noyb has scored another win in its proceedings against Microsoft 365 Education: The Austrian data protection authority (DSB) has decided that the company illegally installed cookies on the devices of a pupil without consent. According to Microsoft’s own documentation, these cookies analyse user behaviour, collect browser data and are used for advertising. Microsoft now has four weeks to comply and cease the use of tracking cookies.
I believe right now there are discussions about it on Europe to adopt more FOSS projects. The biggest problems I see happening here is who effectively maintains this, as well who gives the money (and incentives) to keep the projects alive. As of now the German government does have a program for the incentives (do not recall if they do the people’s part). Hopefully it becomes more wide and clear how this will be going forward.
Also, I do not think it would be such a small win. If anything is very significant. If you can change at that stage the tools used, eventually propagates further into the working force at some point.
How much maintenance does a word processor need? The fact that its free IS the financial incentive. You could install mint and libre office on every computer in a school and it would basically be a seamless transition and most people would barely even notice.