• Mihies@programming.dev
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    3 days ago

    Not even sure there is that much will on politicians side. I hope there is, but they are mostly ignorant (judging from politicians in my country) and wouldn’t distinguish between Word and Windows. They might be interested if there are elections and public pushes for it. But once elected then it’s another song based on US stick and carrot. Mostly sticks from this administration. But I really do hope we start to move and now is the best time possible. Also recently there was data that German Federal Administration is paying Microsoft something like:

    2023: 274.091.361,75 Euro
    2024: 347.665.579,71 Euro
    2025: 481.369.660,77 Euro
    

    The trend is not encouraging, isn’t it, and those are insane numbers - imagine what could we have for that amount with OSS. There is another neglected area - computer education in elementary school is practically non-existent and tiny-existent in middle school in my country while MS is subsidizing software for government and specially education sector. And so the circle of is closed.

      • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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        2 days ago

        yes, german has a very weird way of writing numbers, where . is replaced by , and , is replaced by .

        So, in US numbers, that would be EUR 274,091,361.75

        It has confused many people already. It should be made more consistent internationally. I propose all use the US format of 274,091,361.75 because that’s already used in programming and so it’s widespread.

        • themurphy@lemmy.ml
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          2 days ago

          “Very weird way of writing numbers”

          You mean like in all of Europe (excluding UK and Ireland) and latin America? It’s only english speaking countries and some Asian countries that separate with ,