBox, DirectX, VC++, C#, F#, TypeScript, Github, VSCode, Azure, Teams, SQL Server, SharePoint, Dynamics,.... Ah but some of those are FOSS, they are, pity that most money and project steering only flows from one place. Repeat the…

> Forgotten are Windows, XBox, DirectX, VC++, C#, F#, TypeScript, Github, VSCode, Azure, Teams, SQL Server, SharePoint, Dynamics,.... Ah but some of those are FOSS Which of those are FOSS?

C#, F#, TypeScript, VSCode, under the business friendly OSI approved licenses, MIT and Apache.

Re: Danish government agency to ditch Microsoft software (2025)

#129

Post by ulrikrasmussen »

isodev wrote: post #40
ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #18

And meanwhile the exact same agency spits out government Android apps that use Play Integrity so citizens cannot ditch Google for GrapheneOS. This is symbolism, the minister does not actually care about digital sovereignty for the citizens.

I think it has more to do with ignorance. Device attestation is not trivial to adopt while both Apple and Google promise you a very simple abstraction. So it takes being informed and having leverage in the process to be able to make a difference. For me the blame is squarely on the technical “experts” who are behind the architecture and implementation of such apps.

The thing is, device attestation is fundamentally incompatible with digital freedom so governments should never adopt it to begin with. We lived without digital solutions that depended on device attestation and we will continue to do so.

Re: Danish government agency to ditch Microsoft software (2025)

#130

Post by hermanzegerman »

piokoch wrote: post #118
bradley13 wrote: post #80

That's great, but it's always just one agency, or one very local bit of government. If we (Europeans) really mean it - and we should - the top level of government just needs to make the declaration: as of X, all Microsoft licenses will be terminated. No exceptions. Adapt or die. According to the CLOUD act, the US government can demand access to data from US companies, regardless of where that data is stored. That mus…

"all Microsoft licenses will be terminated" Ok, and what will be the alternative? I am not talking about the easy part, like documents creation, although I don't see walking away from Excel as LibreOffice alternative is a bit of disappointment. But what about the whole security/networking/permissions area? What is the viable alternative that can scale? Remember Covid times? In Poland all schools got access to Office…

In my part of Germany we used BigBlueButton after a short time when Zoom was used. E-Mail and a LDAP account was also always available for students. It's not exactly Rocket Science.

There are also ready made solutions available for purchase

https://www.univention.com/industries/educational-sector/

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