The petitioner calls for the European Union to actively develop and implement a Linux-based operating system, termed ‘EU-Linux’, across public administrations in all EU Member States. This initiative aims to reduce dependency on Microsoft products, ensuring compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and promoting transparency, sustainability, and digital sovereignty within the EU. The petitioner emphasizes the importance of using open-source alternatives to Microsoft 365, such as LibreOffice and Nextcloud, and suggests the adoption of the E/OS mobile operating system for government devices. The petitioner also highlights the potential for job creation in the IT sector through this initiative.
There is a thread on this already: https://feddit.org/post/4415864
Strange I didn’t see it. I did look, but clearly not enough.
The best part of this is that the usability improvements made to linux by governments for their own use would also be reaped by the public if they chose to use it — since open spurce software is in effect a public good.
Yes, please!
They’re going to be leery of that because of Munich. Yes, it was ages ago, but it cost the state so much money, they’re going to be very cautious about any such endeavors.
Yeah, it’s not easy. But is there another option?
The German state of Schleswig-Holstein is doing the same. Here is also a good podcast by Nextcloud (one of the state’s partners) if interested.
Open source and Nextcloud in government: Insights from Sven Thomsen, Schleswig-Holstein’s CIO – (podcast, 55 min)
They also discuss Munich in the podcast.
It is certainly a long way, Schleswig-Holstein says it’s a “10-year journey into open source”, but there is no alternative imho.
