Criminal court ditches American software giant– Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft?

Submitted ⁨⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨King@blackneon.net⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.zip⁩

https://dub.uu.nl/en/news/can-dutch-universities-do-without-microsoft

Can Dutch higher education part ways with Microsoft? The sector is trying to break free, and alternatives are being explored here and there. At the same time, more and more tasks are being completed by Microsoft tools.

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Greddan@feddit.org ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Yes, yes they can. In fact, no one “needs” Microsoft or Google products for their work. If they think they do, it’s likely they’re not very competent and useful in the first place.

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DFX4509B@lemmy.wtf ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
This would be a perfect sysadmin career pipeline if Dutch universities could move to FOSS tools and Linux; think about it - universities run on Linux, said universities could offer a sysadmin course and basically grow more sysadmins and open up a new line of work for people that may actually have some staying power.

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HexesofVexes@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Yes and no; the main issues are:

initial disruption (e.g. ditching teams is harder than it looks, you also need to retrain all your IT staff)

User training (most staff can barely use Microsoft products - even light terminal use is seen as magic)

Industry demand (your average CEO conflates “computer competent” with “can you use ms office?”)

Functionality loss (mostly in easy document collab and cloud storage)

Existing 3rd party software contracts (yeah, DRM software hates Linux, also most are locked into azure)

Accountability (if OneDrive gets hacked, Microsoft pays out (i.e. no-one pays), if your cloud server gets hacked you pay out)

I’ve scratched the surface there, there are a lot more issues. The truth is that universities need to take this step, however the barriers are just too high during the perpetual crisis academia currently exists in - it would mean years of disruption they simply cannot afford.

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- Thorry@feddit.org ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Yeah Microsoft doesn’t just offer software, they offer an ecosystem. That includes hosting, support, training, SLA, legal liability and interoperability. They also do a LOT of customisation for large companies and governments, much more than one would expect for a company that’s perceived as rigid as Microsoft.
  
  I’m sure for a lot of the software we can find replacements in the non-Microsoft sphere, but that just leaves a bag of assorted pieces of software. That’s not enough and I’m not sure we can find replacements that match the user requirements for everything. That means we need different replacements for different companies/governments, which would lead to a big mess that nobody could ever maintain. And how is anyone going to get it to the level they feel comfortable agreeing to an SLA and liability?
  
  So in my ideal world, all the EU countries get together and invest big into some kind of standard on how software like this should work and how it all works together. That would allow different companies to build software for different use cases, smaller parts of the whole, and through the standard all work together in a way that actually works. Then we can have service providers that create and perhaps partly customise an environment for a company or government. They can provide the training, support, SLA and the legal stuff. There would obviously need to be subsidies available for all of these companies to get to work on this. I would like the standard to require the whole stack to be open source, but that might be hard.
  
  Now I realise this is really naive and has a couple of issues. First of all, is it even humanly possible to create such a standard? Something that isn’t super complicated and not overly restrictive to completely kill any innovation? And how long does it take to create something like that? We don’t have 10 years to work on it, the world moves too fast for that. Second issue is what companies would be willing to work on this? Even with subsidies, there wouldn’t be a lot of money to be made, no vendor lockin, no competitive advantage. Which is good for the side of the user, but not as good for the side of the supplier. Third issues, EU countries working together? Well good luck with that, on a good day it’s like herding a bunch of cats. I’m sure in three years we can have proposal tabled to put to a preliminary vote.
  
  So yeah I’m not sure how we get out of this mess. It’s a lack of foresight and the fact governments move slow and the world moves faster and faster that got us to this place. If we had restricted Microsoft back in the 90s, things might have been different. We should not have bought in to the whole “Safe Harbor” thing, but that’s easy to say after the fact.
  
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  - fatalicus@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Yeah, there is plenty of systems who do the things that Microsoft does.
    
    But I don’t know anyone who does it all so integrated as Microsoft does.
    
    Let’s say you start with the basic: you need office apps, email and storage. You have several who sell systems like that, many of them cheaper than Microsoft.
    
    Then you want security for your email. Iyou can go out and find some supplier for something like that, or you can buy an extra license and get EOP.
    
    Then you need client protection. You can go out and find a supplier, or you can buy a license and get endpoint protection.
    
    And since you now have EOP and endpoint protection, you can just buy the security step up from Microsoft, and you get a whole bunch more security solutions, all integrate.
    
    Oh and you need dataloss prevention and other such compliance solutions, so might as well go for E5, so you get whole compliance package.
    
    I really wish that someone could give Microsoft proper competition, because they really need it, but as it is right now, there just isn’t any unless you want to do a lot more work than it is to go for Microsoft.
    
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  - HexesofVexes@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I think there is another alternative to plain government spending, and that’s inter-university cooperation.
    
    It’s pushing FOSS options for education on the comp sci departments, and collaborating to make it work there.
    
    It’s is then gating every advance behind a “non-commercial, education only” license a bunch of law departments glue together.
    
    From there, it’s universities actively allocating staff workload to help maintain key FOSS infrastructure.
    
    From there you’ve laid the foundation on which things can be built.
    
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- slazer2au@lemmy.world ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Look at Airbus.
  
  The are in year 7 of an 18 month migration from Office to google workspaces.
  theregister.com/…/microsoft_airbus_migration/
  
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Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I hope that something flicker at EU level too, my country will hardly stop using tech giants shit without a little bump from EU

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tomiant@piefed.social ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
There is a fucking ocean of alternatives. Yes, they can part with that predatory fucking pedo factory.

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- stoy@lemmy.zip ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Correction:
  
  There is an ocean of software alternatives, however there are few alternatives that offer a direct alternative to Microsoft when it comes to being able to put the blame on them.
  
  With most open source systems, the buck stops with you.
  
  Now, I know there are companies that offers to take that buck and accept the risk, though they are not plenty when it comes as a realistic competitor to Microsoft.
  
  Then you need to consider what alternatives exist to all third party software you need to run a company, the vast majority only run on Windows.
  
  I work in the IT department of a company in the finance sector, show me an open source alternative to the Bloomberg client that runs on Linux and is approved by Bloomberg with an add-in that is as integrated into Libre Office as the official client is with Excel.
  
  I guarantee that it is the same in basically every company/sector, they all have workflows that are simply not possible without Windows/Office or Microsoft as a whole.
  
  Ok, so you start a new company, with all computers running open source software, Windows/MacOS is banned, that will only last until you notice that you can earn more money, while wasting time and money, while hiring new staff easier by running Windows/Mac.
  
  Would you rather shutdown you company than accept reality and use Microsoft software.
  
  I want open source to win, but ignoring reality is dumb
  
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aprazeth@feddit.nl ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Wrong question to ask; it shouldn’t be CAN they it should be WILL they?

As more and more ‘MBA-type’ managers are drawn into management of universities (as in; those that want to run the university as a business not as an actual university) taking an ethical/moral stand becomes increasingly harder. Combine that with the reality that the (still to be formed) government is looking at putting even more budget-cuts on education it becomes a dire reality. In swoops Microsoft with big discounts and ‘free’ consultants, scans, reports, etc. showing that their stuff is “just right for you”. We’ll ignore that when you start implementing their advice it’s not uncommon to then hear that you’ll need to upgrade this or that, or agree to this multi-year contract etc.

So the options are:

Chose the “easy” fix for which you probably get some financial support (for a while) and/or discount, staffing isn’t as big of a challenge (and people can be readily replaced if need be because ‘everyone knows Windows right?’) Reality is that in the future this will come and bite you but that’s for later

Or chose option that WILL cost more upfront in terms of training, on-boarding, etc. and will ultimately detach you from big-tech.

So “upfront easy, later cost” or “upfront cost, later easy”. I’ll let you guess which one is most likely going to happen in this current climate.

PS: before any reply-guys want to go “but actually” - I have worked in an university IT department for almost 10 years. KTHXBAI
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iloveDigit@piefed.social ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Too many open source projects rely on GitHub, which is owned by Microsoft. Until something like Radicle (or my proposed “Project Zymogen” fork) takes off, the open source ecosystem isn’t quite a ticket to escape Microsoft.

Good to see some universities making what moves they can though

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Damage@feddit.it ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Require all submitted documents to be either odf or pdf.

Done.

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- aprazeth@feddit.nl ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  LOL if only it were that easy
  
  I am not saying it’s impossible, I am saying that it’ll need a complete plan and support on all levels. Universities, the employees, teachers, students, scientists, grant-commissions, local and national government, the EU etc.
  
  Each and every one of these has a level of power and sway. And right now, they are swaying towards Microsoft (and Google) hard.
  
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  - Damage@feddit.it ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    No no, it’s literally that easy. When you do your taxes, do you do them your way, or the way your government requires you to? Why? There, that’s your answer.
    
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shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I’d like to know how they plan to manage their fleets without Active Directory. Yes, I know what LDAP is and if you consider that a robust alternative you don’t have a handle on what all AD does outside of authentication.

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