Lyon Drops Microsoft to Boost Digital Sovereignty

2025-06-259:0517291digitrendz.blog

Lyon is transitioning from Microsoft Office to open-source alternatives like Only Office, Linux, and PostgreSQL to reduce reliance on U.S. software and enhance digital sovereignty.

▼ Summary

– Lyon will gradually replace Microsoft software with open-source alternatives like Only Office, Linux, and PostgreSQL to reduce dependency on U.S. solutions.– The city aims to achieve digital sovereignty by transitioning to free and interoperable software.– Lyon will use the Territoire Numérique Ouvert suite, developed with SITIV and Métropole de Lyon, for its digital needs.– The Territoire Numérique Ouvert suite is already used by thousands of employees across 9 local governments.– Lyon joins other European cities like Copenhagen and Aarhus, which recently abandoned Windows and Microsoft Office.

The city of Lyon is making a bold move toward digital independence by phasing out Microsoft Office in favor of open-source alternatives. This strategic shift aims to reduce reliance on U.S.-based software solutions and strengthen local control over digital infrastructure.

Officials confirmed the transition will involve adopting Only Office for productivity tools, alongside Linux for operating systems and PostgreSQL for database management. The decision aligns with broader efforts to achieve digital sovereignty, ensuring the municipality isn’t locked into proprietary systems vulnerable to external pressures.

Lyon isn’t navigating this change alone. The city will leverage Territoire Numérique Ouvert, an open and interoperable software suite developed in collaboration with SITIV (Intercommunal Union of Information Technologies for Cities) and the Lyon Metropolis. Already in use by thousands of employees across nine local governments, this platform demonstrates the scalability of decentralized solutions.

This move mirrors a growing trend among European cities prioritizing self-reliance. Earlier this year, Denmark’s two largest municipalities, Copenhagen and Aarhus, announced similar plans to abandon Windows and Microsoft Office. Lyon’s decision underscores a wider push toward public-sector tech autonomy, challenging the dominance of global software giants.

By embracing open-source tools, Lyon aims to foster innovation while maintaining control over its digital ecosystem. The transition signals a commitment to long-term flexibility and cost efficiency, setting a precedent for other cities considering similar steps.

(Source: Next)

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Comments

  • By tormeh 2025-06-2510:494 reply

    Schleswig-Holstein and Thuringia are switching to OpenTalk for teleconference. It's really wild to see things actually happen - not just research grants and talking.

    • By hyperman1 2025-06-2511:231 reply

      I noticed a similar thing as an European with COVID. Noise from a new disease came from China, so everybody is a bit scared and does nothing. Then Italy got the full blast of it, overloaded hospitals and all. This somehow made it real. People in our ingroup were suffering. At that point, governements got actively involved.

      The Microsoft vs ICC situation seems similar. IT independence is now taken serious at governemental organisations. Our ingroup got a problem.

      • By netsharc 2025-06-2514:02

        I wonder if it's because of the ICC, or in general because suddenly US cloud providers ended up in the same category of Chinese cloud providers: under the regime of a ruler and subservient "parliament" who can make a new rule as they wish...

    • By eigenspace 2025-06-2511:051 reply

      It's *almost* like those research grants and talking laid some groundwork ;)

      • By notarobot123 2025-06-2511:11

        sure, but international politics was probably a little more than the straw that broke the camel's back.

    • By sigmoid10 2025-06-2511:284 reply

      Munich switched to Linux in 2012. But they switched back to Microsoft in 2020 because they never could get it to work completely. At least not to the level of comfort in the old system. Open source has its advantages, but MS dominates the business world because of its tech support that is truly second to none on that scale. If Europe wants independence, they need to support local businesses and not just technology.

      • By kirushik 2025-06-2511:36

        Well, Minich's return to MS tech oddly coincides with MS Germany moving their HQ there (and the ruling party change in the city); it's of course hard to explicitly call backroom deals on this (even though ex-mayor seems to be doing exactly that: https://www.linux-magazin.de/ausgaben/2019/10/interview-2/), but it might be that the decision wasn't fully technical.

      • By JimDabell 2025-06-2511:39

        I’m not sure “they could never get [Linux] to work completely” is a fair summary of what happened.

        There’s a Hacker News thread here that goes into more detail:

        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21497372

      • By imjonse 2025-06-2511:302 reply

        Tech support is clearly very important but I have a hard time believing there wasn't a great amount of lobbying involved as well.

        • By guappa 2025-06-2520:28

          According to the former major, bill gates went all the way there and asked for a private meeting. Although at the time he was officially no longer actively involved with microsoft.

        • By sigmoid10 2025-06-2511:341 reply

          There was, but not from Microsoft. It was the employees who were not happy with the new systems.

          • By sublimefire 2025-06-2511:411 reply

            Employees do not participate in the procurement process. It boils down to the requirements and how does it affect possible bidders. Most of the requirements can be easily met with OSS, there were prob others plus the drop of the price from MS

            • By sigmoid10 2025-06-2810:21

              This shows total disregard for the reality of the workplace. You can't shove 30,000 linux PCs onto boomer government workers and expect things to work like magic. It was a catastrophe. Especially since they no longer had the same level of tech support. The majority of them weren't even fully onboarded by the time they switched back to Windows.

      • By eeZah7Ux 2025-06-2515:39

        The reason is bribery.

    • By v5v3 2025-06-2512:001 reply

      [flagged]

  • By v5v3 2025-06-2511:482 reply

    Article says they are switching to OnlyOffice.

    It looks and feels very similar to ms office (So easier to adopt than libre)

    https://www.onlyoffice.com/document-editor.aspx?docs=downloa...

    https://www.onlyoffice.com/spreadsheet-editor.aspx?docs=down...

    (Edited to remove statement saying paid product, as it's free with enterprise offerings as below)

    • By bni 2025-06-2512:53

      I thought at first it was a typo of OpenOffice. Turns out that is not the case.

      I think OnlyOffice focusing on web based collaboration only is on point. It is what organizations want today and what users expect.

    • By GTP 2025-06-2511:511 reply

      You can actually use it for free, I don't know if that's just for private use, or if it's something like Nextcloud that you can self-host for free.

  • By amelius 2025-06-2510:473 reply

    It would be fair if we'd see an increase in government funding of open source projects.

    Or at least the government could pay for security audits.

    • By kergonath 2025-06-2511:042 reply

      I think you are not familiar with how governments work. They are not going to rely on a random git repo, they are going to have contractors to ensure a basic level of support and bug fixing. And some contractors to ensure development and availability of tooling. And deployment and integration. They are also going to test, audit and validate updates, not just pull from remote.

      Also, in some cases there are research agencies doing some work as well (sometimes they have been doing it for a long time on not-so-sexy but vital projects like Inria and the open source tax code in France).

      • By Hilift 2025-06-2511:22

        The product is a vehicle. Governments are looking for an assurance. That comes from the reputation of the system integrators/contractors.

        That said, Birmingham UK turned a £38 million Oracle Financials project into a £90 million failure after including re-implementation costs. That kind of stuff probably isn't replaceable, simply because they spent all the money.

      • By dahcryn 2025-06-2511:233 reply

        this scares me.

        The last thing we need is cheap consulting messing with open source projects. I don't want TCS and Accenture developing libreoffice or stuff like that and turn it into shit

        • By dvdkon 2025-06-2511:48

          It seems to be working for QGIS, where multiple consulting companies provide probably the majority of the project's manpower. It's certainly a change from fully-volunteer-driven FLOSS without deadlines or promised features, but I think it's for the better for such a large project.

        • By JimDabell 2025-06-2511:43

          Don’t worry, it’s not cheap!

        • By ujkhsjkdhf234 2025-06-2511:291 reply

          Libreoffice is already shit. It works don't get me wrong but the project is far behind where it should be.

          • By 0points 2025-06-2513:181 reply

            From the guidelines:

            > Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.

            • By ujkhsjkdhf234 2025-06-2514:171 reply

              I wouldn't call it a shallow dismissal. If you used Libreoffice you already know the current state of it. It is slow, buggy, way behind in features compared to MS Office and the UI is a mess. If I tried to take Excel away from my co-workers and gave them Libreoffice Calc there would be a riot.

              • By 0points 2025-06-274:41

                I introduced libreoffice at work in 2013 while reducing Microsoft dependencies around the office and we had success migrating from Excel and Word for about 20 employees.

                What bugs are stopping you?

    • By tormeh 2025-06-2510:521 reply

      Governments don't generally get Bob from accounting to install it on a spare laptop they have lying around. There's a contractor involved that will also be tasked with fixing bugs and other improvements and change requests. As long as the software is GPL improvements will flow back upstream somehow.

      • By Muromec 2025-06-2511:111 reply

        Sometimes the contractor is a different department of the same government or a state enterprise. The point is -- somebody has to own the risk

        • By bboygravity 2025-06-2511:20

          I thought that in government everybody and thus nobody owns the risk?

    • By JimDabell 2025-06-2511:431 reply

      They do. Take a look at things like NLNet, which is largely EU-funded:

      https://nlnet.nl

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