SAOSS

Category: Latest News

  • Dutch tax office ditches Microsoft 365 cloud for on-premises alternative

    Dutch tax office ditches Microsoft 365 cloud for on-premises alternative

    The Netherlands Tax and Customs Administration has abandoned its planned Microsoft 365 cloud migration in favour of services hosted on infrastructure it controls, alongside European open source alternatives. Email and calendars will move on-premises in 2027, followed by storage and collaboration services later that year and in 2028.

    On security, the board noted concerns about sending confidential documents, which currently travel over government networks, via American servers. The board also criticised reliance on standard Microsoft encryption for sensitive data rather than Double Key Encryption, which would give the administration greater control. End-to-end encryption was not enabled by default for one-to-one Teams calls and was unavailable for group calls under the chosen configuration.

    “Organisations have recognised the risks of digital dependencies and are looking for better options to have full control over their data, infrastructure, and underlying technology. The organisations now aim to build a more resilient IT stack.“

    See https://www.theregister.com/on-prem/2026/10/07/dutch-tax-office-ditches-microsoft-365-cloud-for-on-premises-alternative/5301603

  • The Netherlands joins Europe’s gradual migration from Windows to Linux on government PCs

    The Netherlands joins Europe’s gradual migration from Windows to Linux on government PCs

    As reported by Tweakers, the Dutch government has been giving Linux a test trial with select PCs. It’s part of what the government is calling the Digitaal Autonome Werkomgeving Overheid (DAWO), which, when translated via machine translation, comes out as the Digital Autonomous Government Work Environment.

    The goal of DAWO is to fully cut off the Netherlands’ dependence on non-EU software, including the OS, work software, cloud storage services, and management tools. Right now, however, it’s still early days, as Tweakers reports that the government is currently testing its own environment based on NixOS.

    See https://www.xda-developers.com/the-netherlands-joins-europes-gradual-migration-from-windows-to-linux-on-government-pcs

  • Switzerland’s Federal Government is Replacing Microsoft on 3,000 Computers

    Switzerland’s Federal Government is Replacing Microsoft on 3,000 Computers

    Switzerland’s federal government has launched a pilot program to replace Microsoft 365 with open source alternatives across 3,000 workstations. That’s about 7% of the federal workforce. The target is to complete the migration by end of 2027.

    According to Matthias Stürmer, professor at the Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH), Microsoft’s supremacy in public institutions poses three problems that are driving this migration.

    First is the risk of foreign access. US cloud legislation could expose Swiss government data to foreign authorities.

    Second is the risk to service continuity, as dependency on a single foreign vendor creates operational risk.

    The third risk is the escalating costs as proprietary licensing fees are rising with no Swiss leverage.

    See https://itsfoss.com/news/switzerland-replace-microssoft-pilot/

  • German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern heads down the open source sovereignty road

    German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern heads down the open source sovereignty road

    “So far, around 5,000 staff are using their new FOSS tools for chat, video conferencing, and groupware, but the plan is to roll it out to more than 50,000 public employees. It is also using OpenProject. For now, the plan is to keep Microsoft client OSes, changing the groupware tools first. This is not a Linux migration… yet.”

    Which is the best-practice way of implementing such a migration. Start with the applications, and test out cross-platform alternatives on your existing OS. Once those are bedded down and are working, it is much easier to switch the OS out on user machines.

    The admin side of the organisation has to test out updates, backups, networking, etc for the OS migration later on.

    I was part of such an exercise back in 2007 or so, I as an early adopter in a government agency, I was running full Linux, with LibreOffice back then, and Zimbra email. It was fully possible as I know I did it for many months and that included remote VPN access into the network, and daily document interchange with other staff.

    It just comes down to the will power of the CTO or CIO. Digital sovereignty adds a bit of impetus and will power to that equation.

    Having myself just transitioned off some cloud subscription services to alternatives, ye sit took a bit of effort and paradigm change, but all my processes are still working, and I’ve saved a mint of money. Our problem is, like being with a bank or insurance company, we are afraid of change. Believe me, it is often very worth it!

    See https://www.theregister.com/software/2026/07/08/another-german-state-heads-down-the-open-source-sovereignty-road/5268192

  • France’s government is ditching Windows for Linux, calling US tech dependence a strategic risk

    France’s government is ditching Windows for Linux, calling US tech dependence a strategic risk

    As open-source tools begin to catch up with their proprietary cousins, people are realizing they’re handing over far more control to businesses than they probably need to. After all, when two apps essentially do the same thing, but one is open-source, and the other can cut you off from its service on a moment’s notice, it’s hard to justify using the latter.

    Now, the French government has decided that enough is enough. It has announced that it will shift away from proprietary technologies from outside the European Union and focus more on open-source solutions — and part of that means ditching Windows for Linux.

    See https://www.xda-developers.com/frances-government-ditching-windows-for-linux/

  • Big Win for Open Source as Germany Backs Open Document Format

    Big Win for Open Source as Germany Backs Open Document Format

    “Germany has strictly standardised its digital document requirements. The Deutschland-Stack (in Deutsch), the country’s new sovereign digital infrastructure framework, names just two document formats that public administrations are allowed to use: ODF and PDF/UA.”

    When public administrations run on proprietary document formats, they end up dependent on the vendor that controls those formats, with no real way out without significant disruption and cost.

    This would help Germany ensure they could switch between various open standard office suites without losing access to their documents in future. This gives freedom of choice and more competition in the market.

    See https://itsfoss.com/news/germany-digital-stack-mandate

  • French government announces move from US based video conferencing to open source Visio

    French government announces move from US based video conferencing to open source Visio

    Visio is based on the open source project La Suite Meet powered by LiveKit. It seems that the government will be opting to use the French hosted version, instead of hosting it in-house themselves.

    It is time though that countries started taking their digital sovereignty more seriously and evaluated their over reliance on foreign country cloud services. Generally moving to someone else’s cloud service, means not only your data is locked in there, but there is a tendency for the users to lose their own in-house IT skills, and for funds to just move offshore.

    See https://github.com/suitenumerique/meet

  • Brussels plots open source push to pry Europe off Big Tech

    Brussels plots open source push to pry Europe off Big Tech

    The European Commission has launched a fresh consultation into open source, setting out its ambitions for Europe’s developer communities to go beyond propping up US tech giants’ platforms.

    In a “Call for Evidence” published this week, Brussels says the EU’s reliance on non-European technology suppliers (read: US tech giants) has become a strategic liability, limiting choice, weakening competitiveness, and creating supply chain risks across everything from cloud services to critical infrastructure. The consultation, which will run from January 6 to February 3, is an early move toward a formal strategy on “European Open Digital Ecosystems,” which would treat open source as core infrastructure rather than a nice-to-have.

    See https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/11/eu_open_source_consultation/

  • Denmark Begins its Exit from Microsoft — and This is Just the Beginning

    The Færdselsstyrelsen (Danish Road Traffic Authority) is becoming the first agency to pilot SIA Open, a government-wide project by Statens IT (Danish Governmental IT Agency) designed to replace Microsoft services with open source alternatives.

    With this, they are not stopping at just Office apps. Færdselsstyrelsen will be replacing both the Windows operating system and Microsoft’s suite of applications (Word, Excel, Teams, and Outlook) with open source alternatives.

    Though information on the exact alternatives they will be switching to hasn’t been made public yet. The agency has 600 employees across 11 teams and is headquartered in Ribe, but only some of those employees will be taken through the transition.

    See https://itsfoss.com/news/denmark-road-traffic-authority-ditches-microsoft/

  • Hurray! This German State Decides to Save €15 Million Each Year By Kicking Out Microsoft for Open Source

    According to Schrödter’s ministry, Schleswig-Holstein will save over €15 million in license costs in 2026. This is money the state previously paid Microsoft for Office 365 and related services.

    See https://itsfoss.com/news/german-state-ditch-microsoft/