Assuming you just replace a proprietary software ecosystem with an Open Source one and immediately get the same thing for free is a very naive view that will get you in trouble.
Having said that, as a German, I am very happy this switch happens and seems to have some backing in the local administration at least. But it's still a high-risk wager and I'm afraid it'll turn out like the LiMux project in Munich, which was eventually (and cleverly so) framed as the origin of all problems in the municipal digital infrastructure. In the end, it got swapped out for a new Microsoft contract in a wonderful example of lobbyism and bribery, and Open Source and Linux have been discredited, to the point no winning mayor candidate can ever bring it up again as a viable alternative.
Yes, this is what I’m talking about. Hiring people and developing expertise instead of paying expensive consultants is a preferred use of my tax dollars.
> But it's still a high-risk wager and I'm afraid it'll turn out like the LiMux project in Munich, which was eventually (and cleverly so) framed as the origin of all problems in the municipal digital infrastructure.
While this may be true, there are also quite prominent cases where the massively expensive foreign consultant solutions have also lead to disastrous project overruns.
Maybe this was true at one point in time. But now, it just pays for AI/Copilot and your latest support chatbot.
It’s a tremendous mis—allocation of public resources. Hiring local people to tailor the free software which already exists and contributing those changes back to the world would spend fewer of those dollars and spend them locally, and be pro-social at the same time.
So I don’t hate this story. I love it and see it as a massive win.