EU OS for the Public Sector

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Self-hosted FOSS in the public sector

  • Several comments argue that public institutions should run self‑hosted FOSS stacks, citing the French gendarmerie’s “GendBuntu” rollout (100k desktops, significant reported cost savings) as proof this is feasible.
  • Others stress that the big dependency is not Windows itself but Microsoft Office and its ecosystem.

Document formats and e‑government tools

  • Many are frustrated that administrations demand .docx, implicitly requiring Microsoft Office; while LibreOffice can open .docx, people report frequent rendering/compatibility issues.
  • Some note that OpenDocument (ODF) is supposed to be the default in parts of Europe, but adoption is state-by-state and uneven.
  • There’s interest in open‑sourcing public form systems; the French government’s open-source “Démarches Simplifiées” is mentioned positively, and people wish the Cerfa system were open as well.

What EU OS is (and isn’t)

  • Multiple commenters highlight that EU OS is not an official EU project but a community proof‑of‑concept that aspires to EU backing.
  • The name is seen by some as misleading or a “trojan horse”; others compare it to activist branding like “American X Project” and see it as acceptable advocacy.

Choice of base distribution and sovereignty

  • The Fedora/KDE base is justified by the project as pragmatic (best current support for bootable containers, distro is “not core”).
  • Critics prefer Debian or openSUSE (seen as more “European” and with EU‑based infrastructure) and argue the symbolism matters for digital sovereignty.
  • Others counter that “sovereignty” in open source is murky and risks sliding into tech nationalism; more important is reproducible builds and contributing upstream rather than forking.

Architecture, monoculture, and security

  • Some oppose a single “EU OS” on the grounds it creates a huge monoculture target for zero‑days; others reply this is already the case with Windows.
  • Concerns are raised about build/hosting infrastructure being “juicy targets,” but this is acknowledged as a general problem, not unique to this project.

Organizational, human, and quality issues

  • Past migrations (Munich, German libraries) are cited as cautionary tales: entrenched proprietary formats, legacy integrations, user expectations, and heavy Microsoft lobbying.
  • Several argue that the real obstacles are organizational (procurement written around specific MS products, consultancies incentivized to sell complex proprietary stacks) and usability (Office ergonomics, Linux desktop reliability, enterprise fleet management and identity).
  • Some see the project as mostly marketing or yet another “new standard/distro,” while others value the concrete PoC goal: proving an admin team can manage a Windows‑free fleet in ~2 years instead of decades.