The Italian military has switched its first 8000 PC workstations to LibreOffice, an open source office productivity suite, reports Sonia Montegiove, a software analyst working for the Italian province of Perugia, who is helping the military with the switch to LibreOffice.

Over the next four years, the LibreDifesa project aims to migrate all of the Italian military’s well over 100,000 desktops PCs to LibreOffice. This would make it the largest free software transition involving desktop PCs by a European public administration. The LibreDifesa project should help save EUR 26 to 29 million.

For the military, the main motives for the switch include interoperability and long-term accessibility of documents and information. The military is standardising on the Open Document Format (ODF) and is urging its users to use free fonts.

“The switch to LibreOffice is so far posing no real problems for users”, said Sonia Montegiove, who is also the president of the LibreItalia open source advocacy group. She presented the LibreDifese project last Friday at the FSFE Summit in Berlin.

Replacing the current mix of old and new versions of proprietary office suites by LibreOffice, helps the IT department restructure internal IT processes, and undo the tangle of document macro’s, she says. These are re-engineered in processes that can be properly managed and maintained.

LibreItalia volunteers are working with the military, training the trainers and the support staff. They are also introducing LibreOffice to top officials, and are helping prepare the communication materials that explain the motive for the switch. The main problem, Montegiove said, is overcoming resistance. “Users will complain. But communication overcomes the resistance to change, and actually creates a sense of ownership.”

The military is contemplating the use of Linux for their desktop workstations, and is piloting the Zimbra email, calendaring and collaboration suite.

More information:

Presentation by Sonia Montegiove at the FSFE Summit 2016

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