Germany adopting Linux is some kind of meme already because these news are popping up for a decade already and it doesn’t look like the process is… well… progressing.
Things are kinda progressing tbh. For example the EU is adopting Matrix for official communications and large parts of the public sector in germany (like health, military, etc) are doing the same. The thing that prevented previous attempts at pushing FOSS was that they tried to get people to use Linux instead of trying to get them to use open source programs first. This is essential, because once they are used to using those web based or cross platform alternatives, switching to linux will become a non hurdle for most basic office workers.
Because reports say “Germany” when they talk about some town in the middle of a rape seed field nobody’s heard of adopting Linux. Everyone’s heard of Limux, the distro for Munich, that was killed by the Christian conservatives for sweet sweet Microsoft money.
I can understand your scepticism, Germany is not the country of innovation and progress these days. However, let’s not spread fake news about “Germany wanting Linux for a decade”. It simply isn’t true. There hasn’t been an official statement like this from the federal digital minister… ever. At least not that I can find. That this comes from a Christian democrat is even more astounding.
Whether it will result in anything (he just wants to “raise awareness”) and be tabled as soon as this invitation to be lobbied by GAFAM is taken up, who knows. The Christian democrats have promised 100% fiber internet for a decade too and any trip through Germany has always been a lesson in patient with the internet. Hell, rice fields in fucking Vietnam and the middle of the goddamn jungle in South America have had better internet that in the middle of large German cities.
At least, if it’s said by the digital minister of Germany, there’s a possibility other European countries will listen and actually do more than Germany promised.
There is the whole thing with Schleswig-Holstein at least. I’m not sure about how far around that is but they are planning to move to an open source stack. I’m also not sure how much money Microsoft will try to throw their way; I doubt they’ll offer to move their German HQ to Kiel.
If they moved it to Kiel, I don’t know what would happen to Munich and their Microsoft policy. One can only hope the federal politicians aren’t as corrupt as the ones in Munich, but they are just people too.
Nearly every government in Europe is beholden to Microsoft. There was a news article recently about how only one single municipality in the Netherlands hosted their own services on their own hardware. If Germany, the probably least digitally progressive country in the EU, suddenly decides to do more than just talk about opensource and actually use it across all government agencies, it would be a huge signal.
Only time will tell. Trump better keep beating his great big drum to keep the pro-opensource voices strong. Without it, it would be back to business in no time.
It simply isn’t true
Original news is dead already, so here is the article about Munich moving to Free Software. The article is from 05.07.2011. It took me 20 seconds to find it. I’m sure that by spending a few minutes I would be able to find much older articles on the theme.
You did not read my comment did you? Please read it again…
Openwashing?
