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A German state is ditching Windows and Microsoft Office for Linux and LibreOffice on the 30,000 PCs it uses for local government functions (www.theregister.com)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Schleswig-Holstein, Germany's most northern state, is starting its switch from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice, and is planning to move from Windows to Linux on the 30,000 PCs it uses for local government functions.

Concerns over data security are also front and center in the Minister-President's statement, especially data that may make its way to other countries. Back in 2021, when the transition plans were first being drawn up, the hardware requirements for Windows 11 were also mentioned as a reason to move away from Microsoft.

Saunders noted that "the reasons for switching to Linux and LibreOffice are different today. Back when LiMux started, it was mostly seen as a way to save money. Now the focus is far more on data protection, privacy and security. Consider that the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) recently found that the European Commission's use of Microsoft 365 breaches data protection law for EU institutions and bodies."

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[–] 0x0@programming.dev 9 points 7 months ago (3 children)

(Yes I know others were also trying to do exactly this, but only Jia Tan was successful)

The reason you know is because the target software is FOSS. Care to bet other similar schemes have been successfully pulled off with proprietary software?

[–] baseless_discourse@mander.xyz 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

There are so many surveillance built into proprietary software, countries like U.S. probably can just ask for any information from Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft.

On the other hand, countries like China and Russia would probably need to compromise these product like Jia Tan did. Except for Apple, because every apple service in China is maintained by a Chinese company with no encryption allowed.

[–] Blaster_M@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You only know this happened because one dev was benchmarking their system and noticed a 0.5s anomaly in resource usage, and was able to track it down to this. For every one of these that are caught, there are countless more that slip past.

[–] Cataphract@lemmy.ml 2 points 7 months ago

I actually look at it a completely different way. There are so many users optimizing and digging into the core of open source versus proprietary that with so many randoms actions there's less "vulnerable" dark spots available. If we think there's a limitless X amount of vulnerabilities (since we don't know the true ceiling limit), open source will always be "X (vulnerabilities) - 1" compared to proprietary. Completely a math metaphor but gets the point across, It's a path that lessens the impact which we should be striving for over profit/monopoly motives.