4 ms·

Do migrations like this get easier each time? With prior art being available, and an ecosystem and pipeline starts to form around the new norm.

by ares623 1mo ago

com 1mo ago
With a couple of exceptions, my guess is that these migrations are part of the commercial negotiation pack of government procurement agencies. At a certain point I’d expect that tech sovereignty concerns will tip while governments out of the US-vendor mindset.
- walrus01 1mo ago
  As exemplified by a major project recently started by the French government: https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20260417-france-to-remove-windows-from-government-computers-in-sovereignty-push https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20260417-france-to-remove-windo... https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/france-has-ditched-windows-11-for-linux-on-2-5-million-government-pcs-heres-why-microsoft-should-worry-that-millions-more-could-follow-by-the-end-of-2026 https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/france-has-ditch...
- phorkyas82 1mo ago
  I'd guess the hurdles are always more structural and organizational - as even with Microsoft stack itself. See for instance the Limux/Munic story: https://lwn.net/Articles/737818/ https://lwn.net/Articles/737818/
LaurensBER 1mo ago
The biggest challenge with these kind of migrations is training users, especially government employees. Switzerland is relatively highly educated so this might be less of a challenge than in other countries but it won't be easy. The technical part is probably relatively easy in comparison. Especially because the stakes are low (parallel run with the existing system, good will from everyone involved).
- ur-whale 1mo ago
  > Switzerland is relatively highly educated so this might be less of a challenge than in other countries but it won't be easy. True, but that's not accounting for a bunch of typically Swiss cultural factors: - Swiss people tend to love to death the "one standard solution for one particular problem" approach - Swiss people tend to be quite change-averse relative to other nearby cultures. Don't get me wrong I love the Swiss to death, and the above cultural biases actually have their advantages, but re-training government employees is not going to be easy, however well educated they may be. Fortunately, there is another cultural Swiss bias that's going to help: most large Swiss organizations have been designed using the army as a model, which mean Swiss employees tend to obey orders quite well. So if the mandate comes from the top, it'll likely succeed. Eventually. Cause in Switzerland, they tend to take their time (yeah, that's another base cultural cliché, but I couldn't resist. And we're already deep into those already, why stop :-) ).
  - tribaal 1mo ago
    As a Swiss I'm a little surprised about your points: 1. We have a wide, per-canton range of solutions for everything even up to school system or tax software. Almost nothing is the same everywhere in the country (not even mentality...) 2. I am quite surprised about the "chage adverse" comment as well, except maybe in rural/conservative villages, people are on the contrary quite forward looking. Our economy is regularly listed as the most competitive in the world. How can competitive economy exist if nothing ever changes? Where does your impression come from? 3. My wife works in the Swiss government and uses a linux desktop at home...
    - LaurensBER 1mo ago
      Amen, I've worked in a few European countries and (outside the big companies and banks) the Swiss love to poke around and experiment. They do have a tendency to complain (but so do a lot of Europeans) but that complaining does often translate into action (something, seemingly, a lot less common in the south of Europe) so perhaps that gives outsiders the impression that the Swiss are change adverse?
- 1mo ago
izacus 1mo ago
Not really - this is akin to doing a complete rewrite of your 30 year old codebase to Rust. Every organization has their own hacks, bespoke tools, processes and hardware that has to be painstakingly replaced, reprogrammed and users retrained. In many cases, Linux alternatives don't exist so they either have to be written or processes/hardware replaced. These are OLD organizations and none of them is really the same as any other. Legendarily, companies like SAP made their whole fortunes managing this kind of complexity. It's just a lot of work with a lot of edge cases you've never thought of (or seen in your life) that takes years.

Do migrations like this get easier each time? With prior art being available, and an ecosystem and pipeline starts to form around the new norm.

by ares623 1mo ago

Do migrations like this get easier each time? With prior art being available, and an ecosystem and pipeline starts to form around the new norm.

com 1mo ago

With a couple of exceptions, my guess is that these migrations are part of the commercial negotiation pack of government procurement agencies. At a certain point I’d expect that tech sovereignty concerns will tip while governments out of the US-vendor mindset.

walrus01 1mo ago
As exemplified by a major project recently started by the French government: https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20260417-france-to-remove-windows-from-government-computers-in-sovereignty-push https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20260417-france-to-remove-windo... https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/france-has-ditched-windows-11-for-linux-on-2-5-million-government-pcs-heres-why-microsoft-should-worry-that-millions-more-could-follow-by-the-end-of-2026 https://www.techradar.com/computing/windows/france-has-ditch...
phorkyas82 1mo ago
I'd guess the hurdles are always more structural and organizational - as even with Microsoft stack itself. See for instance the Limux/Munic story: https://lwn.net/Articles/737818/ https://lwn.net/Articles/737818/

LaurensBER 1mo ago

The biggest challenge with these kind of migrations is training users, especially government employees. Switzerland is relatively highly educated so this might be less of a challenge than in other countries but it won't be easy. The technical part is probably relatively easy in comparison. Especially because the stakes are low (parallel run with the existing system, good will from everyone involved).

ur-whale 1mo ago
> Switzerland is relatively highly educated so this might be less of a challenge than in other countries but it won't be easy. True, but that's not accounting for a bunch of typically Swiss cultural factors: - Swiss people tend to love to death the "one standard solution for one particular problem" approach - Swiss people tend to be quite change-averse relative to other nearby cultures. Don't get me wrong I love the Swiss to death, and the above cultural biases actually have their advantages, but re-training government employees is not going to be easy, however well educated they may be. Fortunately, there is another cultural Swiss bias that's going to help: most large Swiss organizations have been designed using the army as a model, which mean Swiss employees tend to obey orders quite well. So if the mandate comes from the top, it'll likely succeed. Eventually. Cause in Switzerland, they tend to take their time (yeah, that's another base cultural cliché, but I couldn't resist. And we're already deep into those already, why stop :-) ).
- tribaal 1mo ago
  As a Swiss I'm a little surprised about your points: 1. We have a wide, per-canton range of solutions for everything even up to school system or tax software. Almost nothing is the same everywhere in the country (not even mentality...) 2. I am quite surprised about the "chage adverse" comment as well, except maybe in rural/conservative villages, people are on the contrary quite forward looking. Our economy is regularly listed as the most competitive in the world. How can competitive economy exist if nothing ever changes? Where does your impression come from? 3. My wife works in the Swiss government and uses a linux desktop at home...
  - LaurensBER 1mo ago
    Amen, I've worked in a few European countries and (outside the big companies and banks) the Swiss love to poke around and experiment. They do have a tendency to complain (but so do a lot of Europeans) but that complaining does often translate into action (something, seemingly, a lot less common in the south of Europe) so perhaps that gives outsiders the impression that the Swiss are change adverse?
1mo ago

izacus 1mo ago

Not really - this is akin to doing a complete rewrite of your 30 year old codebase to Rust. Every organization has their own hacks, bespoke tools, processes and hardware that has to be painstakingly replaced, reprogrammed and users retrained. In many cases, Linux alternatives don't exist so they either have to be written or processes/hardware replaced. These are OLD organizations and none of them is really the same as any other. Legendarily, companies like SAP made their whole fortunes managing this kind of complexity. It's just a lot of work with a lot of edge cases you've never thought of (or seen in your life) that takes years.