DrupalCon Rotterdam Focuses on Digital Sovereignty and Microsoft 365

Summit contributors weigh in on which would be better: Quitting Microsoft 365 cold turkey or a gradual withdrawal.

Government and open source specialists who participated in DrupalCon Rotterdam’s Government Summit have offered differing assessments of Switzerland’s decision to develop an independent digital workplace alongside Microsoft 365. In written responses to The DropTimes following the event, six contributors considered whether running two systems can help governments reduce their dependence on a major technology supplier or leave that dependence largely unchanged. Their answers differ on whether coexistence should be treated as a transition strategy or a meaningful form of independence.

The question goes beyond choosing between commercial and open source software. For public administrations, digital sovereignty concerns their ability to control, maintain and replace the technology on which essential services depend. A government may own or inspect its software code while still relying on one supplier for access management, document compatibility, technical support or daily operations. The responses from Rotterdam explore how governments might gain more control without creating unacceptable risks for employees and public services.

Switzerland’s Test of an Independent Workplace

Switzerland provides a concrete test of that problem. On September 2, the Swiss Federal Chancellery announced that its BOSS (office automation with open source software) feasibility study had found a browser-based open source workplace suitable in principle for important standard office processes. The evaluation involved 172 participants from several federal departments and examined functions including document editing, email, calendars, file storage, collaboration and communications.

The government plans to make an independent workplace environment available to approximately 3,000 employees involved in critical business processes from the end of 2027. The first phase has an estimated budget of 9 million Swiss francs and will operate alongside Microsoft 365. The study evaluated openDesk, a platform developed by Germany’s Center for Digital Sovereignty that brings together open source applications for office and collaboration tasks. Switzerland has not decided whether to replace Microsoft 365 more extensively, and its assessment identifies technical and organizational limitations, including applications closely tied to Microsoft’s architecture.

The distinction between testing an alternative and committing to a replacement runs through the views offered by contributors to the Government Summit, held on September 28. The event brought together public-sector technology leaders and practitioners working with Drupal, an open source system used to build and manage websites, to discuss shared infrastructure, public procurement, and digital sovereignty. Their experiences with government technology provide context for a debate that extends beyond any one software platform.

Making the Transition Without Disrupting Government Services

Teun van der Vorm, general director of the Dutch government IT service provider DICTU (ICT Implementation Service), sees a hybrid approach as a realistic way to manage the transition. Van der Vorm delivered the summit keynote, “The Struggle for Digital Sovereignty in Government,” and participated in a discussion about responsibility for sustaining open source ecosystems. His response reflects the operational risks facing large organizations that cannot afford interruptions to essential systems.

For Van der Vorm, moving immediately from one technology environment to another can be risky, particularly if an organization limits itself to a single replacement. Operating proprietary and open source tools together could allow employees and technical teams to adapt while services continue. He considers this a more stable migration strategy and sees a complete departure from Microsoft 365 as a longer-term possibility.

His position treats coexistence as a way to manage implementation risks, rather than a decision to retain proprietary technology indefinitely. A phased transition would give government departments time to evaluate the replacement environment and develop the technical expertise needed to operate it. The approach also recognizes that maintaining reliable services is itself an essential responsibility of public-sector IT teams.

Esmeralda Tijhoff, product owner at DICTU and a board member of the Dutch Drupal Association, shares the concern about changing established systems too quickly. Her perspective places particular weight on the employees who must work with the replacement technology. Governments have existing contracts, infrastructure, and procedures, while staff must find time to learn unfamiliar tools alongside their normal responsibilities.

Tijhoff warned in her response that attempting too much change at once can undermine confidence in the transition. Employees must learn new ways of working while organizations provide sufficient support during the adjustment. Without that support, even a technically successful replacement may encounter resistance.

At DrupalCon Rotterdam, Tijhoff and Rikkert Steenbergen presented DICTU’s Government Drupal Platform, a shared foundation for government websites, and discussed the difficulty of reconciling different organizational requirements. Her support for gradual change nevertheless has a limit: coexistence must lead somewhere. She considers the Swiss program credible because it is explicitly testing whether an eventual exit from Microsoft 365 is possible.

The two DICTU contributors identify different aspects of the same implementation problem. Van der Vorm emphasizes the risks of replacing established systems too abruptly, while Tijhoff argues that employees need enough support and confidence to make a transition succeed. Both recognize a role for parallel systems, although Tijhoff cautions that running them without an exit plan would preserve the original dependency.

Avoiding New Dependencies While Existing Ones Remain

Klara Binon, Drupal team lead at the Flemish public employment service VDAB, approaches the question through decisions about new technology and data. Binon is cautious about judging Switzerland’s specific program because she does not know enough about its contracts, architecture, or implementation plans. She nevertheless identifies a practical choice available to organizations that cannot immediately replace their existing systems.

Rather than treating migration as a single event, Binon would direct new development towards open source alternatives where possible. That approach would not remove legacy dependencies immediately, but it could prevent governments from extending them through each new project. It also raises questions about where new information is stored and whether it can be transferred to other systems in the future.

Binon’s Rotterdam session, “Saving Money by Using the Drupal Website You Already Have,” provided a relevant example from VDAB. The session described how an existing Drupal intranet was already gathering, enriching and sharing location information that a proposed new master-location tool was intended to consolidate. Her example raises a procurement question that applies well beyond Drupal: before purchasing another system, can a government use or extend infrastructure it already maintains?

Bert Boerland, chair of Drupal Netherlands Foundation and a Drupal contributor for more than 25 years, is more explicit about the limits of coexistence. He chaired the summit panel on whether local governments can build and sustain the open source infrastructure they need. His response distinguishes between introducing alternative software and obtaining the independence to leave an established supplier.

Boerland compares running open source and proprietary platforms together to constructing a new town hall while leaving the vault and keys in the old building. The analogy describes a situation in which an organization develops new capabilities but remains dependent on its existing infrastructure for essential functions. For Boerland, the arrangement can help during a transition but should not be mistaken for the completion of that transition.

Boerland argues that access to open source code does not automatically remove dependencies embedded in identity systems, file formats, and established working practices. Governments should require open standards, contribute directly to upstream software projects, and ensure that changing providers is practical rather than merely permitted by a licence. At DrupalCon Rotterdam, he also facilitated a session examining the sovereignty, governance, and cost of Drupal’s own software distribution infrastructure. The session addressed how even an open source ecosystem can depend heavily on the infrastructure used to distribute and maintain its software.

Where Binon concentrates on preventing new dependencies from developing, Boerland focuses on the technical arrangements that can make departure difficult. Both perspectives suggest that the number of open source applications deployed is an incomplete measure of sovereignty. The more demanding question is whether an organization can continue operating when a supplier changes its terms, withdraws a service, or becomes unavailable.

The Cost of Coexistence and the Value of Public-Sector Collaboration

Mike Gifford, open standards and practices lead at the US-based technology services company CivicActions and a Drupal core accessibility maintainer, questions the costs and operational complexity of maintaining two workplace environments. Gifford participated in the summit discussion on sustaining open source ecosystems and delivered a session on using government procurement to support accessible open source software. He considers coexistence an option during migration, but is unconvinced that Switzerland’s initial deployment is ambitious enough.

Gifford expects parallel office suites to increase costs and complicate workflows, particularly for employees who already find software changes difficult to navigate. He also questions whether a relatively small deployment can substantially reduce the dependence of an administration with tens of thousands of workstations. Switzerland has not yet established the cost of any wider rollout or normal long-term operation, so the financial consequences remain uncertain.

Nevertheless, Gifford sees value in giving government employees access to openDesk and helping technical teams develop the expertise needed to maintain an independent environment. For him, a clearer migration pathway would also give greater substance to the principle of Public Money, Public Code, which calls for publicly financed software to be made available for wider public use where appropriate. His assessment places the cost of supporting an alternative alongside its practical usefulness during a disruption or future migration.

Jayvik Patel, strategic digital services manager at Luton Borough Council in the UK, approaches supplier dependence through the experience of delivering services to residents. At the Government Summit, Patel presented “From Business Case to Live Service: Luton’s Journey to LocalGov Drupal,” covering the council’s reasons for adopting a shared open source website platform, its procurement decisions, governance, and delivery experience. His response considers technological independence alongside the practical needs of the people using public services.

Patel sees coexistence as a way of preserving choice for stakeholders and decision-makers, rather than requiring every government function to use open source software. He sees LocalGov Drupal, an open-source website platform for local governments that’s built on Drupal, as offering a different model of reducing supplier dependence. The project allows councils to collaborate on the development and maintenance of website tools instead of each authority commissioning similar capabilities separately. It uses Drupal as a common technical foundation while enabling councils to adapt services to local requirements.

For Patel, independence is not the only test of whether a technology decision is worthwhile. His experience with LocalGov Drupal demonstrates how councils can work collaboratively on public-facing infrastructure while retaining greater influence over the systems they use. The Luton example does not solve the specific problem of replacing Microsoft 365, but it shows how public organizations can share responsibility for essential digital services. Greater technological control, in his assessment, must remain connected to the quality of services residents receive.

What Will Determine Whether Switzerland’s Approach Works?

The six contributors do not propose a single route away from proprietary software. Their responses identify choices that arise at different stages of a transition, from protecting continuity and supporting staff to directing new investment, maintaining open standards, controlling costs and meeting the needs of service users. They also distinguish between different forms of independence. A parallel platform might improve resilience during a disruption without removing reliance on the original supplier for everyday work.

Switzerland’s program is designed in part to examine that distinction. Its feasibility study found that important office functions could operate through open source alternatives, but also documented obstacles to broader adoption. The planned deployment will provide further experience with operations, security, staffing and costs. It does not yet establish whether the federal administration can move all critical workflows away from Microsoft’s technology.

For governments considering a similar approach, the Rotterdam contributors’ responses point to questions that software selection alone cannot settle. An alternative may provide negotiating power or emergency capacity, but its contribution to digital sovereignty depends on whether institutions can use it independently, sustain it over time, and extend it without rebuilding the same restrictions elsewhere. Switzerland’s next phase will provide evidence about how far that independence can be achieved while two workplace environments remain in use.