ICC drops Microsoft Office for new German OSS alternative

Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Interior is backing OSS alternative "openDesk"

Updated Nov 4, 2025 11:05 AM / Published Nov 4, 2025 10:53 AM 4 min read

ICC drops Microsoft Office for new German OSS alternative — Image credit: https://unsplash.com/@guillaumeperigois

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is abandoning Microsoft Office in favour of German open source office software suite openDesk.

The Apache 2.0-licensed openDesk is a project explicitly backed by Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Interior. It brings together at least nine other open source software (OSS) suites. It is maintained by Germany’s Center for Digital Sovereignty (ZenDiS) on GitLab and launched in 2024.

The planned move was first reported by German publication Handelsblatt on October 30. It comes amid a steady drumbeat of news about similar migrations by European entities, amid a digital sovereignty drive.

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Kiera Fields

Kiera Fields is head of special projects at The Stack and was previously at Business Insider. She writes about leadership, tech and business, covering everything from earnings calls to C-suite interviews.