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Re:France's homegrown open source online office suite by 999900000999 on Saturday February 07, 2026 @10:34AM (#46924654)
You don't need to raise taxes for this, literally just stop wasting money on licensees once the open source projects are ready. It's not a "let do it in 3 months" thing, this will take at least a decade.
Re:France's homegrown open source online office suite by xp84 on Saturday February 07, 2026 @11:32AM (#46925112)
“Once ready” they’ll save (somewhat) on licenses, what about paying for it during the years it will take to build it, while it’s not ready?

When any random company makes a Build vs. Buy decision the question is “is this a core competency?” Most companies use a package from MS or GOOG because it’s unlikely that they’ll be so good at productivity software that it’s (A) worth distracting themselves from their actual job and (B) good enough. The same caveats apply here.

Re:France's homegrown open source online office suite by parchley on Saturday February 07, 2026 @11:39AM (#46925176)
No, suggestion those caveats show that you are out of touch with what is at stake. This is about digital sovereignty, not saving money. It’s about not relying on the US. The US is literally forcing our hands here.
Re:France's homegrown open source online office suite by 999900000999 on Saturday February 07, 2026 @11:59AM (#46925354)
Honestly it's probably a good idea for governments to self host and self support anything that's important.

>Microsoft Used China-Based Engineers to Support Product Recently Hacked by China

https://www.propublica.org/article/microsoft-sharepoint-hack...

Open source alternatives, audited by international teams could be much more trust worthy than closed sourced black boxes.

Re:France's homegrown open source online office suite by PlatoIsADisease on Saturday February 07, 2026 @12:38PM (#46925724)
That explains why Android was not affected by Pegasus and Apple was.
Re:France's homegrown open source online office suite by fn-mote on Saturday February 07, 2026 @01:20PM (#46926144)
You forgot the /s

I suppose the assumption is that every HN reader follows headline hacking news, which is valid but still I did a double-take at the comment.

Re:France's homegrown open source online office suite by PlatoIsADisease on Saturday February 07, 2026 @06:53PM (#46929661)
?
Re:France's homegrown open source online office suite by deaux on Saturday February 07, 2026 @10:09PM (#46930963)
More like they don't even need Pegasus to get Androids.
Re:France's homegrown open source online office suite by PlatoIsADisease on Sunday February 08, 2026 @06:59AM (#46933505)
?

Android has a higher bounty than Iphone. Anyway, sorry about your easily hackable phone. Hope you arent a VIP.

Re:France's homegrown open source online office suite by Certhas on Saturday February 07, 2026 @12:10PM (#46925453)
Being able to operate sovereignly is a core competency for governments.
Re:France's homegrown open source online office suite by PlatoIsADisease on Saturday February 07, 2026 @12:39PM (#46925737)
>sovereignly

Minor powers still bend to the great powers.

Re:France's homegrown open source online office suite by gryn on Saturday February 07, 2026 @10:42AM (#46924723)
> once the open source projects are ready.

so likely a decade or more of double spending in the meanwhile.

that's 2 election terms in France for context. Good luck making the political parties agree to this.

Re:France's homegrown open source online office suite by gtirloni on Saturday February 07, 2026 @10:46AM (#46924754)
This likely won't need billions of Euros to implement and will be an earmark in the budget. My point being it's not such a grandious project, from a continental perspective.
Re:France's homegrown open source online office suite by culi on Saturday February 07, 2026 @12:42PM (#46925778)
FramaSoft has been building "Dégooglisons" since 2001

https://degooglisons-internet.org/en/

Re:France's homegrown open source online office suite by dmix on Saturday February 07, 2026 @04:50PM (#46928480)
These projects will always need funding indefinitely if they are going to do it.

People always want more and it will never be finished.

Re:France's homegrown open source online office suite by etiennebausson on Saturday February 07, 2026 @05:54PM (#46929102)
If the money is use to pay local developer, who reinvest most of it in a taxed local economy, it would need a HUGE amount of devs to match up the government's current MS license cost.