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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)

#141

Post by staticlibs »

Mashimo wrote: post #15

I work in software development for Danish hospitals, and some regions already used OpenOffice, now libre office, for .. well over 15 years. At least in parts. We integrate with an API into libreoffice, and it more or less did not change in well over a decade. But sometimes libreoffice crashes and you can't figure out why. There are just no logs. It feels like a black box at times. But I don't think they will be switc…

> sometimes libreoffice crashes and you can't figure out why > why libreoffice stopped publishing artefacts to mvn repo

I think both questions would be a perfect fit for the paid support bugtracker of LibreOffice maintainers. Hopefully paid by some hospital funds that are not spent on MS Office licenses.

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

#142

Post by mgoetzke »

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…

Considering that I doubt most normal office-user people even use features in Word other than changing fonts etc I doubt that will be a big issue anyway.

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

#143

Post by erk__ »

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…

It is actually at least two agencies that is working in that direction, The Danish Road Authorities is also working on it: https://www.fstyr.dk/nyheder/2025/dec/faerdselsstyrelsen-tag...

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

#144

Post by mmsimanga »

Drakim wrote: post #111
mmsimanga wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am often amused at how people outside the US don't like the current US government yet if it wasn't for the current US government the whole world would have been sleep walking into Office 365 and Teams. I don't hold any political opinion but do like that we are now going to have alternatives and true competition.

I'm not sure I follow, are you saying that because the current US government is so bad that people are rejecting Microsoft products, the rest of the world should be thankful to the US for "waking them up"?

Yes. The key point of view being from someone outside the US. I cannot speak for those in the US. But the point is techies outside the US had been reduced to merely configuring US products. Speaking where I am from IT organisations were now being led by accountants and lawyers because there wasn't any decision to make, just go with Office 365. The hardest part was negotiating the often opaque licensing. There has been a revitalization of the craft of software development and I think in the long run this will be good for the industry. Yes there might be fragmentation but hopefully standards start getting adopted to counter this fragmentation and interoperability.

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

#145

Post by troad »

I'm very happy for all the Europeans getting to use software they like and prefer, but honestly I'm a little tired of reading about it. There's been an awful lot of recent blogging and news about de-Americanising one's stack.

It seems very important to the Europeans that they let everyone else know they're leaving? It's got the air of a thirty-five year old threatening to move out of his parents' basement any day now. Go already! Stop telling us about it. We all wish you the best. Good luck!

(Don't expect to get much say over how foreign tech platforms operate going forward, if you get the balkanised Internet you seem to yearn for?)

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

#146

Post by chromehearts »

lpcvoid wrote: post #132
lukan wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?)

I have worked in (German) Government, and apart from complacency (and maybe corruption, see Limux) there's nothing stopping the German government (at least at federal level) from adopting open source. If processes depend on some crappy excel table (created by somebody 20 years ago) or even worse, sharepoint app (commissioned by people who shouldn't be deciding things like this), the processes suck and need to be rebu…

I agree, apart from legal entities because iirc they use some software that's available on windows only

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

#147

Post by teekert »

eXpl0it3r wrote: post #103
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,…

OnlyOffice, Nextcloud OPffice, Collabora might all have free offerings to a degree, but you'll end up at the mercy of the companies behind those tools and OnlyOffice comes with Enterprise offering that does also cost money. Costing money isn't necessarily bad, but it's also hard to beat free & libre.

True.

But I have to say that I got quite used to collaborative editing, not something I'd like to give up.

People can get used to buttons moving to other places (imo), but collecting and integrating edits from multiple people via email is not something I look back at fondly.

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

#148

Post by xylifyx »

mijoharas wrote: post #137
lnsru wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re absolutely right. The benefit of being US independent has no value in the eyes of the large part of European population. The politician fighting for it is fighting uphill battle against mega corporation with endless lobbying budget and simultaneously digging a grave for the political career.

> The benefit of being US independent has no value in the eyes of the large part of European population I think this may have changed a bit within the last year or so...

Definitely, at least in Denmark.

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

#149

Post by slow_typist »

nunobrito wrote: post #100
quietbritishjim wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The “that’s nice but Denmark is small” comment is getting tiresome. The parent comment didn't complain that Denmark or its overall government is small. They complained that this agency represents a small fraction of their government.

Yes. Typically is some town hall shifting to Linux and making a big fuss when literally million others are still running Windows. Seeing an agency doing it is good, but still less than the French ditching Teams and Zoom altogether as country-wide policy.

But still, this is Denmark’s tech modernization agency. They follow an eat-your-own-dogfood stance.

Transforming the public administration is the logical next step. Something different happening here, not the town hall big fuss approach.

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

#150

Post by xylifyx »

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…

99% of users, could just as well use another form of spreadsheet. Only complex macros or custom integration does. Perhaps very large spreadsheets, I don't know.
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