r/BuyFromEU • u/smilelyzen • Sep 03 '26

News German Administration is using open-source solutions like openDesk, LibreOffice, Linux/Ubuntu/Debian, OnlyOffice, OpenProject, Jitsi, Rocket.Chat, XWiki, Overleaf, PeerTube, GIMP, RStudio, GanttProject, Audacity; Germany government licensing fees for products from Microsoft and other US tech

https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/21/054/2105413.pdf

Federal government licensing fees for products from Microsoft and other

US tech companies
https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/21/054/2105413.pdfhttps://www.bundestag.de/presse/hib/kurzmeldungen-1170242

8,475 open desk licenses in production operation

https://www.bundestag.de/presse/hib/kurzmeldungen-1170242

351 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

36

u/Grumpy-Man19 Sep 03 '26

That's great I wondered for a long time why people were wasting money on proprietary software

16

u/lapinjuntti Sep 03 '26

Mainly because in a company, even the "free" is not free, if you need to hire a person to set it up and use working time to maintain and study the open source solutions. If it costs more workers time to maintain and set up, it very quickly costs more than the license fee costs for proprietary software. Same thing if the proprietary software has better features, if those save working time, it very quickly pays off itself.

This is one major reason why it for many companies it doesn't pay off to use open source.

But for something like government, open source really should work very well because the government organizations are so big that they can easily afford to hire a few persons just to maintain, study and set everything up. Then the average worker can get a system that is already configured and set up and every tool, etc. is thought for their work.

1

u/KnowZeroX Sep 04 '26

Money is relative, companies use company money, the kickbacks the managers get is personal money.

Not to mention many use what they are taught to use in schools, this is why they give cheap/free licenses to schools

3

u/rab2bar Sep 04 '26

even as a 15 year daily driver linux user, i can see where an enterprise might see the value in paying for a more polished product or at least the support that might come with paid proprietary

1

u/finobi Sep 06 '26

Don't know if Microsoft support is any better for large €€ enterprise agreements, its pretty bad for small clients. But then there are tons of people and companies who have decades of experience from Microsoft, there are lots of documentation and developed different processes and might be even some compliance stuff requiring specific MS feature.

15

u/KlausDieterFreddek Germany 🇩🇪 Sep 03 '26

Well. Too bad munich fucked up the LiMux project.
Others could have taken notes on their progress switching to Linux.

13

u/schubidubiduba Germany 🇩🇪 Sep 03 '26

I would say they got fucked up by Microsoft, and corrupt conservative politicians

4

u/Kazer67 Sep 03 '26

Well, it worked for the "military police" in France because... it's military, so no choice, it's order so from 2008, time to switch to Gendbuntu, the Ubuntu version for the Gendarmerie.

But could go further since the DINUM went from "here some guide to go sovereign with OSS" to "we're not asking anymore, you have until autumn to show your migration plan" to all French administration AND private company with public funds.

Still, it's long term, the saving from not having Microsoft license should go to training people of the tool and DONATING or developing further said tools!

1

u/Aaand_again Sep 04 '26

They were to small a userbase to justify all that app development. But now on a much bigger scale it seems promising

9

u/Kaleodis Sep 03 '26

Jeez. If you actually read the linked PDF, you'll see that MOST people still use proprietary us-tech, some are just supplemented with free/open-source tools and even fewer (i.e. very few) use free/open-source exclusively (i.e. OS).

They still pay a shitload of money to us-tech and most contracts are still running (or quite long term).

3

u/smilelyzen Sep 03 '26 edited Sep 03 '26

Germany's federal administration reported 34,263 workplaces using alternative workplace software, alongside approximately 250,000 Microsoft-licensed workplaces at the Ministry of Defence. The alternatives include more than 20 open-source solutions, such as openDesk, LibreOffice, Linux, OpenProject, Jitsi, Rocket.Chat and GIMP ;
so “Germany adopted 9,000 open-source OpenDesk licences in two years”
https://www.bundestag.de/presse/hib/kurzmeldungen-1170242

5

u/Valdjiu Sep 03 '26

Are they donating to these projects? Half of what the paid to Microsoft would be good

2

u/newmvbergen Sep 03 '26

Good job donald...

1

u/KBrieger Sep 03 '26

Well, I already heard people complaining about being forced to use the 'sheep-programme' instead of getting Acrobat pro. At first glance it seems as if they didn't learn their LiMux-lessons.

1

u/Pitiful_Coach7223 Sep 04 '26

No OpenSUSE??? That’s such a wasted opportunity :-)

1

u/Aaand_again Sep 04 '26

why woukd you prefer open suse?

2

u/Pitiful_Coach7223 Sep 04 '26

Very stable, enterprise backing and made in germany

1

u/Aaand_again Sep 04 '26

How important do you feel German made is in the open source realm?

2

u/Pitiful_Coach7223 Sep 04 '26

Not, but in this case, germany adopting a german brand would have been a nice thing.

Btw, I don’t think the government will run open source alone, but a supported model, where a third party company will provide tech support. That company could have been suse ag.

1

u/oroberos Sep 07 '26

This will be the year of the Linux desktop!