French city of Lyon ditching Microsoft for open source office and collab tools
- Reference: 1750915806
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/06/26/lyon_leaving_microsoft/
- Source link:
The République’s third-largest city and second-largest economic hub on Tuesday [1]cited a desire to reduce dependence on American software, extend the lifespan of its hardware and therefore reduce its environmental impact, and strengthen the technological sovereignty of its public service.
Achieving those goals will see Lyon’s government, which serves over a million people, replace Office with OnlyOffice, a package developed by Latvia-based Ascensio Systems and made available under version 3 of the GNU Affero General Public License.
[2]
The municipality also plans to adopt a collaboration suite called “Territoire Numerique Ouvert” – Open Digital Territory – for videoconferencing and office automation tasks.
[3]
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France’s L'Agence nationale de la cohésion des territoires – an agency that promotes industry development in the country’s regions – awarded a €2 million ($2.3 million) grant to help develop the suite and get it running in local datacenters. Nine French communities already use the suite, which has several thousand individual users.
At the time of writing The Register could not reach the [5]territoirenumeriqueouvert.fr website so we can’t tell you much more about the suite for now.
[6]Microsoft brings 365 suite on-prem as part of sovereign cloud push
[7]Pulsant and Nine23 offer sovereign service for UK govt, regulated sectors
[8]OVHcloud chief talks up sovereignty discussions with the European Commission
[9]As Europe eyes move from US hyperscalers, IONOS dismisses scalability worries
Lyon’s government employs almost 10,000 people, so losing it as a customer will briefly sting some regional Microsoft salespeople and partners but won’t make a noticeable dent in the software giant’s balance sheet.
However the city’s decision comes just weeks after Denmark’s’ [10]Ministry for Digitalization decided to drop Microsoft and amid a European Union [11]push to develop sovereign digital capabilities that has seen the likes of Microsoft and AWS [12]try to reassure European customers that their cloudy continental outposts can’t be caught up in US claims to possess extraterritorial jurisdiction over data stored in facilities owned by American companies.
[13]
So maybe Lyon ditching Microsoft represents one more snowball in a growing avalanche. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.lyon.fr/actualite/action-municipale/la-ville-de-lyon-renforce-sa-souverainete-numerique
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aF0aNewuY-ltjAXI9dcnYgAAAs4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aF0aNewuY-ltjAXI9dcnYgAAAs4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aF0aNewuY-ltjAXI9dcnYgAAAs4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://territoirenumeriqueouvert.fr/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/17/microsoft_365_on_prem_azure_local/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/18/pulsant_nine23_sovereign_cloud/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/20/ovhcloud_boss_talks_up_ec_discussions/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/06/ionos_dismisses_scalability_worries_interview/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/13/danish_department_dump_microsoft/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/06/europe_international_digital_strategy_nothingburger/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/03/aws_european_sovereign_cloud/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/publicsector&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aF0aNewuY-ltjAXI9dcnYgAAAs4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Hardly a surprise
It's interesting to compare the behaviour of commercial companies vs some large open source projects, in terms of "making decisions on behalf of our customer". Neither are immune. GTK / Gnome springs to mind; that project also seem minded to take decisions that users and other developers don't consider to be in their interests.
The "they're American" angle is getting interesting. There's effectively a massive dilemna for US companies abroad. The US gov can make their lives very hard if they don't play ball, but local laws in theory prevent them from doing so. I think that, ultimately, too much over-reach by the US would pressurise companies to move out of the USA. Better to lose the US market than the rest of the world, if push came to shove... For example, the EU's GDP(PPP) is about the same as the USA's.
The reaction to Trump's tarifs has been an interesting demonstration that when it comes to a US / everyone else choice, it's the latter that wins.
Microsoft could move to Vancouver, and maybe quite a lot of their staff would like that. Though not all US companies would make that choice. Google doesn't need to have a HQ in the USA. Nor does Facebook or Amazon. Apple though has a lot of shops...
Re: Hardly a surprise
Firefox moving to Europe would be a good start.
European authorities using non US email systems would also be helpful and would start to rebalance the digital ecosystem.
I can understand the wish, but...
Munich says hello
https://www.theregister.com/2017/11/24/munich_will_spend_about_50_million_euros_on_windows_migration/
Re: I can understand the wish, but...
Later news:
2023: [1]Munich Is Ditching Linux For Purely Political Reasons
2024: [2]After LiMux shutdown: How Munich is slowly getting closer to open source again
The IT department in Munich has largely implemented a 5-point plan to strengthen free software. Interested parties can still apply for "sabbaticals".
2025: [3]Yet another European government is ditching Microsoft for Linux – here’s why
“We’re done with Teams!” declared Digitalisation Minister Dirk Schrödter
[1] https://itsfoss.com/munich-linux-failure/
[2] https://www.heise.de/en/news/After-LiMux-shutdown-How-Munich-is-slowly-getting-closer-to-open-source-again-9981006.html
[3] https://www.wirefan.com/2025/06/yet-another-european-government-is-ditching-microsoft-for-linux-heres-why/
Re: I can understand the wish, but...
I wish I could be done with Teams...
Snowball's Chance in Hell?
Well these days Hell isn't as hot as it used to be, what with Musk and Trump walking the earth, so anything is possible.
With a couple of million to chuck at an office suite, the killer app excuse looks increasingly thin. I can imagine the French will be their usual bulshy selves and their users will want to to flip the bird in the direction of Uncle Sam and I suspect this attitude may well help them make a success of it. I do hope so.
FYI my daily work rig is Mint and has just been updated from Mint 20 after about 5 years. It does everything I need and nothing I don't.
Dorothy; Why do you want courage anyways?
Lyons: I want to go FOSS but I'm afraid of end users and the CEO. Do you think tthe wizard can help me?
US claims
> "the likes of Microsoft and AWS try to reassure European customers that their cloudy continental outposts can’t be caught up in US claims"
... at the moment. But if Twump wants that data he'll just sign an executive order demanding that they hand it over and they'll have no option but to comply.
Microsoft and/or AWS relocating their HQ to Canada would be the best way to reassure the rest of the world. It won't happen though.
https://territoirenumeriqueouvert.fr works for me. It's a bit strange because it seems unrelated to https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/en but kind of does the same?
'https://territoirenumeriqueouvert.fr works for me"
Looks like a connections from outside the EU might be dropped - le doigt français au monde américain. ;)
Doesn't work from AU but does with a VPN with a EU exit point. All in French of course which it would be wouldn't it? Just be thankful it's not Occitan.
Re: 'https://territoirenumeriqueouvert.fr works for me"
That's where Firefox's built-in translator comes in useful.
Sounds like a negotiating tactic to see whether Microsoft will offer them a better deal.
"one more snowball"
Yeah. I hope so. Munich says hi.
Re: "one more snowball"
Careful, you'll annoy the FOSS advocates by mentioning that.
Foss support
Some support by the linux distributions can help them make better choices. Giving names of trustworthy Linux contractors to goverments.
Best to do it discretely to stop any pr or usa issues.
Le Mayor de Lyon: My advisors tell me there's an alternative to zis Americaine software...
...which is better and cheaper. I 'ave told 'im to get on wiz changing to it. Now, I must go, I have a lunch engagement wiz my Niece. I shall be back at 'alf past trois or maybe quatre.
Microsoft suit: Monsieure Mayor, if you stick with our stuff we might build a local office, take you and your Niece to warm foreign countries for conferences and give you a big discount on our services.
Monsieure Mayor: Ok sounds fair. Anyway I must go...
Poking around the TNO site
Seems to be a fair bit more that just replacing a few bits of dodgy MS software with open source components. There seems to be an identity management system (Identité numérique renforcée) based on LemonLDAP::NG which in turn was originally funded/started by the Gendarmerie Nationale.
If FR can integrate enough components into a seamless, supported software ecosystem which serves the system's users then MS might eventually be toast in EU.
The Frogs aren't afraid of decent scrap notwithstanding American cheese eating slurs. [1]«Quoi ! des cohortes étrangères / Feraient la loi dans nos foyers ! » †
† Mireille Mathieu giving it a bit of welly. ;)
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIxOl1EraXA
Vive la révolution
Nice work if you can get it. MS sounds like a Cannes do company. Meanwhile, Rabbit Software open new premises in Juan-Lapin.
Hardly a surprise
Given M$'s approach to product quality appears to now be "oops, that broke, oh well" while handing yet more QC tasks over to an AI that likely hallucinates everything to be fine.
Plus enforced, totally arbitrary hardware upgrades for W11 compatibility.
Plus the on-going infestation of all their products with ClippyPilot.
Plus the increasing amounts of data harvesting and telemetry.
Then last but certainly least the fact that they're American.
Couldn't blame any organisation for deciding to give them the boot. It seems clear they can't be trusted on multiple levels.