Schleswig-Holstein completes migration to open source email

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Germany’s state of Schleswig-Holstein has completed migrating tens of thousands of government mailboxes from Microsoft-style proprietary platforms to an open-source stack based on Open-Xchange and Thunderbird, operated by a public data center provider. Commenters see this as part of a broader push for digital sovereignty in Europe and beyond, contrasting it with agencies that are doubling down on US cloud providers and warning about national infrastructure depending on foreign, closed systems. They also highlight practical challenges such as email deliverability outside the Microsoft/Google duopoly and argue that sustained funding and contributions to open-source projects will be crucial if such moves are to last beyond electoral cycles.

Article/site issues

  • Several readers report popups/redirects on the original site; others say it works fine with Firefox + uBlock or on mobile Chrome.
  • An archive.ph mirror is shared as a workaround.

What Schleswig-Holstein actually deployed

  • Rough scale: ~30k users, ~40k mailboxes, ~100M emails/calendar items migrated.
  • Backend: Open-Xchange groupware suite on top of Dovecot Pro (not Cyrus), with IMAP/SMTP/CalDAV/CardDAV; operated by Dataport, a state-owned IT provider.
  • Clients: primarily Open-Xchange web UI, plus Thunderbird and thousands of mobile devices.
  • Some emphasize Open-Xchange is a long‑standing, substantial Exchange‑like suite, not just “Postfix + IMAP” glued together.

Open-Xchange code and bot pressure

  • Source appears on a self‑hosted GitLab; the GitLab “explore” page is restricted, but direct project URLs work.
  • Restriction is attributed to aggressive crawling by bots (including AI scrapers); small self‑hosted repos reportedly get hammered with thousands of requests per second.

Email deliverability and the M365/Gmail duopoly

  • Concern that operating outside Microsoft/Google ecosystems makes deliverability harder, especially for smaller providers.
  • One MSP recounts Gmail silently refusing their corporate mail with no meaningful diagnostics or human contact; they pay a 3rd‑party relay just to reach Gmail.
  • Others counter that a government domain has leverage: if recipients don’t get state emails, that’s “their problem,” and most traffic is intra‑government anyway.
  • Hope that more government‑run email will pressure big providers to make blocklisting more transparent and appealable.

Digital sovereignty, security, and WhatsApp dependence

  • Strong support for governments moving off foreign, closed stacks: seen as reducing US tech and political leverage, and improving strategic autonomy.
  • Counterpoint: Europe still depends on US security guarantees; real autonomy would require higher military and economic costs.
  • Broader worry about national infrastructure running on foreign platforms (e.g., Latin America’s deep dependence on WhatsApp for tickets, healthcare, and government services).
    • One side calls this a national‑security risk and “soft power conquest.”
    • Another argues the core issue is governments choosing to make WhatsApp the only channel, not WhatsApp’s dominance per se.

Comparisons: other government moves

  • France’s “Suite numérique” and the German federal “openDesk” also use Open‑Xchange; seen as part of a wider European push.
  • Some regret this isn’t an EU‑wide platform; others argue multiple national projects are healthier and more resilient, with EU optionally offering a non‑mandatory reference stack.
  • Contrast with:
    • Dutch and Swedish tax authorities moving to Office 365/Azure; Dutch tax office reportedly budgets millions yearly for manual backups in case US access is cut.
    • Indian government migrating from Microsoft to Zoho (closed‑source but domestic); discussion about Zoho’s affordability, security track record, and lack of open‑source commitment.

FOSS vs proprietary, and realism of migrations

  • Many frame FOSS as the only sustainable path to digital sovereignty: inspectable code, no single‑vendor kill switch, easier to fork if a supplier is sanctioned or collapses.
  • Skeptics note:
    • Most major FOSS institutions and infra (e.g., Linux Foundation, GitHub) are US‑based and subject to US policy; GitHub sanctions already locked out some countries.
    • Corporates rely heavily on Excel macros and other Office‑specific features; breaking one critical sheet can outweigh license savings. Munich’s partial reversal is cited as a warning, though its backend reportedly stayed open‑source.
    • Europe has had decades and ample money to build its own stack but repeatedly doubled down on US clouds; some doubt this time will be different.

Funding and sustaining the ecosystem

  • Suggestions that public bodies migrating to FOSS should redirect a substantial fraction of former license spend (e.g., 50%) into upstream projects like Thunderbird/Mozilla.
  • Others propose contributing engineering time rather than (or in addition to) money.
  • Underlying concern: without strong, ongoing institutional support, critical FOSS components may stagnate, undermining the promise of sovereignty.

Outlook

  • Many expect more European administrations to follow, driven less by cost or “software freedom” rhetoric and more by concrete sovereignty and trust considerations.
  • Some argue sovereignty, not AI, will be the defining IT theme to 2030; FOSS is seen as the most plausible way for multiple blocs (EU, China, others) to share code without mutual political dependence.