The Netherlands is preparing to dump Windows and Office for its own Linux

The Netherlands is building a government Linux distribution and open-source office stack, motivated by concerns over dependence on U.S. tech firms and fears they might cut services or hand over data under political pressure. The move follows similar shifts in several European countries and cites incidents where U.S. service providers acted at the behest of U.S. authorities as driving the push for digital sovereignty. The project, named DAWO (Digitaal Autonome Werkomgeving Overheid), is intended to replace not just the Windows desktop but the broader workplace stack with open-source alternatives to ensure control, resiliency, and privacy.

DAWO began with trials of openSUSE and Fedora but settled on NixOS for desktop fleets because its declarative configuration, Nix package model, and immutable signed content enable reproducible, code-defined system states, simpler rollbacks, and stronger update management. For productivity software the Netherlands is evaluating France’s La Suite and Germany’s openDesk or building a homegrown MijnBureau bundle using Nextcloud, Collabora, Element, and OpenProject. The Ministry of the Interior and state IT bodies SSC-ICT, DICTU, and DUO-ICT are running pilots in eight municipalities, with a first stable DAWO release planned by the end of 2027, while acknowledging that large-scale OS and office migrations remain complex.