Schleswig-Holstein, the northern German federal state, will be a digital pioneer region and the first German state to introduce a digitally sovereign IT workplace in its state administration. With a cabinet decision to introduce the open-source software LibreOffice as the standard office solution across the board, the government has given the go-ahead for the first step towards complete digital sovereignty in the state, with further steps to follow.
The some 30,000 public employees will replace Microsoft Office with LibreOffice, Windows with a yet-to-be-determined Linux desktop distro, and use Nextcloud, Open Xchange/Thunderbird, and the Univention Active Directory (AD) connector to replace Sharepoint and Exchange/Outlook. The state also intends to replace Telekom-Flexport by an Open Source solution.
“The use of open source software also benefits from improved IT security, cost-effectiveness, data protection, and seamless collaboration between different systems,” says Dirk Schrödter, digitalization minister for the German state of Schleswig-Holstein.
“We have no influence on the operating processes of [proprietary] solutions and the handling of data, including a possible outflow of data to third countries,” he adds.
“We have a great responsibility towards our citizens and companies to ensure that their data is kept safe with us, and we must ensure that we are always in control of the IT solutions we use and that we can act independently as a state.”
As The Document Foundation, the organization backing LibreOffice, put it, “The term digital sovereignty is very important here. If a public administration uses proprietary, closed software that can’t be studied or modified, it is very difficult to know what happens to users’ data.”
“Good thing there are other app vendors.”
And you’ll get the same story.
Depending on the field, perhaps, at least at first. But the more organizations that switch, the more demand there is for support, which is how we eventually get it.
In the meantime, there is usually another way to get things done. Props to this German state for stepping up. Digital sovereignty is important.
I mean, there’s not many bigger customers than a whole state. If one vendor does not provide, some other will.
That’s just it, they mostly don’t exist. The apps you choose to run determines your infrastructure.