> Microsoft Chairman and General Counsel Brad Smith dismissed such worries
Every time I read this guy’s name, I remember how he made false statements to the US Congress about the Golden SAML vulnerability by claiming that Microsoft had no knowledge of it when in reality, they had known about it for years and buried it for the sake of making money. Nothing he says is credible.
That said, going with open source solutions is not getting away from US companies, but that is not what is needed here. What is needed is getting away from Microsoft, which cannot be trusted. They have had a pattern of poor security decisions for the sake of making money that has persisted for decades.
By the way, it does not matter how good end users are at security when Microsoft is making decisions that undermine it. For example, the hack of RSA Security occurred by exploiting vulnerabilities in Microsoft software. Those vulnerabilities were there
because Microsoft’s management prioritized making money (adding insecure features) over writing secure software. The single best security decision any organization can make is to ban Microsoft software and services.
tiahura · 6h ago
Much of what you said is true, however the alternatives are quite poor. Believe me, If corporations could find a way to shrink the MS tax, they would be all over it. Corporations have run pilot staropenlibre office programs for decades now. They all fail because it stinks.
makeitdouble · 5h ago
To note, their whole ecosystem might be changing, allowing for more flexibility in the Office software space.
There's better online options and many of their needs can be fulfilled by in-house We apps instead of the perennial Access DB or Excel files passed around in mails.
Even the sole reduction of printed documents should have impacted how much is expected from Word or Powerpoint, and make alternatives a lot more viable.
Power users will still need all features in the world, but the rest of the user's are probably less held as hostages as before.
mog_dev · 5h ago
Noting that onlyoffice is developed by a russian company, which attempted to hide its russian ties through shell companies.
The company develops its product in russia and presents itself in the Russian market as a russian company
makeitdouble · 5h ago
> the city's collaboration suite, Territoire Numérique Ouvert (Open Digital Territory), is being developed in partnership with local digital organizations and will be hosted in regional data centers. This homegrown solution is designed to provide secure, interoperable tools for videoconferencing, office automation, and document collaboration.
It's nice they're not just moving to a fully baked solution with no control on it, potentially staying stuck there, and instead secured local developers who can help iron out the issues or move to other alternatives if push comes to shove.
panarchy · 6h ago
I hope these governments moving to open source can work together and assist in making a more modern and featured open source office suit that has a better UX. I say as someone that almost exclusively uses LibreOffice, it's still a pain to use for anything but the most basic (or esoteric/extreme, like CLI stuff) use cases.
fooker · 6h ago
Governments working together to make things better?
I’m glad you’re optimistic but this is something likely up to the individual developers.
panarchy · 5h ago
Working together doesn't have to mean anything more than providing funding for individual developers.
pentagrama · 5h ago
The article doesn't mention which Linux distribution was chosen. I'm curious about that, since in my opinion it can make or break the project. It's also possible that multiple distributions were used for different cases, which could make sense.
As for user-friendly options, I think Ubuntu and Mint are the best choices right now, with Mint (Cinnamon Edition) being a better fit for users coming from Windows, which seems to be the case here.
Also, I recently switched from LibreOffice to OnlyOffice. I find its UI and UX much better. That said, I'll look into the licensing aspect mentioned in the article, maybe LibreOffice aligns better with my values.
woleium · 5h ago
I don’t know, but i would guess suse
fooker · 6h ago
Great that it’s OnlyOffice and not surrendering control to a single company and using Google Docs.
kjellsbells · 4h ago
Public sector migrations from an incumbent may the hardest ones of all. Most migration projects fail, but over time, they harden the target platform sufficiently well that eventually one works. And then another one does. And so on, until the target becomes so solid that people no longer choose the source in the first place.
The first Solaris to Linux migrations were horrible. The first prem to AWS migration moves sucked. So it goes.
However, in public sector, failure poisons the well. The peanut gallery claims waste of taxpayer funds. The incumbent starts astroturfing and lobbying against the target. Its an absolute shitshow. Other public sector entities, without the ruthless commercial imperatives that might override fear in a commercial environment, fear to jump in. And the whole thing wilts.
It will be very interesting if the fear of US hegemony is finally enough to overcome the fear of failure.
daft_pink · 6h ago
Good luck. I tried to replace office and failed. It’s just impractical if you really want to get something done to use anything else.
ankurdhama · 3h ago
Any examples that you would like to share OR is it more about you being more familiar with office and the alternative were different?
pevansgreenwood · 7h ago
Is the shift to open source etc inevitable due to the enshitification of commercial products as their owners slide into low margin low growth?
freeopinion · 6h ago
Open source is not immune. Look at all the people who complain about the intrusions of Firefox.
Every time I read this guy’s name, I remember how he made false statements to the US Congress about the Golden SAML vulnerability by claiming that Microsoft had no knowledge of it when in reality, they had known about it for years and buried it for the sake of making money. Nothing he says is credible.
That said, going with open source solutions is not getting away from US companies, but that is not what is needed here. What is needed is getting away from Microsoft, which cannot be trusted. They have had a pattern of poor security decisions for the sake of making money that has persisted for decades.
By the way, it does not matter how good end users are at security when Microsoft is making decisions that undermine it. For example, the hack of RSA Security occurred by exploiting vulnerabilities in Microsoft software. Those vulnerabilities were there because Microsoft’s management prioritized making money (adding insecure features) over writing secure software. The single best security decision any organization can make is to ban Microsoft software and services.
There's better online options and many of their needs can be fulfilled by in-house We apps instead of the perennial Access DB or Excel files passed around in mails.
Even the sole reduction of printed documents should have impacted how much is expected from Word or Powerpoint, and make alternatives a lot more viable.
Power users will still need all features in the world, but the rest of the user's are probably less held as hostages as before.
The company develops its product in russia and presents itself in the Russian market as a russian company
It's nice they're not just moving to a fully baked solution with no control on it, potentially staying stuck there, and instead secured local developers who can help iron out the issues or move to other alternatives if push comes to shove.
I’m glad you’re optimistic but this is something likely up to the individual developers.
As for user-friendly options, I think Ubuntu and Mint are the best choices right now, with Mint (Cinnamon Edition) being a better fit for users coming from Windows, which seems to be the case here.
Also, I recently switched from LibreOffice to OnlyOffice. I find its UI and UX much better. That said, I'll look into the licensing aspect mentioned in the article, maybe LibreOffice aligns better with my values.
The first Solaris to Linux migrations were horrible. The first prem to AWS migration moves sucked. So it goes.
However, in public sector, failure poisons the well. The peanut gallery claims waste of taxpayer funds. The incumbent starts astroturfing and lobbying against the target. Its an absolute shitshow. Other public sector entities, without the ruthless commercial imperatives that might override fear in a commercial environment, fear to jump in. And the whole thing wilts.
It will be very interesting if the fear of US hegemony is finally enough to overcome the fear of failure.