It's especially funny that Microsoft has been swearing up and down that they can offer "sovereign" infrastructure in Europe, and yet the moment Trump comes calling they trip over themselves to implement his sanctions against the ICC.

I think it's serious this time. Microsoft is definitely worried. The noises they've been making that they've neglected Windows and are making changes to fix this are telling.

They're the ones that probably have access to the most accurate statistics on Linux market share, and they're not liking what they're seeing.

Like gendbuntu for example? A big success, going since 2008 and they've got 100k workstations running on it today, 97% of their workforce.

The success stories are there but the failures seem to get more press. Which isn't all that surprising IMO.

It's also worth noting that the Dutch tax office this article is about has until now been running on an in house office solution, they had only recently decided to move to Microsoft 365 but for geopolitical reasons this is no longer a good option. The rollout had only just started.

They do run windows but that is not planned to change anyway, this is about their office suite.

In many cases when a government branch or municipality switches away from Microsoft, Microsoft throws money at the government branch or municipality.

For example, When Munich in 2013 migrated to Linux:

"In 2016, Microsoft relocated its German headquarters to Munich. "

"In 2018, journalistic group Investigate Europe released a video documentary via German public television network ARD that claimed that the majority of city workers were satisfied with the operating system, with council members insinuating that the reversal was a personally motivated decision by mayor Dieter Reiter. Reiter denied that he had initiated the reversal in gratitude for Microsoft moving its German headquarters from Unterschleißheim back to Munich."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux

I don't think I've ever seen an article here of that happening? I wouldn't be surprised if it goes but I think showing the effects now instead of in 5 years is helpful.

It's possibly part of the effort to push it so it sticks, else you may have people asking themselves why the government is relying on freeware instead of professionally made software, thinking it's just cheapening out. Open source may not have the good rep it has here, outside of these circles.

But this time it's because America is an untrusted and untrustable untrustworthy vendor, keep em coming, submitters

> Stick with it for five (5) years consistently

There would be very little to talk about.

The harsh reality is that projects like ffmpeg and SQLite are wild exceptions to the rule. You need more than a handful of well engineered OSS components to run a complicated business like this.