Dutch Tax Authorities Cancel Microsoft 365 Cloud Rollout, Turn Toward Open Source (zdnet.com) 55
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: The Netherlands' Tax and Customs Administration has abandoned its planned Microsoft 365 public-cloud rollout. Why? The reasons were clear at the Open Source Summit Europe conference, where the Linux Foundation (LF) released the 2026 State of Open Source in Europe. In it, the nonprofit, pro-open-source organization revealed that 94% of European Union (EU) organizations say digital sovereignty is important, with 61% considering it very important. As Thierry Carrez, the Linux Foundation Europe GM, said in his keynote, "Europe has clearly heard the message on digital sovereignty."
In an interview onstage at the summit, Nithya Ruff, chair of the LF board, added that it's not just Europe: "Digital sovereignty is a need that the entire world feels, whether it's Sierra Leone or the US or China." It's not just the Dutch tax collectors, though. The Netherlands is also exploring switching from Windows and proprietary software to Linux and open-source programs across the board. [...] The Netherlands had planned to switch to Microsoft 365 in 2025. The idea then was to complete the rollout by the end of 2026. About 5,000 employees had already migrated when the Dutch Advisory Council on ICT Assessment recommended reversing the public-cloud rollout in June. The government paused the plan in July; the latest announcement replaces that rollout with an on-premises/open-source approach.
The Tax and Customs Administration isn't replacing all of Microsoft Office with a single open-source suite, at least not yet. Instead, the government will keep the existing Microsoft software for now. Looking ahead, State Secretary for Finance Eelco Eerenberg set out the replacement timetable in a letter to Parliament: "In 2027, the provision for mail and calendar will be realized on-premises. Later in 2027 and 2028, European open-source solutions for personal storage and collaboration will follow. This allows us to work toward a sustainable and more autonomous solution for these functionalities." [...] For now, the on-premises email/calendar environment will still use Microsoft software, including Outlook. The open-source portion concerns personal storage and collaboration, not a wholesale replacement of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or the entire desktop environment. As for why the Netherlands pulled back, the ICT assessment found serious concerns over "information security, information processing and future-proofing." Key issues included routing confidential documents through American servers, relying on standard Microsoft encryption rather than Double Key Encryption, and inadequate end-to-end encryption for Teams calls. The assessment also identified "vendor lock-in, reduced flexibility, concerns about digital sovereignty, and the absence of an adequate exit strategy" as dealbreakers.
ZDNet notes that other Dutch government agencies are developing an open-source alternative called DAWO (Digital Autonomous Work Environment for Government), which would begin by replacing Windows with the Linux distribution NixOS.
In an interview onstage at the summit, Nithya Ruff, chair of the LF board, added that it's not just Europe: "Digital sovereignty is a need that the entire world feels, whether it's Sierra Leone or the US or China." It's not just the Dutch tax collectors, though. The Netherlands is also exploring switching from Windows and proprietary software to Linux and open-source programs across the board. [...] The Netherlands had planned to switch to Microsoft 365 in 2025. The idea then was to complete the rollout by the end of 2026. About 5,000 employees had already migrated when the Dutch Advisory Council on ICT Assessment recommended reversing the public-cloud rollout in June. The government paused the plan in July; the latest announcement replaces that rollout with an on-premises/open-source approach.
The Tax and Customs Administration isn't replacing all of Microsoft Office with a single open-source suite, at least not yet. Instead, the government will keep the existing Microsoft software for now. Looking ahead, State Secretary for Finance Eelco Eerenberg set out the replacement timetable in a letter to Parliament: "In 2027, the provision for mail and calendar will be realized on-premises. Later in 2027 and 2028, European open-source solutions for personal storage and collaboration will follow. This allows us to work toward a sustainable and more autonomous solution for these functionalities." [...] For now, the on-premises email/calendar environment will still use Microsoft software, including Outlook. The open-source portion concerns personal storage and collaboration, not a wholesale replacement of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or the entire desktop environment. As for why the Netherlands pulled back, the ICT assessment found serious concerns over "information security, information processing and future-proofing." Key issues included routing confidential documents through American servers, relying on standard Microsoft encryption rather than Double Key Encryption, and inadequate end-to-end encryption for Teams calls. The assessment also identified "vendor lock-in, reduced flexibility, concerns about digital sovereignty, and the absence of an adequate exit strategy" as dealbreakers.
ZDNet notes that other Dutch government agencies are developing an open-source alternative called DAWO (Digital Autonomous Work Environment for Government), which would begin by replacing Windows with the Linux distribution NixOS.
Re: Pray for LEO XIV (Score:1)
Re:Pray for LEO XIV (Score:4, Funny)
O Lord of the Abyss, Prince of Darkness, Morning-Star, please hear my cry: I invoke thee, Lucifer! Turn your gaze toward the Vatican's operating rooms! Guide the surgeon's scalpel with your claws! Burn the tumors from the Holy Father's chest with the infernal fires of Hell! Cast your curses upon any bacterium that may seek to cause opportunistic infection! In the darkness I beseech thee.
Hail Satan, please save the Pope, Amen.
Re: (Score:1)
He had surgery for lung cancer this morning.
God's going to get pissed off if you keep bugging him for shit He took care of 24 hours earlier.
Re: (Score:1)
Clearly his god doesn't care about him or it wouldn't have let this happen.
FAFO (Score:3)
See Microsoft, your insistence on mining user data and generally being an asshole to your user base has its rewards.
Re:FAFO (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not really about Microsoft. Increasingly, Europe sees the US as a potential threat who blackmails allies, even a potential invader, rather than an ally.
Literally just yesterday the US shut off intel-sharing to Ukraine (which mainly helps with targeting incoming drones) and blocked all Starlink terminals in Ukraine moving faster than 100kph (e.g. terminals on air-defense interceptor drones), both in effect dramatically hurting Ukraine's ability to defend against Russia's nightly drone waves - all in order to pressure Ukraine into stopping striking Russian oil refineries while Trump seeks to buy more Russian oil and Russia keeps strikig Ukraine's energy infrastructure.
We all know that the US could do this sort of stuff to any of us. We have to move US companies out of our critical paths.
Once upon a time, when the US called for aid after 9/11, Europe stood up. More Danes died per capita fighting in Afghanistan, in a war that was not their own, than Americans did. This year, Denmark was rapidly rushing explosives and bags of blood to Greenland to prepare for firefights against invading US forces.
All of Europe got the message. We're not dining with friends - we're on the menu.
Re:FAFO (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree. The "leadership" in my country has gone off the rails. Bad behavior has become the norm for government and corporations alike.
Re: (Score:2)
The word you're looking for is cult.
Re: (Score:3)
Trump doesn't need an excuse, he wants to be pals with Putin and he's desperate to fix his self-inflicted economic and oil problems before the mid-terms.
Have to admire Zelenskyy's moxie. "Oh, you want oil, do you?"
Re: (Score:2)
Trump doesn't need an excuse, he wants to be pals with Putin
Maybe Trump is angling for a new job when his presidency of the USA ends: deputy president of Russia.
Re:uh bro (Score:4, Informative)
When the US was attacked, we sent our children to die in one of your foreign wars.
When WE were attacked, the largest war in the continent since World War II, you abandoned us - even witholding things that cost you *literally nothing*, like intel to help intercept drones and missiles targeting civilians - and switched to instead threatening to attack us as well, helping pick us apart piece by piece.
Do not act surprised when you get seen as duplicitous snakes and we take action to separate ourselves from your levers of pressure.
Re:FAFO (Score:5, Informative)
Literally just yesterday the US shut off intel-sharing to Ukraine (which mainly helps with targeting incoming drones) and blocked all Starlink terminals in Ukraine moving faster than 100kph
And literally a week before they applied sanctions to the International Criminal Court justices, a court that enacts justice for countries who signed onto it as part of a treaty which doesn't include the USA, literally meaning this foreign court without jurisdiction over any part of American affairs is being sanctioned by America.
I remember in 2023 everyone here criticising Germany for buying gas from Russia saying it was a bad move. Well that sentiment is now also rising as part of being allied with a crazed war mongering psychopath who meddles more overtly in international affairs than Russia or China ever did (well Russia or China did worse, but at least they attempt to deny it, where as the USA's position is "Yeah we're cunts, what you gonna do about it?").
Re: (Score:2)
That's a "use once" tool, now everyone knows its there, it can be used, and indeed did get used (all because so temper tantrum kiddy fidler did not get a peace medal for all the fake wars he stopped)
Now ALL governments are on notice to remove that Malware that is US software.
Re: (Score:2)
That's a "use once" tool, now everyone knows its there, it can be used, and indeed did get used (all because so temper tantrum kiddy fiddler did not get a peace medal for all the fake wars he stopped)
Now ALL governments are on notice to remove that Malware that is US software.
Exactly. They used the nuclear option because the convicted felon wanted it. And now everybody is very intent on making sure they cannot use it again. On the plus side, this will create a lot of local business and long-term will pay of economically as well because suddenly, with FOSS, its is not closed systems anymore. Reminds me a bit of the right-to-repair discussion.
Re: (Score:2)
Trump signed the death warrant for US tech, watch for MASSIVE increases in spending to influencers, lobbyists, and probably even down to FUD spam bits.
Those companies signalling felty to the Orange man for his inauguration by giving him petty gifts etc was their downfall.
Re: (Score:2)
While I am not convinced this will happen, it is a definite possibility. I do agree that US tech is in a death spiral.
Re: (Score:3)
The trigger was blocking several accounts at the international court of law. I think Microsoft may regret that dearly now. But all it really did was make the problem strikingly obvious.
Europe has heard, but did it comprehend? (Score:2)
The message on digital sovereignty and the choice to have no sovereignty by moving to open-source projects whose directions can still be well influenced by paid developers of foreign countries is questionable. Improbable but not an impossible scenario, albeit better than relying on foreign closed source tools if they can follow China's model of using open source and in house tools and services. Best of luck for you all.
Re:Europe has heard, but did it comprehend? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's cheap and easy to audit OSS for malicious code with AI these days.
Re: (Score:1)
>It's cheap and easy to audit OSS for malicious code with AI these days.
Economically feasible, perhaps. Cheap and easy? Perhaps for a sufficiently loose definition of "cheap and easy" but not by my dictionary.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Europe has heard, but did it comprehend? (Score:2)
It's cheap and easy to do a shitty bullshit audit. What could possibly go wrong?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I know a few people in the government space that do IT security exactly for this. Yes, FOSS gets reviewed as well before it goes into critical places. That review is just a lot easier.
Why Big Tech Companies (Score:5, Insightful)
Well this is what you get when as a company you support a crazy person and party. The GOP went for "America First", so US Tech is starting to loose the EU market and Trump forced China to speed up its own tech centers. In a few short years China will be far ahead in tech.
Hope M/S people like counting their tax break $ while seeing 2 of its largest markets moving away from their products.
Trump (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the things Americans do not understand, and the number of things Americans do not understand could fill volumes, is that we are a military empire and that your standard of living depends on that military empire extracting tribute from the rest of the world.
We have mostly been able to get away with that by leveraging our military bases in a way that makes them appear and even at times b useful to the locals in foreign countries. Look into the Petro dollar if you're confused about what I'm talking about here.
The Epstein class over in Europe does not like this. They would like to be the ones with a nice big military empire that gets to extract tribute. And it doesn't help that increasingly the regular Americans do not see much of that tribute, although you do still see some of it.
What I'm saying is that you can't break all these complex systems that were built to build up the American economy at the expense of the rest of the world without consequences back home. Even if you're not really getting any of the money from that anymore because we have allowed the Epstein class to take it all that Epstein class is not going to sit idly by as they lose access to that wealth. They are instead going to try to take it from you because if they can't get it from parts of Europe and Asia your next on the menu.
It's a classic case of a chesterton's fence. We took the fence down and we didn't know why it was up
sigh (Score:1)
As much as it pains me to reply to this prolific dumbass, the reason is the Cloud Act which Europeans have been way, way too slow to react to.
But fortunately Trump reminded Europeans that the US is utterly untrustworthy and they are finally doing what they should have done eight years ago.
Re:Trump (Score:5, Insightful)
He threatened to invade Greenland for fuck sake.
Is that all? There's no one issue that causes the sentiment we're seeing now. He threatened Greenland, he actively started a war in Iran, he kidnapped a sitting head of state of a foreign country to steal their oil, he sanctioned the ICC (which is part of a treaty of nations of which the USA has zero part to play in), he blocked intel about Russia to Ukraine while buying oil from Russia, he rolled out the red carpet to an "enemy" of the USA, he has fucked the international economy on more than one occasion, he keeps blaming everyone except for himself for an international oil trade crisis, he started trade wars with countries for no reason, including countries he personally signed international trade agreements with in violation of his own agreements.
I've been drinking all afternoon. This is just the shit I can remember. I'm sure after I get over my hangover tomorrow I could write a fucking thesis on the reason the orange cunt has turned American into the world's least reliable partner. And yes I stand by that statement, at least with China you know what you're getting, with America no one has a fucking clue anymore.
Threatening to invade a NATO Ally (Score:2)
So I think the main problem is the whole threate
Re: (Score:1)
true digital soverignty is all but impossible (Score:4, Funny)
True digital sovereignty means having the resources in-country to manage your digital infrastructure. That means having the source and the skill-set to maintain it.
Not even the United States has that, not completely anyway.
But, like hand grenades and horseshoes, close actually counts.
Re: (Score:2)
Europe has that. If is not cost-effective at the moment, but moving closer to it costs very little in comparison to the gains. Also remember that Europe has, for example, ASML and Zeiss and that Europe educates a lot of good engineers. Replacing ASML and Zeiss alone would take a moon-landing type project at this time. And as soon as you leave the MS crap behind, you are not tied to specific hardware anyways.
DAWG (Score:2)
Dutch government agencies are developing an open-source alternative called DAWO (Digital Autonomous Work Environment for Government)
Even i can see that it's DAWG, not DAWO
Dawg!
Re:DAWG (Score:5, Informative)
DAWO is the Dutch acronym: Digitaal Autonome Werkomgeving voor de Overheid
Continuing migration to Exchange (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry to spoil the party. Unfortunately, this news was based on a letter from the State Secretary, trying to tell the House that all is well. But it isn't. Here is https://berthub.eu/tkconv/document.html?nummer=2026D48732 that letter, in Dutch. Reading carefully, the news isn't all that good.
“On-premises solution in combination with open source” = a proprietary solution.
“As many [...] existing licenses as possible” = Microsoft.
“In 2027, the on-premises email and calendar service will be implemented. European open-source solutions for personal storage and collaboration features will follow later in 2027 and in 2028” = email and calendar will be proprietary.
“That is in line with the Advisory Council’s recommendation not to rely on a single solution from a single vendor, but to explore alternatives for each function” = for functions other than email and calendar, we’re doing something other than Microsoft.
So the migration from (brace yourself...) Lotus Notes (!!) to Exchange will continue and there really won't be any open source in this migration. The letter is just openwashing to make a good impression on the House.
Eyeroll. (Score:1)
I totally respect a country
Re: Eyeroll. (Score:3)
"When you go open-source, whoâ(TM)s responsible if something wipes an entire countryâ(TM)s data? Micheal McDoesntExist. Thatâ(TM)s who."
It's your in-house, in-country developers that fix it. You're not relying on a company based in a country run by an unstable regime that may or may not threaten your sovereignty.
Re: Eyeroll. (Score:2)
Not just that, but every EULA basically can be boiled down to "fuck you" and Mickeysoft sure as shit ain't taking responsibility for your data, though they may be taking your data... As the EULA allows!
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. This irrational trust in Microsoft "because they are powerful" is completely deranged.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Eyeroll. (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, let’s trust a critically important part of our national infrastructure to “open source” software.
Spoiler alert: You already do. Linux and other open-source infrastructure is ubiquitous in embedded products everywhere. If open-source software disappeared today, most countries' infrastructure would be crippled.
When you go open-source, who’s responsible if something wipes an entire country’s data?
The people you employ to manage the infrastructure. Duh.
Re: (Score:2)
What a stupid and disconnected comment. You are deeply stuck in the past and it is not a good look.