The Netherlands is rolling its own software and services after U.S. sanctions took Microsoft off the table

When the U.S. government imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands, it also meant that its chief prosecutor lost access to Microsoft services, including email. It was then that the Dutch government decided that it was time to make plans that would reduce its reliance on software and services that were made or based in the United States. The result of that decision was DAWO, or Digitaal Autonome Werkomgeving Overheid (Digital Autonomous Work Environment for Government in English). And work is underway to bring it to fruition.

As Tweakers reports, via It's FOSS, the program was aimed at refreshing the technologies used by the Dutch government in such a way that it would no longer be in a situation where it could lose access to critical systems at the whim of a foreign country. From operating systems to office software and cloud services, a new system had to be devised and rolled out.

That system is built around NixOS, with three service providers tasked with the job. While SSC-ICT, DICTU, and DUO-ICT were the three chosen, the whole thing is overseen by the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations.

From a technical point of view, the use of NixOS was a key one. Its use of the Nix package manager means that each package is installed in its own directory with immutable and signed contents. That alone means that the setup is incredibly easy to reproduce across multiple machines, something that is an obvious benefit when dealing with different facets of a government. It's been suggested that up to 90% of a configuration can be carried over from one deployment to another. And as a bonus, NixOS can also run on computers that Windows 11 would usually balk at.

While the switch from Microsoft software and services to brand-new alternatives is a long and complicated process, steps are very much being made in the right direction. Eight municipalities are running trial programs right now, with the first stable version of the platform expected to be ready by the end of 2027.

The Netherlands is far from the only European country to be concerned about the ability of the United States' government to cut off access to software and services. Germany has already jumped ship from Microsoft-based systems, while Denmark and France are also in the process of a similar rethinking of their tech stacks as the one carried out by the Dutch.

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