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
Another German state heads down the open source sovereignty road
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern ditches SharePoint while Bavaria also mulls Microsoft alternatives
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