Leaving Microsoft, 6/7: making a migration last

Drag an email and its attachment into the relevant case file. In autumn 2025, this routine task becomes the subject of a parliamentary question in Schleswig-Holstein. Following the change of email system, a format error is disrupting transfers to eJuVa, the administrative records application used in the justice system. A fix is available. It still has to be checked alongside the other records application installed on the same computer. ^[1]

The document captures the point at which a technical solution has to become part of everyday work again. Transferring the email involves the people responsible for the email system, the receiving application, the workstation and user support. For the employee, it is one operation. A migration becomes sustainable when that whole chain works again and a team can keep it working through the next update.

After the cost of the transition years, this sixth instalment examines continuity. German public documents, accounts from France’s Gendarmerie nationale and the town of Échirolles, and the experiences of Aarhus and Munich reveal different parts of the work. Together, they help explain what a public body needs to learn if it is to sustain its own technology choices.

Getting the fix onto the workstation

The Schleswig-Holstein government’s answer is dated 7 October 2025. It distinguishes the browser route, which still has limitations, from the route through Thunderbird, the email client installed on the computer. For Thunderbird, version 6.4 of eJuVa, supplied by PDV, corrects the format problem and has been tested on its own. The next issue is compatibility with VIS-Justiz, the application for judicial records. Both need to work on the same workstation. ^[1]

Qualification here means checking that a software version is suitable for the environment in which it will run. Testing on the eJuVa side is complete; the corresponding checks on the VIS-Justiz side are still under way when the answer is issued. Teams are also preparing the local rollout. The sequence explains the work between having a fix and being able to deliver it to staff. ^[1]

The next report, dated 4 November, states that local IT administrators made the function available in October in certain specific electronic records installations, including those used in the justice system. It reports a working function without identifying the software version ultimately delivered. A further report in March 2026 confirms that the Thunderbird route is available and separately describes development of the route through Open-Xchange’s web interface. ^{[2] [3]}

How to read the evidence

The diagram draws on parliamentary responses dated 7 October and 4 November 2025 and the report of 19 March 2026. At the first point recorded, eJuVa version 6.4 has been tested on its own and joint qualification with VIS-Justiz is continuing. The November document reports delivery of the function in October in certain installations, without specifying the version. The dotted arrow connects these observations; it supplies neither a final approval date nor evidence of a complete rollout. The March report treats the web route separately. The size of each block conveys no measure of time. [1] [2] [3]

This case suggests a way to read migration reports: follow a task through to its destination. The fourth instalment examined dependencies between applications. Here, the documents reveal the work of addressing them: reproducing the error, fixing it, checking interactions and distributing the chosen version. A function available in a product can still need to complete this journey before a particular department can use it.

The day after the project closes

On 31 January 2026, Schleswig-Holstein closes its project to build the infrastructure, migrate to Open-Xchange and bring it into operation. The next day, a project begins to develop, adapt and integrate the service. Both dates appear in the government’s March report. They give substance to what follows a migration: changes to the new tool now need an organisation of their own. ^[3]

The report also sets out changes to user support. Ministries’ IT contacts are to receive information and training materials first, with demonstrations for major changes. Staff are then to receive documentation before the changes go live, together with presentations and help on site. This is the arrangement announced in March. The document alone cannot establish how it was applied to each subsequent release. ^[3]

A separate answer, dated 24 March 2026, describes stable operation and support requests normally resolved within three days, excluding requests for enhancements. The government provides neither the number of requests nor a distribution of resolution times in that passage. It also acknowledges that use of the training materials is not measured precisely. These statements describe the service as reported by the government, while leaving the experience of the wider workforce partly unmeasured. ^[4]

That distinction matters when assessing the results. A transferred mailbox can be counted. The ease of finding a shared calendar, the speed of a support response and the time spent working around a problem require other observations. To assess continuity, we propose following complete tasks and recording their incident frequency and time to recovery. This would extend the technical migration report, with measures developed alongside the departments concerned.

The switch of operating system provides another milestone. On 19 September 2026, the state chancellery announces that more than two hundred of its staff are now working on Linux. It mentions around twenty workstations still excluded for technical reasons, including business application dependencies. These are different units: people on one side, workstations on the other. They cannot be used to calculate a migration rate. The statement concerns the chancellery; planning for deployment across the other ministries is under way. ^[5]

Training, videos, forums and on-site help accompany this stage. Linux support is covered by a contract with Gonicus, working with Dataport. The public body’s ability to change its environment therefore also rests on identified providers and an organised support service. The exceptions point to technical dependencies that still need to be addressed. ^[5]

The next version is part of the journey

France’s Gendarmerie nationale offers a longer perspective. In a presentation in September 2013, Major Stéphane Dumond describes a sequence that began with applications: OpenOffice and OpenDocument in 2004, Firefox and Thunderbird in 2006, then the first Ubuntu deployments in 2008. The order matters because it separates learning to use the desktop applications from replacing the operating system beneath them. This is the chronology presented by a manager responsible for the programme. ^[6]

The same presentation describes an operation less conspicuous than the initial departure from Windows. Between March and June 2013, the Gendarmerie upgrades its GendBuntu environment from Ubuntu 10.04 to 12.04, over the network, using Canonical’s standard tool. The organisation thus moves to a new version within its chosen alternative. The slides also describe central management of workstation lifecycles and commercial support from Canonical. ^[6]

Arnaud Le Grignou’s account at a conference in October 2020 explains the work between these milestones. New versions go through a test environment and then qualification with groups of users. Teams have to reconcile the need for current security patches with the development cycles of business applications. Introducing any software, open source or proprietary, requires checks on how it fits into the environment. ^[7]

The browser has an important role in this account: many of the business applications described are web-based. Some tasks still require Windows, including work involving other ministries and forensic laboratory applications. These are the boundaries of the environment presented in 2020. We keep them attached to that date, as the public information reviewed is insufficiently precise to establish the state of the fleet in 2026. ^[7]

This longer view changes how success can be assessed. The first Linux workstation is a starting point; subsequent updates show the ability to renew the environment. A public body needs to repeat its tests, distribute releases and accommodate exceptions. Accumulated competence gives practical meaning to sovereignty: knowing how to change a tool while retaining control over the service it delivers.

Échirolles learns to run a different environment

At municipal level, the choice also starts with the people who will sustain it. In an account published in October 2024, Nicolas Vivant, responsible for digital strategy at Échirolles, describes a team initially trained on Windows. Its technicians spent several months trying Linux distributions on municipal hardware. They assessed usability, peripherals and integration with the existing infrastructure before selecting Zorin OS. ^[8]

Familiar ways of working formed part of the criteria. The account discusses keyboard shortcuts and integration with Active Directory, the Microsoft directory already used for accounts. A computer could change operating system while retaining its place in an existing access arrangement. This describes an intermediate stage of the migration, with some dependencies preserved. The choice needs to be understood within the municipal setting described by its manager. ^[8]

Before widening the rollout, the team prepared its hardware inventory, remote assistance and repeatable workstation installation tools. These functions would help it support staff and restore computers to service. The account dates the start of deployment to volunteers to September 2024, following a pilot. Preparing the team and its administration tools came before expanding use. ^[8]

A municipal vacancy shows how this direction translates into responsibilities. Advertised for a planned start date of 6 January 2026, the role calls for a systems engineer to lead the desktop computing team. Its remit includes migration to Linux, service quality, updates coordinated with the infrastructure team and the organisation of user support. The advert documents the role the town sought to fill; it provides no evidence of the recruitment outcome. ^[9]

At the ADULLACT congress in June 2026, Aurélien Farge and Nicolas Vivant discuss how jobs and role descriptions have changed. They also highlight a practical constraint: when a new open source tool comes without a licence invoice, the work needed to operate it can become less visible in decisions. The team’s capacity must remain part of the assessment. Their account describes maintenance contracts intended, among other things, to support the projects whose software the town uses. ^[10]

This connects with funding the transition. A public body gains a technical option when it can install and modify software. Turning that option into a lasting service requires assigning the work: monitoring, updating, responding to incidents and preparing changes. The vacancy and the team’s accounts show where those responsibilities sit in the organisation.

In Aarhus, operating responsibilities change hands

A Danish case reveals a similar shift in hosting. A digital sovereignty case catalogue prepared by PA Consulting for the Danish authorities describes the transfer of around sixty small web solutions used by Aarhus’s Culture and Citizens’ Services department from Azure to Hetzner. The work runs from late 2024 to spring 2025. It covers relatively simple services, largely developed and operated by the municipality itself. ^[11]

According to the account, users see the same interfaces and functions. Behind them, the hosting choice gives the municipal ITK team more responsibility for monitoring, security updates, performance checks, backups and recovery. The catalogue describes the development of internal skills to undertake this work. Its observations concern the service and configuration chosen in this case, rather than every product available from the two hosting providers. ^[11]

The example makes one question tangible before a switch: who takes over each task performed by the previous service? The answer affects funding, skills and daily interventions. The case covers a limited group of web services; extending its findings to complex applications across the municipality would require further investigation. The catalogue draws on documents and interviews with those responsible for the cases studied. It provides no independent measurement here of availability before and after migration. ^[11]

Letting fixes travel beyond the organisation

Munich adds a final piece at the level of the shared software project. The city states that it used LibreOffice as the office suite in its LiMux environment until the end of 2023. Its documentation describes how contributions travelled: fixes and new functions first entered LibreOffice’s main development branch, where future releases take shape. They passed through The Document Foundation’s quality assurance process and, once validated, were backported to the municipal version. ^[12]

Working upstream means contributing a local change to the project that maintains the software. In the process described by Munich, the city benefited from that project’s quality assurance, while municipal contributions also became available in LibreOffice. A fix could therefore serve other organisations too. ^[12]

Reading the process and its limits

A reconstruction of the historical process described on the official Munich Open Source website: contributions to The Document Foundation’s main development branch, quality assurance, then backporting to the municipal version after validation. The page dates the use of LibreOffice within LiMux to the end of 2023. The diagram represents an organisation of work. It measures neither the number of fixes nor the time they took, and does not describe the city’s current computer fleet. [12]

The same page states that WollMux, the document template tool developed in Munich, was entrusted to The Document Foundation and continues as the LibreOffice Template System, or LOTS. Work originating in the municipality has thus left components with a wider project. Their future depends on people and organisations able to maintain them. Publishing the code makes that possible; doing it still requires work. ^[12]

Munich now has an Open Source Program Office, a team coordinating the use and publication of open source software. Its stated responsibilities include licensing advice, community relationships and resource coordination. Its remit distinguishes support for purchasing from running procurement procedures. The office shows the capability the city is organising; its existence cannot establish that the municipal computer fleet has returned to Linux as a whole. ^[13]

The lesson extends beyond the direction of any particular migration. A public body funding a fix can arrange for it to become part of the shared project, document its needs and retain the skills required to work with other maintainers. It then contributes to sustaining the alternative on which it relies.

An alternative has to endure

These experiences illuminate successive stages in a service’s life. In Schleswig-Holstein, a task becomes workable again across several applications. In the Gendarmerie, the environment has to move through later software versions. In Échirolles and Aarhus, operating responsibilities become part of the teams’ work. Munich describes a process connecting local needs with maintenance of a shared project.

Each set of results belongs to its own setting. Government documents report their authors’ actions. Conference presentations reveal how those responsible understand their work. Dates and scope make the reported achievements traceable, while the available measurements remain uneven. An investigation of service quality would also need comparable incident data and accounts from staff over time.

For an institution preparing to leave, these cases suggest a demanding criterion: the ability to repeat tomorrow what it managed today. Test a change, restore a task, train a colleague, maintain a contribution. This work makes freedom of choice practicable as software, teams and needs evolve.

The final instalment examines how public decisions, contracts and system architecture can preserve that capability through changes of supplier and political term.

Sources and limits of the investigation

Documentary research completed as of 9 October 2026. The German parliamentary responses were read in chronological order, distinguishing a tested fix, a delivered function, a closed project and developments still planned. The French accounts and Danish case catalogue are attributed to their authors. The historical Gendarmerie and Munich cases do not describe their current computer fleets. We conducted no interviews of our own, system audits or independent measurements of availability or satisfaction. Both infographics depict documented processes and contain no simulated results. The opening illustration is a conceptual composition.

1. Schleswig-Holstein, Drucksache 20/3632, 7 October 2025, pages 3–4. Government answer on transferring emails and attachments: eJuVa version 6.4, supplied by PDV, testing in isolation and joint qualification with VIS-Justiz. The reported status is that at the date of the answer.
2. Schleswig-Holstein, Umdruck 20/5509, 4 November 2025, pages 2–3. Local delivery in October of the transfer function in certain electronic records installations, including those used in the justice system. The passage does not name the version delivered.
3. Schleswig-Holstein, Umdruck 20/6328, 19 March 2026, pages 2, 4 and 5. Initial project closed on 31 January and its successor started on 1 February; separate Thunderbird and web routes; announced arrangements for supporting staff.
4. Schleswig-Holstein, Drucksache 20/4245, 24 March 2026, pages 5 and 7. Reported operating status and normal handling of support requests, excluding enhancements; no precise measurement of the intensity of training material use.
5. Schleswig-Holstein, Staatskanzlei nutzt Linux – nächster Meilenstein auf dem Weg zur digitalen Unabhängigkeit in Schleswig-Holstein, 19 September 2026. More than two hundred chancellery staff using Linux, with around twenty workstations excluded for technical reasons; training and support from Gonicus with Dataport. Results announced by the government for this institution.
6. Major Stéphane Dumond, Linux on desktop: a success story, Lisbon, 26 September 2013, pages 6–8 and 10. Software chronology, workstation lifecycles, GendBuntu upgrade from March to June 2013 and Canonical support. Presentation by a programme manager, hosted on the European Interoperable Europe platform.
7. Arnaud Le Grignou, Le logiciel libre dans l’environnement de la Gendarmerie nationale, conference of 15 October 2020, Libre à lire transcription, sections “Situation en 2020” and “Gestion de projet”. Qualification, web applications, patches, Windows exceptions and tool maintenance. Historical testimony; the transcription links to the original video.
8. Nicolas Vivant, Pourquoi et comment Échirolles a choisi Zorin OS, 12 October 2024. Personal account by the municipal manager: initial skills, trials, selection criteria, administration tools, pilot and voluntary rollout.
9. Town of Échirolles, systems engineer and head of desktop computing vacancy, applications due before 11 November 2025, with a planned start date of 6 January 2026. Migration, support and maintenance duties. The advert does not confirm that recruitment was completed.
10. Aurélien Farge and Nicolas Vivant, Passer au libre, c’est changer de monde, ADULLACT congress, Montpellier, 4 June 2026, Libre à lire transcription. Changes to roles, team capacity and maintenance contracts. Accounts by participants in the project at a congress devoted to open source software.
11. PA Consulting, Cases på digital suverænitet, January 2026, for Denmark’s Ministry of Digital Affairs, its agency, KL and Danish Regions; methodology on page 2, case 11 on pages 34–36. Small web solutions used by Aarhus’s Culture and Citizens’ Services department, moved from Azure to Hetzner between late 2024 and spring 2025, and responsibilities taken over by ITK. A descriptive catalogue based on documents and interviews with those responsible.
12. City of Munich, LibreOffice, official Munich Open Source website, accessed 9 October 2026. Use within LiMux until the end of 2023, contributions to the main development branch, quality assurance at The Document Foundation, backporting to the municipal version after validation and transfer of WollMux, now LOTS.
13. City of Munich, Open Source Program Office, official website, accessed 9 October 2026. Coordination, support, licensing and community relationships; scope of purchasing advice.