German government fancies FOSS

Ministry of the Interior wants to move away from Microsoft.

Could the German government be thinking of moving to open-source software? It appears so, with the Federal Minister of the Interior, Horst Seehofer, releasing an official statement (in German at http://bit.ly/lxf256germany). It suggests that the Federal Ministry of the Interior – Bundesministerium des Innern or BMI – is looking at some of the commercial software the government relies on – products from Microsoft, but also Oracle and SAP.

The BMI has commissioned a strategic market analysis from PWC that recently published its findings (http://bit.ly/ LXF256PWC, again in German), with one of the key areas of concern being data security. With services such as Windows Server and Office 365, Microsoft is collecting telemetry data which its users have little knowledge and control over. Some of this data could include personal information, and might breach GDPR.

Another concern is how the use of external servers and services leaves users at the mercy of third parties. If their servers go down, or they cease offering a product, the end users could be left high and dry.

The report suggests a number of mitigations the German government could make, including negotiating with third parties – in the same way the Dutch government did with Microsoft over the collection of user data; using a wider range of proprietary software from different vendors; or best of all, in our view, moving entirely to open source software.