I wanted to spotlight a quietly massive success story in European digital sovereignty: GendBuntu - France’s custom Ubuntu distribution used by the National Gendarmerie.
The GendBuntu project derives from Microsoft’s decision to end the development of Windows XP Back in 2005, France’s Gendarmerie began switching from Microsoft products to open-source software - starting with OpenOffice. Fast forward to 2024, and GendBuntu(Linux) is now running on 97% of their workstations (over 103,000 computers!).
France has shown what’s possible when a government actually backs open-source, in-house, and EU-grown solutions.
More countries should follow suit.
Crazy how other countries are able to do this, but in germany it’s an impossible task… 🙄
It also worked for decades in Germany, until some politicians meddled with it
https://lstn.niedersachsen.de/aktuelles_service/pressemitteilungen/-67312.html
https://www.heise.de/news/Linux-Aus-Niedersachsen-will-knapp-13-000-Rechner-auf-Windows-umstellen-4119380.html
I hope LiMux makes a comeback, it’s much more well known than GendBuntu despite its issues
Germany, as regressive as ever.
Schleswig-Holstein is ditching MS for Linux and Open Source, and let’s hope many others will follow.
@BigShammy80@feddit.org