The University where I studied switched from Linux to Windows because to many people complained that it was “too hard”. Even the computers in the library that were just for searching books aka 90% of the time just using the browser were switched from Linux to Windows because the students complained. I now work in a job where most of our customers are public institutions and you won’t even get our IT department to let go of decade old outdated software. Too many old people who will throw a hissy fit if anything suddenly looks different from what they’ve been used to for 30 years.

My contract also won’t be renewed. My bosses reason that he explicitly told me is: I don’t fit in because I ask too many questions like “Why don’t we use better alternatives for X software.” We do “project planning” with email-chains and Excel sheets. No, we can’t have any project planning tools, because this is what the 60-year old colleagues have been doing since their first day 43 years ago. If it was good enough for them back then it’s good enough for you now. That’s just how we do it here, since you can’t get used to it we’re letting you go. Etc pp, you get the idea. And the people in the IT department are the same! Never change a running system, it’s worked for 40 years now, no need to try something new.

There’s just no way you’ll get a public institution to switch to open source. Everybody over 50 will scream bloody murder about having to change how they work and it’ll be changed back in no time.