6 ms·

I wish all governments did audits like this. Either the software would get less invasive, or we'd see Linux everywhere, wins all around. How bad is it that not

I wish all governments did audits like this. Either the software would get less invasive, or we'd see Linux everywhere, wins all around. How bad is it that not even governments can use windows without the data vacuum being turned on? And they need to commission these investigations to even figure out what that means?

iwiririwo 8y ago
Well there's other issues with Linux on the desktop that doesn't let anybody except developers use it productively. You always have to weight your priorities, and getting stuff done is often number one priority.
- Sylos 8y ago
  The use in government would mean running it in centrally administered form. The end user would just as well just click on the icon on their desktop and the application opens where they do their work. There may obviously be other problems, like the application not being available on Linux, or needing administrators with Linux knowledge, but that's nothing the end user has to deal with.
- emayljames 8y ago
  LTS (Long Term Service) versions of Linux OS' are now breaking even, or even sometimes ahead, of Windows. Office is easily on par (actually better IMO). You can have the UI exactly as you want it to be. You have GIMP. The home of Apache/PHP, and many other improvements!.
  - winrid 8y ago
    Word is light-years ahead of any open source alternative. Gimp is not a photoshop replacement. These guys don't care about Apache on their desktops. :)
    - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
      Lucky you can use Word in a browser these days, then. I'm not sure which government departments are using Photoshop but the few that do could just as easily use Macs.
    - vetinari 8y ago
      Most people do not use any advanced features, neither in Writer nor in Word. You can congratulate yourself, if your colleagues know what are styles, most just hard-code the formatting.
      - Klover 8y ago
        If this “normal users are stupid” thing is supposed to be in favour of Linux then it’s a stale argument.
        vetinari 8y ago
        Normal users are not stupid. They just don't care.
        brokenmachine 8y ago
        How can you tell when the end result is identical? /s
      - thepp1983 8y ago
        The problem is not whether YOU use the advanced features. It is whether someone else does. I generally don't require any better than Markdown and for larger documents I just LaTeX. However I am normally sent work documents with all sorts of macros from other companies (embedded forms) to fill out for things like payments, right to work etc. These require Microsoft Office. Originally when I started I thought I could get away with Libre Office. It worked at best 50% and these weren't complex macros (I inspected them myself). None of these forms are outside the norm of what a HR department, University faculty office or most medium to large companies use.
- mario0b1 8y ago
  The Problem (atleast in my opinion) is that there will "never" be any change in this if people are not willing to sacrifice just a little bit of usability. Why should companys write software for an OS that does not get used? Sure, getting stuff done is a high priority, but has it to be number one? Can't we put ethics (or call it whatever you want) above it? We definitely need a lot more competition
  - thepp1983 8y ago
    None of the parties that are involved in Linux actually care one iota about the desktop. At best it is a side project. It is phones, servers and embedded, Only a very small percentage of what is a shrinking market uses it uses it on the desktop. It will never happen. The only company that has really invested into anything close to Desktop Linux is Google and it is Chrome books which are pretty much a walled garden. While it was better than it was 15 years ago, there are still dumb problems like "Why doesn't by usb headset work?" or "Oh X shat itself again with my GPU". Whereas with Windows I can reinstall the GPU drivers while playing a youtube video. The only thing I haven't had work is some cheapo chinese Serial PCI card from fleabay.
    - ernst_klim 8y ago
      >Why doesn't by usb headset work? >The only thing I haven't had work is some cheapo chinese Serial PCI card from fleabay. You are contradicting yourself here. Besides, linux hardware support is incredible nowadays, and most of the time if you have problems with linux, you would have them with windows as well (aka, oem drivers for crappy nonstandard custom hardware). Nowadays most of the soundcards, gamepads, headsets would just work, at least their standard functionality. Also, RedHat cares about desktop, and canonical cared a lot. Nowadays RedHat is involved in a proper hybrid graphics support, gnome desktop etc. In some areas linux is lagging behind, for example accessability is still not the best, though gnome people are very concerned about it (that was one of the major reason for using a full gnome shell for login).
      - thepp1983 8y ago
- blacksmith_tb 8y ago
  Don't tell the ChromeOS team (and tens of millions of Chromebook/box) users that... though I doubt they'll be on any corporate IT wishlists (then again, they require very little support...).
Sylos 8y ago
> Either the software would get less invasive, or we'd see Linux everywhere, wins all around. The unfortunate part is that this is just one department in our government that sort of independently does these investigations. Whether anything politically is going to come out of this result, like a law or even just a directive for other departments, is questionable at best. Other departments will readily ignore this report, if it's convenient for them to use Windows 10. Heck, there's been a warning before from a federal data protection department that even Windows 10 Enterprise sends encrypted, undisclosed packets off to Redmond, and shortly after that the self-proclaimed Microsoft fan and Lord Mayor of Munich signed off on migrating back to Windows from their perfectly working Linux solution.
- yorwba 8y ago
  Their Linux solution wasn't perfectly working, but the problems mostly weren't of the kind that would be solved by moving to Windows. I reviewed the report back when the decision was announced: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13643182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13643182
VvR-Ox 8y ago
That is a nice wish but the german government is not as concerned with it's peoples privacy as you may think when you read stuff like this. The opposite is true. Germany sells it's people to everyone (including foreign spies who get offices directly at the backbone of the internet). We don't have much time left to educate people what computers are and how to keep your thoughts for yourself. All this fear and suspicion against other nations like china but when they are "1984" germany is just the "a brave new world" version of the same coin. The laws are changing since years and after german spies and police got more slack, organizations want to connect their data und use video surveillance with face detection. That is just the beginning of something that started with the new generation of kids using "the internet" and smartphones without knowing what a computer is or why it could be bad some day if a regime knows about everything you think. They will win because the mainstream doesn't care anymore about privacy if things are convenient enough. If tools / services just want your data as payment at least 2/3 of the people in germany are ready to sell everything so they just don't have to pay money or use open source software with crappy UIs. Also poverty is rising and education has some blind spots (like everything that is related to computers). If I knew that earlier I'd have become a hacker instead of doing the shit jobs I do/did. Probably then retirement with 63 like in the "good old days" would've been possible :-D
- brokenmachine 8y ago
  You wrote Germany but you're actually describing Australia.

iwiririwo 8y ago

Well there's other issues with Linux on the desktop that doesn't let anybody except developers use it productively. You always have to weight your priorities, and getting stuff done is often number one priority.

Sylos 8y ago
The use in government would mean running it in centrally administered form. The end user would just as well just click on the icon on their desktop and the application opens where they do their work. There may obviously be other problems, like the application not being available on Linux, or needing administrators with Linux knowledge, but that's nothing the end user has to deal with.
emayljames 8y ago
LTS (Long Term Service) versions of Linux OS' are now breaking even, or even sometimes ahead, of Windows. Office is easily on par (actually better IMO). You can have the UI exactly as you want it to be. You have GIMP. The home of Apache/PHP, and many other improvements!.
- winrid 8y ago
  Word is light-years ahead of any open source alternative. Gimp is not a photoshop replacement. These guys don't care about Apache on their desktops. :)
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    Lucky you can use Word in a browser these days, then. I'm not sure which government departments are using Photoshop but the few that do could just as easily use Macs.
  - vetinari 8y ago
    Most people do not use any advanced features, neither in Writer nor in Word. You can congratulate yourself, if your colleagues know what are styles, most just hard-code the formatting.
    - Klover 8y ago
      If this “normal users are stupid” thing is supposed to be in favour of Linux then it’s a stale argument.
      - vetinari 8y ago
        Normal users are not stupid. They just don't care.
        brokenmachine 8y ago
        How can you tell when the end result is identical? /s
    - thepp1983 8y ago
      The problem is not whether YOU use the advanced features. It is whether someone else does. I generally don't require any better than Markdown and for larger documents I just LaTeX. However I am normally sent work documents with all sorts of macros from other companies (embedded forms) to fill out for things like payments, right to work etc. These require Microsoft Office. Originally when I started I thought I could get away with Libre Office. It worked at best 50% and these weren't complex macros (I inspected them myself). None of these forms are outside the norm of what a HR department, University faculty office or most medium to large companies use.
mario0b1 8y ago
The Problem (atleast in my opinion) is that there will "never" be any change in this if people are not willing to sacrifice just a little bit of usability. Why should companys write software for an OS that does not get used? Sure, getting stuff done is a high priority, but has it to be number one? Can't we put ethics (or call it whatever you want) above it? We definitely need a lot more competition
- thepp1983 8y ago
  None of the parties that are involved in Linux actually care one iota about the desktop. At best it is a side project. It is phones, servers and embedded, Only a very small percentage of what is a shrinking market uses it uses it on the desktop. It will never happen. The only company that has really invested into anything close to Desktop Linux is Google and it is Chrome books which are pretty much a walled garden. While it was better than it was 15 years ago, there are still dumb problems like "Why doesn't by usb headset work?" or "Oh X shat itself again with my GPU". Whereas with Windows I can reinstall the GPU drivers while playing a youtube video. The only thing I haven't had work is some cheapo chinese Serial PCI card from fleabay.
  - ernst_klim 8y ago
    >Why doesn't by usb headset work? >The only thing I haven't had work is some cheapo chinese Serial PCI card from fleabay. You are contradicting yourself here. Besides, linux hardware support is incredible nowadays, and most of the time if you have problems with linux, you would have them with windows as well (aka, oem drivers for crappy nonstandard custom hardware). Nowadays most of the soundcards, gamepads, headsets would just work, at least their standard functionality. Also, RedHat cares about desktop, and canonical cared a lot. Nowadays RedHat is involved in a proper hybrid graphics support, gnome desktop etc. In some areas linux is lagging behind, for example accessability is still not the best, though gnome people are very concerned about it (that was one of the major reason for using a full gnome shell for login).
    - thepp1983 8y ago
blacksmith_tb 8y ago
Don't tell the ChromeOS team (and tens of millions of Chromebook/box) users that... though I doubt they'll be on any corporate IT wishlists (then again, they require very little support...).

Sylos 8y ago

> Either the software would get less invasive, or we'd see Linux everywhere, wins all around. The unfortunate part is that this is just one department in our government that sort of independently does these investigations. Whether anything politically is going to come out of this result, like a law or even just a directive for other departments, is questionable at best. Other departments will readily ignore this report, if it's convenient for them to use Windows 10. Heck, there's been a warning before from a federal data protection department that even Windows 10 Enterprise sends encrypted, undisclosed packets off to Redmond, and shortly after that the self-proclaimed Microsoft fan and Lord Mayor of Munich signed off on migrating back to Windows from their perfectly working Linux solution.

yorwba 8y ago
Their Linux solution wasn't perfectly working, but the problems mostly weren't of the kind that would be solved by moving to Windows. I reviewed the report back when the decision was announced: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13643182 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13643182

VvR-Ox 8y ago

That is a nice wish but the german government is not as concerned with it's peoples privacy as you may think when you read stuff like this. The opposite is true. Germany sells it's people to everyone (including foreign spies who get offices directly at the backbone of the internet). We don't have much time left to educate people what computers are and how to keep your thoughts for yourself. All this fear and suspicion against other nations like china but when they are "1984" germany is just the "a brave new world" version of the same coin. The laws are changing since years and after german spies and police got more slack, organizations want to connect their data und use video surveillance with face detection. That is just the beginning of something that started with the new generation of kids using "the internet" and smartphones without knowing what a computer is or why it could be bad some day if a regime knows about everything you think. They will win because the mainstream doesn't care anymore about privacy if things are convenient enough. If tools / services just want your data as payment at least 2/3 of the people in germany are ready to sell everything so they just don't have to pay money or use open source software with crappy UIs. Also poverty is rising and education has some blind spots (like everything that is related to computers). If I knew that earlier I'd have become a hacker instead of doing the shit jobs I do/did. Probably then retirement with 63 like in the "good old days" would've been possible :-D

brokenmachine 8y ago
You wrote Germany but you're actually describing Australia.