The Austrian military didn't just adopt LibreOffice; they actually contributed back to it. Over five person-years of development work went into adding features they needed. Those improvements are now available to everyone using LibreOffice, which is pretty cool.

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[–] Hirom@beehaw.org 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

You're talking about a great number of organisations, with different decision makers. It takes time and political will to coordinate and execute this kind of big switch. This needs to happen to become independant from foreign monopolies, but I'm not surprised it hasn't already happened.

The EU commission decides for some EU institutions. Member countries decide for their own institutions and military. Each country and military has its own labyrinth of bureaucracy with lengthy decision making, and large+complex IT infrastructures. All of this has inertia. And switching cost money, even if it's possible to save on license cost on the long run.

[–] menemen@lemmy.ml 1 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

Nah, they can give out directives and regulations to force the hand of local legislation. It happens all the time for many things. I personally have to deal with the fallout of one atm.

And I already said it costs money. And that is okay. National security costs money The EU spends several hundred billions every year on its military. A safe OS is much more important than a couple more jets. Even if it costs 5 billion euros, screw it even if it is 5 billion every year, it is still cheap compared to what it brings.