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ICC ditches Microsoft 365 for openDesk

631 points by vincvinc

by caubin

2 subcomments

Hei hei,
I'm working for the XWiki and CryptPad projects, which are integrated in openDesk. Here are a couple links / infos that can be interesting to understand the context of openDesk.
The openDesk project comes initially from an initiative of the Ministry of Interior of Germany in 2021, to build the alternative to Office 365. The project was progressively transferred in 2025 to a state-owned organization, the ZenDis (https://zendis.de), which oversees the global development of openDesk.
The source code is mainly available on https://gitlab.opencode.de/bmi/opendesk, where you will find mirrors of every project which is bundled into openDesk (Nextcloud, Collabora, Element, Univention, XWiki, Jitsi, OpenXchange, CryptPad, OpenProject, …)
There was also a couple public presentations about openDesk at FOSDEM during the past years :
* In 2024 : https://archive.fosdem.org/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-3...
* In 2025 : https://archive.fosdem.org/2025/schedule/event/fosdem-2025-5...

by bonyt

1 subcomments

Looks like openDesk uses Collabora Online, which is itself based on libreoffice online - web based libreoffice.
https://www.opendesk.eu/en/product#document-management ("Collabora Online powers openDesk with a robust office suite designed for efficient teamwork and secure document editing.")
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collabora_Online ("Collabora Online (often abbreviated as COOL) is an open-source online office suite developed by Collabora, based on LibreOffice Online, the web-based edition of the LibreOffice office suite.")

by jacquesm

2 subcomments

Rightly so. They should have never used it in the first place. What with the US not recognizing the court it always made very little sense to me that they would rely on the infrastructure components to be supplied by the USA. The latest sanctions are just another step in something that was already in motion from day #1.
The world order at the highest level relies on the nations themselves to behave, especially the largest ones because nobody has the practical power to enforce the decisions of the court in case defendants are in places where the court is not recognized. To USA not recognizing the court has always shown that they don't care about the crimes they commit.

by uvesten

1 subcomments

So, reading the documentation in the [repo](https://gitlab.opencode.de/bmi/opendesk/deployment/opendesk/...) it’s immediately made clear that you should use the Enterprise Edition for production use. (Since the German state is behind this, why not focus on totally free software for production use?)
But what really surprised me are statements like this in the README:
” Nextcloud Enterprise: openDesk uses the Nextcloud Enterprise to the build Nextcloud container image for oD EE. The Nextcloud EE codebase might contain EE exclusive (longterm support) security patches, plus the Guard app, that is not publicly available, while it is AGPL-3.0 licensed.
And
COOL Controller container image and Helm chart: Source code and chart are using Mozilla Public License Version 2.0, but the source code is not public. It is provided to customers upon request. ”
This, according with other paragraphs describing percentages of free and non-free code in certain components really makes me wonder…

by evolve2k

1 subcomments

Lawyers historically are notoriously linked to Microsoft and its formats as a somewhat unintentional industry side standard.
Moves like this hearten me as for certain lawyers the formats and standards they now will be expected to follow has just shifted, towards open source no less.

by velcrovan

2 subcomments

Open Desk (since the article doesn't link): https://www.opendesk.eu/en
Does anyone have any experience using it?

by slwvx

3 subcomments

The lack of anything at all on the roadmap page [1] and lack of a link to their code repository on a blog post touting their open-source cred [2] does not build confidence. I found their code repo link in the comments here, after not finding it easily on their site.
EDIT: to be clear, I'm all for open source software, and for more options to tools from big tech firms.
[1] https://www.opendesk.eu/en/roadmap
[2] https://www.opendesk.eu/en/blog/open-source-software-trust

by eeasss

1 subcomments

All else aside, Microsoft 365 as an office suite screams for disruption. If you don't believe me try actually using their copilot and observe the poor integrations with core products such as Excel/Word/Powerpoint. Sorry for the offtopic but it really hurts for those of us who are forced by their CIO to use this thing.

by vincvinc

3 subcomments

Related:
"IMPOSING SANCTIONS ON THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT" (white house, feb 2025) https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/impo...
Microsoft admits in French court it can't keep EU data safe from US authorities (jul 2025) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45822902

by baumschubser

1 subcomments

Meanwhile in southern Germany.
https://www.heise.de/en/news/Bavaria-wants-to-move-to-Micros...

by pjmlp

2 subcomments

After Microsoft left politics mess up with their customer base something like that was to be expected.

by tptacek

3 subcomments

Does someone have an English language link for this?
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

by ebbi

0 subcomment

Good. It is not befitting of the ICC to be using tools, and thereby funding, a company that has been helping states carrying out war crimes.

by ncr100

0 subcomment

Good move for ICC.
Especially since USA, home country of Microsoft corporation, is exhibiting military junta techniques.
USA is killing citizens of foreign countries, weekly via the "U.S. military conducting missile strikes against boats in the Caribbean and Pacific claiming they are shipping drugs".
These non-military victims, citizens, being killed intentionally are a violation of human rights.

by Surac

0 subcomment

I find it hard to compare o365 to OpenDesk. O365 is just a bag of programs using vaguely the same UX concept and openDesk is a full integrated environment. I myself changed to Nextcloud with integrated collab office and will never go back to MS

by dang

0 subcomment

Related ongoing thread:
OpenDesk – a flexible all-in-one office suite for the public sector - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45838239 - Nov 2025 (19 comments)

by maxglute

1 subcomments

Maybe it's time for UN to start rolling out their own global linux distro / mobile OS, Cue UN getting sanctioned in 3...2... But jokes aside seems like a useful global good.

by spwa4

1 subcomments

Will it matter if the whitehouse realizes that they control accepting of email from the icc's domains for at least 80% of the worlds' email addresses?

by lordofgibbons

0 subcomment

I can't find a single screenshot of opendesk applications anywhere - including their own website. This is extremely strange.

0 subcomment

by testing22321

2 subcomments

It seems likely the ICC will issue an arrest warrant for Trump in the coming years. I see all their recent moves as a signal they want to distance themselves from the US so they can actually issue that warrant.

by petepete

7 subcomments

I can't see any links to repos on the website, is it actually open?
https://www.opendesk.eu

by zie

0 subcomment

I wonder if this will be like Germany's rush to run Linux across their entire fed. govt and it will only last a few years. Germany gave up eventually. I wonder if the ICC will too, or if it will actually stick this time around.
I hope it sticks, but I'm not holding my breath.

by bawolff

9 subcomments

I think the bigger question is why they were using microsoft products in the first place.
USA has been very hostile to the ICC under trump, but its not exactly a huge shift, bush was also incredibly hostile. It seems borderline incompetent to use a microsoft cloud offering given the political situation.
Not to mention given the type of work they do, seems like hosting stuff off site at all is a bad plan.

by amriksohata

0 subcomment

ditches is a strong word here, we change software providers for different tooling all the time
dependency on american corps is a bit weird, when they wont move away from windows just for one presendential term surely? trump will be out in X years. whats the point?
some of these organisations are now more politically aligned than ever questioning their neutrality

by anikom15

0 subcomment

[flagged]

by greatgib

0 subcomment

[flagged]

by Elfener

1 subcomments

It's actually not called Microsoft 365, but "the Microsoft 365 Copilot app" (not to be confused with Microsoft Copilot (a slop generator with the same logo))

by pfortuny

0 subcomment

There seems to be no spreadsheet…

by bix6

3 subcomments

No Excel replacement? :/