[hanshenning]

You're not wrong, but this is actually what they're pursuing; the article just leaves it out.

> The goal is not only to save costs, but above all to gain digital sovereignty.

> [It's true] that open source is not necessarily cheaper, [..] it requires investment. But the money flows into internal infrastructure, into the further development of Nextcloud, LibreOffice, and other similar systems, instead of proprietary ones.

> Schleswig-Holstein pursues an "upstream-only strategy," meaning that developments flow directly back into international projects. The state does not want to maintain its own forks, but rather contribute all improvements directly to the main projects, thereby contributing to development for the benefit of the general public.[1]

On a side note, the real key to the project's success is that it's supported by a coalition of the conservative and green parties. They actually value digital sovereignty and longterm cost savings. Contrast that with Bavaria, where the MS lobbyist managed to get them to sign a longterm Office 365 contract…

[1]https://www-heise-de.translate.goog/hintergrund/Interview-Wi...

[k1musab1]

Thank you for providing this valuable context. I am hoping to advocate for OSS transition in my workplace and these examples go a long way to help make my case.

[kuerbel]

I am thinking about opening my own shop, distinguished by digitally sovereign offerings, for instance, Stormshield over Cisco, Proxmox over VMware, Matrix/Element over Microsoft Teams, Nextcloud over SharePoint...

I've been doing m365 and azure for more than three years by now and I just feel terrible. Especially regarding some of our customers, which are small gGmbH (kind of NGO). Instead of making a secure, privacy focused offering we just sell them the usual m365 package. We basically push them into the data industrial complex just to get some collab tools and mail.

[cookiengineer]

Check out "Europe as a Software Colony" [1], it's an excellent documentary including about the Munich case specifically.

Then watch the Scale 22x talk of the former Mexican CTO, because those stories are so close to industrial espionage it's absurd what kind of influence Microsoft has over diplomats and ambassadors. [2]

[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=duaYLW7LQvg

[2] https://youtube.com/watch?v=kLSHtx3Wi_M

[Terr_]

I wonder if there is some particular MBA/managerial jargon (in the sense it grabs their attention) to use when talking about this stuff.

Power differences, contractual leverage, vendor lock-in, motivation versus costs to make changes, etc.

[luc_]

++ When an EU outlet says, "Given the annual savings, this sum will pay for itself in less than a year. In the past, the state transferred millions to the US company Microsoft, primarily for the use of office software and other programs."

You know they want sovereignty.

WRT the criticism on this move by "the opposition" saying, ""It may be that on paper 80 percent of workplaces have been converted. But far fewer than 80 percent of employees can now work with them properly.""

I think this natural pressure will also be helpful for re-tooling IT infra and support companies to being more sovereign.