Back in November 2021, the German state of Schleswig-Holstein announced that it was planning to move away from closed-source Microsoft products like Office and Windows to LibreOffice. About two and a half years later, we received an update on the matter, as state officials confirmed that plans for the migration were still intact. As such, about 30,000 government sector computers would be switching by 2027 or so.
Following Germany, Denmark seems to be looking to make such a move. This move should resonate pretty loudly now, given that Linux developers, including The Document Foundation, are pushing to encourage users to pick GNU instead of upgrading to Windows 11 from Windows 10.
Caroline Stage Olsen, the current Minister for Digital Affairs of Denmark, told the Danish media outlet Politiken that there are plans to phase out Microsoft products in her own ministry next month, and more precisely, moving away from Office 365 to LibreOffice.
When discussing the potential challenges of implementing such deployments, Olsen shared a clear backup plan that her ministry has: if the new system proves too challenging at first, they will temporarily revert to the previous setup while they explore other solutions, and overall she is pretty firm on her decision as she stated, "We won't get any closer to our goal if we don't start." The report adds that, thus far, the response from her team has been positive.
The minister also added that this initiative isn’t solely about Microsoft. Instead, it’s a step toward reducing an over-reliance on just a handful of providers.
The report mentions that the decision could be related to recent events surrounding the International Criminal Court (ICC). For context, the ICC's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, lost access to his Microsoft Account following Trump's sanctions (via Associated Press). There is also the issue of Trump's keen interest in Greenland, which happens to be a semi-autonomous region of Denmark.
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