The state of Schleswig-Holstein is consistently relying on open source

I hate when switches like these get advertised first and foremost as some huge cost-cutting measure, further solidifying open source ecosystem as some cheap knock-offs of their commercial alternatives.

How about instead you donate the same amount of money you would've paid to Microsoft anyways to fund open source projects you rely on? At least for one year, then drop it down to some arbitrary chosen percentage of that cost. That way you can still advertise it as a cost-cutting measure, and everyone would benefit.

Many years ago some people proposed to move open source to paid licensing to guarantee income for core open source developers. But the self-righteous community attacked them like it was the end of the world.

In the current cancel culture even if you use *GPL licenses you get attacked for not being MIT or similar. But mysteriously never a peep about Big Tech making billions off open source without giving back even a tiny 1% to the projects. Insanity.

The sales pitch for FOSS to corporations in the 1990s and 2000s was "free as in speech and free as in beer". Reneging on that is a straight-up rug pull on the adopters.