International Criminal Court To Ditch Microsoft Office For European Open Source Alternative (euractiv.com) 55
An anonymous reader shares a report: The International Criminal Court will switch its internal work environment away from Microsoft Office to Open Desk, a European open source alternative, the institution confirmed to Euractiv. The switch comes amid rising concerns about public bodies being reliant on US tech companies to run their services, which have stepped up sharply since the start of US President Donald Trump's second administration.
For the ICC, such concerns are not abstract: Trump has repeatedly lashed out at the court and slapped sanctions on its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan. Earlier this year, the AP also reported that Microsoft had cancelled Khan's email account, a claim the company denies. "We value our relationship with the ICC as a customer and are convinced that nothing impedes our ability to continue providing services to the ICC in the future," a Microsoft spokesperson told Euractiv.
For the ICC, such concerns are not abstract: Trump has repeatedly lashed out at the court and slapped sanctions on its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan. Earlier this year, the AP also reported that Microsoft had cancelled Khan's email account, a claim the company denies. "We value our relationship with the ICC as a customer and are convinced that nothing impedes our ability to continue providing services to the ICC in the future," a Microsoft spokesperson told Euractiv.
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Now Canadian organizations need to do the same. It is a business risk (and for governments, a national security threat) to rely on US products or services.
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So far a pretty good alternative to Windows would be Zorin OS [wikipedia.org].
"The project was started in 2008 by co-founders Artyom and Kyrill Zorin. The company is based in Dublin, Ireland.[15]"
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Why Zorin and not Ubuntu directly? Why not Debian?
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Because they use Gnome by default.
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So does Debian, doesn't it? I thought GNOME was the default Debian desktop.
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You seem to misunderstand. Gnome is the problem.
Re: Good (Score:2)
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Count me out, I pretty much like Gnome as it is.
Me too. I really like how it gets completely out of the way until I hit the hot corner, then I can choose between multiple desktops, plus I can write my own GTK apps with zero budget.
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I don't know about default, but I don't have GNOME desktop installed, though I have a few of their tools. I use Mate and a few KDE tools, though the integration between those two has gotten worse recently.
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Why Zorin and not Ubuntu directly? Why not Debian?
Ubuntu doesn't have an airship.
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Certainly not as much risk as relying on the U.S. military, eh?
Canada should recall all of its 400 or so troops from the U.S. and return all U.S. made military hardware in its possession and demand a refund (minus depreciation, of course).
It should also require all U.S. customs and TSA type personnel to vacate Canadian airports and ports and so forth.
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All of those are risks. You start where it's feasible.
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No risk, no reward!
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We're not getting rewards anyway, so meh.
Sadly yes (Score:5, Interesting)
For someone like the ICC, that would be a hard-no even if the US weren't lead by a demented fascist antagonistic towards them.
Sadly, since January it has become rational to worry about weaponized interdependence [wikipedia.org] on the US.
Trump can use that for a while, but in the end the result will be a much-diminished US. Probably already too late to reverse the academic brain-drain - we've convinced a generation of smart kids to look for an education elsewhere, breaking an innovation-spigot that's benefited the US since WWII. And if he keeps up with his bullshit, the dollar will not remain the reserve currency. That will feel like new tax on everything, likely much worse on specific stuff. (People argue about what will happen, but almost certainly: higher borrowing costs, lower Dollar, lower stock market returns, bigger constraints on the government running a deficit.) Software will fragment, we'll see more Great Firewalls (although probably not in the US - they're intentionally [theconversation.com] leaving us vulnerable [cybersecuritydive.com]).
I expect open source to suffer heavily. Sure IBMHat will persist, but thousands of small project will die or never happen because if increased barriers. I also expect to see more attempts at subverting projects and laying traps in them.
Re: Good (Score:2)
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You misunderstood. I advocate reducing Canada's dependence on the US. Not the US's dependence on Canada.
As for your "risk of open source software maintained by a small community", 2004 is calling and wants its FUD [wikipedia.org] back.
The US depends a fair bit on Canada for potash and for oil. Unfortunately, internal Canadian politics means that restricting those exports is probably a non-starter. But I'd love to restrict those exports to the US and watch food and gasoline prices in the US spike...
As for retaliat
Re: Good (Score:2)
Re: Good (Score:2)
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The US is about to take over Venezuela and its huge oil reserves, eliminating its dependence on Canada for oil.
While you might be correct about %$#@! 'US persons' desiring Venezula's oil, I do not think the US is in any way dependent upon Canadian oil.
...and don't get me started about the %$#@! 'logic' behind such a gross incursion as if no one ever learned anything ever. Oh wait, again I underestimated the overarching stench of the great orange turd.
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The Vogons may disagree with you.
Why not Libre Office? (Score:1)
Seems it will have more support and resources.
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They are using LibreOffice, via Collabora Online [opendesk.eu].
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Looks like they are using a paid service that serves open-source apps as a semi-unified "palette" of tools.
Re:Why not Libre Office? (Score:4, Interesting)
That was my first thought, but according to their webpage https://www.opendesk.eu/en/ [opendesk.eu] it appears this does more than what libreoffice does, such as task management, video conferencing, chat, identity and access management, etc.
But unless I'm missing something I don't think it's open source. The website talks about using open standards but your only option for actually getting it to "book a demo".
It doesn't appear to be either open source or available for download.
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There's a whole bunch of code on their GitLab Instance [opencode.de], but yes... it seems not very well organized and not clear how you build it yourself. The FAQ does say you can self-host in Kubernetes.
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More interesting in that they are a public or at least the software is publically owned via Germany. "A product by ZenDiS, commissioned by the German Federal Ministry of the Interior"
ZenDiS is currently a wholly owned federal limited liability company with the prospect of becoming a federal-state corporation, a structure which underlines our commitment to close collaboration between federal and state authorities in the area of digital autonomy.
Our work is rooted in Germany, yet it already extends far beyon
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That was my first thought, but according to their webpage https://www.opendesk.eu/en/ [opendesk.eu] it appears this does more than what libreoffice does, such as task management, video conferencing, chat, identity and access management, etc.
But unless I'm missing something I don't think it's open source. The website talks about using open standards but your only option for actually getting it to "book a demo".
It doesn't appear to be either open source or available for download.
Opendesk links to https://opencode.de/en [opencode.de] and they link to their gitlab repositories at https://gitlab.opencode.de/exp... [opencode.de] which is just a long list mostly in german so how much and what's there I can't tell.
Is this really open source? (Score:1)
Hi, I went to the website of OpenDesk and this does not seem like an open source project to me. All I was able to do is request a demo but that's not what I wanted, i wanted to try it out to see if it was a usable solution for me.
Am I missing something?
Re:Is this really open source? (Score:4, Interesting)
Open source does not imply free access to the application. The concepts are related, but far from identical. I once bought a commercial compiler where the source code was included with the purchase. That's open source, but not libre-free. (You can argue about whether the source was gratis-free, because the price was the same whether you got the source or not.)
Re: Is this really open source? (Score:2)
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Inevitable (Score:5, Insightful)
We FOSS people have been warning governments around the world for decades that relying on closed-source software is a huge danger to national security, and we were blown off as paranoid. Now that closed software has inevitably bitten them hard, the obvious is now obvious.
Countries should be redirecting the millions upon millions they spend on proprietary software/spyware to employ FOSS developers instead. It would make them much safer and more secure.
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openDesk for Public Administration looks to me like it is a proprietary layer on top of Open Source software. The community edition is free and can be run in Kubernetes. The Public Administration version seems that it is not free and open and requires their paid service. None of this is free. They did not develop the code. Is this a big win for Open Source? Hardly. This is just another business that markets to a niche and is humping the leg of Open Source for profit. Many companies use OpenSource in close
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Re: Inevitable (Score:2)
But NextCloud and OpenCloud already do this while providing the software as FOSS. Set it up yourself and it is free. Want them to host it or support it? Pay.
Those seem like better, more mature solutions than this Open Desk thing.
Re:Inevitable (Score:4, Interesting)
I think part of the reason people hate RMS so much is because he's a miserable dirty hippy who has the gall to be right repeatedly about problems with software decades in advance.
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We FOSS people have been warning governments around the world for decades that relying on closed-source software is a huge danger to national security, and we were blown off as paranoid. Now that closed software has inevitably bitten them hard, the obvious is now obvious.
Countries should be redirecting the millions upon millions they spend on proprietary software/spyware to employ FOSS developers instead. It would make them much safer and more secure.
I have to say - using LibreOffice is so much less painful than Office365 and its spawn from the depth of hell - Outlook. And trusting Microsoft for anything is like letting Jerry Sandusky babysit your 9 year old son.
At least Libre is cross platform compatible - Many people keep it on a computer even if they have to use Office 365, because it will load formats that 365 shits the bed on. But yeah... Microsoft - the standard in all matters.
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Trump is an idiot (Score:4, Interesting)
Putting sanctions on Karim Khan instantly made everyone aware of their dependence on American companies. The USA proved that they're an unreliable business partner that'll do whatever the current president wants. It wasn't as if it was some low profile person. Whether Karim Khan was an asshole or not does not matter. The USA took revenge on him for daring to do what the USA doesn't like. Now the whole world knows. Anybody that matters is at this point looking to ditch Microsoft. Using Microsoft software is now much more a liability than it was previously. Microsoft was happy that most officials did not care. Now those same officials care.
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[pulling the red USA Goes Bad binder down from a dusty shelf]
Microsoft denied it cancelled Khan's email account (Score:3)
Microsoft blocked the email account of Chief Prosecutor of the International Court of Justice after Trump's sanctions.
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The International Criminal Court ’s chief prosecutor has lost access to his email, and his bank accounts have been frozen [apnews.com]
“To comply with a Trump executive order, Microsoft recently helped suspend the email account of an International Criminal Court prosecutor [nytimes.com] in the Netherlands who was investigating Israel for war crimes.”
ICC (Score:1)
ICC, the International Cangaroo Court.