The Netherlands has made a bold decision: to replace Windows 11 with a sovereign system, DAWO. Born from an increasingly urgent need for digital independence, this project integrates NixOS as its cornerstone. Several municipalities are already testing this solution focused on stability and complete control of the IT ecosystem.
DAWO: a comprehensive ecosystem for the digital sovereignty of Dutch administrations
DAWO stands for Digitaal Autonome Werkomgeving Overheid, in other words, a digital autonomous working environment for the public sector. Far from being just a distribution, DAWO is a coherent set that brings together an operating system, collaborative tools, and centralized management. The Ministry of the Interior has entrusted the development to several state actors, with a trial run in eight municipalities, including Amsterdam.
This initiative was originally triggered by a concrete incident: in 2025, US sanctions deprived the International Criminal Court of access to its Microsoft services. This stopgap highlighted the fragility of an administration dependent on foreign solutions. It is easy to understand why the Netherlands wishes to regain control over its digital infrastructures.
The work does not start from scratch. The system is based on the NixOS distribution, which comes with a unique configuration manager, simplifying deployment and maintenance. Meanwhile, a variant based on Fedora Kinoite is also being explored, to avoid putting all the eggs in one basket.
Why NixOS is the technical foundation of DAWO
NixOS is not an arbitrary choice. Its academic origin in the Netherlands and its declarative design make the distribution ideal for an environment as demanding as that of a state. Describing the exact state of the workstation in files ensures perfect homogeneity between machines.
This technical precision facilitates repeatability and fleet management without surprises. DAWO-NixOS even includes the automatic generation of a SBOM, a software bill of materials, to maintain a rigorous eye on the software supply chain. This is not a trivial detail; it is a direct response to the issues of transparency and control of state software.
The project initially tested openSUSE and Fedora, but these distributions, tied to commercial companies, did not fit the desire for total autonomy. Here, no one controls NixOS, which is reassuring in multiple ways during a phase of digital sovereignty.
DAWO relies on in-house tools for management and collaboration
A reliable workstation is good. But tools are also needed to manage these machines on a large scale. DAWO provides Sextant, a fleet management system dedicated to NixOS. This facilitates deployment, updates, and monitoring, even on older laptops considered obsolete for Windows 11.
For mobiles, the team is exploring Fleet, an open-source management tool, showing attention to the diversity of platforms. The software foundation is enriched with Mijn Bureau, a Dutch collaborative suite. The priority is clearly placed on European solutions to avoid another technical lock-in.
In this perspective, the project keeps a close eye on other initiatives, including the German openDesk and the French public digital suite. It is a European coalition of practices, not an isolated leap into the void.
Additional building blocks for a coherent ecosystem
The cloud cannot be forgotten. DAWO therefore includes cloud services (DAWO-Cloud), systematic identity management (DAWO-IAM), and even an artificial intelligence component (DAWO-AI). These components are built in coherence with the entire project, to avoid any friction.
DAWO-Core serves as a technical foundation, assembling the common configuration. The sources are shared on Codeberg, inviting exemplary transparency and citizen contribution. The goal is to be able to run DAWO on refurbished laptops without the sometimes discouraging requirements of proprietary OSs.
The schedule remains ambitious. No mass deployment before 2027, with a version 1.0 expected by then. For now, the ongoing experiments are validating the stability and compatibility of the system.
