this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2025
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[โ€“] thelsim@sh.itjust.works 102 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I really dislike clickbait headlines like these, itโ€™s Austria if youโ€™re wondering.

  • Austria's military has switched from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice.
  • The move was all about digital sovereignty, not cost savings.
  • Other governments are moving away from Microsoft to protect their citizens' privacy.
[โ€“] Jack@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 week ago

I really dislike clickbait headlines like these, itโ€™s Austria if youโ€™re wondering.

Agreed. Come on Lemmy, we have to be better than these clickbait writing/pasting fuckwits.

[โ€“] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The real info is always in the comments. Thanks!

[โ€“] thelsim@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

Youโ€™re welcome :)

[โ€“] pennomi@lemmy.world 27 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Because spying on your customers and force feeding them advertisements is bad for business. As with virtually all companies, Microsoft canโ€™t prioritize the long term health of their platform over next quarterโ€™s profits.

[โ€“] FrostyPolicy@suppo.fi 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They don' t need to care as they have corporations locked-in nicely.

[โ€“] pennomi@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

I totally agree, but thatโ€™s a โ€œyearsโ€ type of lock in, not โ€œdecadesโ€. If a whole military can get off of Microsoft, so can most businesses.

[โ€“] pdqcp@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The best part is that they are also funding LibreOffice development. If everyone funds FOSS with money that would be used for MS subscriptions, we can further accelerate FOSS development

From the article:

Austria isn't just replacing Microsoft software. Unlike typical public-sector and corporate migrations, Austria's military has heavily invested in LibreOffice development itself. The armed forces have been funding the creation of new features and improvements that are now included in public releases. These additions, ranging from improved slideshow editing to better handling of pivot tables, have been rolled into the latest version of LibreOffice.

[โ€“] stormeuh@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Or even better: set up in-house software teams which partly contribute to FOSS, and partly work on in-house software. This can justify a larger developer pool, because when there is less in-house work for some reason, you reallocate some devs to open source work.

Of course contributing both money and developer time would be best.

[โ€“] IpsumLauren@lemmy.world 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Austrian military cuts software costs in half using this one weird old trick discovered by a German housewife.

[โ€“] DreasNil@feddit.nu 8 points 1 week ago

The more the merrier! ๐Ÿ˜Š

[โ€“] miked@piefed.social 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm curious about the details.

Did they replace Onenote or Sharepoint?

Are they now running their own mail servers? If so, what are they using as an email client?

[โ€“] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 week ago

The go-to rich email client bundle is TBird with the openXchange bolt-on.

But I'd like to see what the teamz and oneScrote upgrade path is. As terrible as they both are, they're entrenched; and a replacement needs to suck the same or less, while also protecting data sovereignty.

(Same or LESS, people. It's a easy bar technically but workflow and UX aren't considerations in the lost-boy post-dotcom world)