8 ms·

As I recall, this sort of public statement is used as a lever to squeeze some discounts out of Microsoft's Enterprise Sales team before the government "decides"

As I recall, this sort of public statement is used as a lever to squeeze some discounts out of Microsoft's Enterprise Sales team before the government "decides" to stay with Windows.

AsyncAwait 7y ago
As a Linux aficionado, I have to agree with you, unfortunately. I've seen this too many times over the years not to be cynical about it.
- jaabe 7y ago
  As someone who likes Linux and genuinely believe that software that was paid for by the public should be open source, I just have to ask you why that is. I work in a Danish municipality with 100.000 citizens. We operate more than 300 IT systems, some of these are one of a kind systems that have no alternatives and some of those only run on Windows. We also have 8000 employees, a lot of them couldn’t tell you if the smartphone they use each day is an android or an iPhone. They know windows and they know office, switching them to pages and macOS would be almost impossible, Linux and libre office is out of the question. We have an IT staff of skilled people who were willing to skip pay for ideology they are all certified Microsoft and have little other education. They could all easily leave for other positions in the Microsoft infrastructure. It would cost around a million to replace just one of them. We could easily switch our tech to Linux, we would need to build a lot of replacement software but that could be done in a reasonably manner, but moving the business side to Linux would be the most expensive thing we ever did. Which is why I’m a skeptic of something I believe should happen. We pay a tech tax to Microsoft, by we can’t stop. It’s just not doable.
  - detaro 7y ago
    partial counter-point: many large companies, universities, schools etc have switched to things like Google Docs. Most use of office software is simple enough that people can transfer (afaik a big part in the Munich migration was making sure all the templates used for common documents where ported properly and people could easily access to). Specialist software is a big problem of course, likely leading to a parallel Windows infrastructure of some kind, either dedicated Windows workstations for the workers that need it or a terminal-server setup of some kind - I know companies that used the latter to keep Windows XP applications available in an isolated environment too. But it's all a bespoke process.
    - jaabe 7y ago
      That is not really a counter point though. I mean, education is part of a municipality, it makes up around 15% of our work force, and you’re right, they could probably be switched to Linux. That doesn’t really make sense though, because our IT staff can’t support it, so we would need 1-2 guys extra which is more expensive than the windows licenses for 1200 employees.
      - AsyncAwait 7y ago
        That's basically why vendor lock-in works, you'll always stay on Windows. I get that, but that's the case for everything. If you want to change anything in your life, there's some need to get out of your comfort zone, since not doing so means only doing what you're comfortable with, thus not changing anything. There's no doubt there'll be increased support costs in the short term, but this should be a long-term investment to get off of proprietary software and embrace open formats, (in my humble opinion, governments should by law be required not to produce documents that require proprietary software to open properly). Governments should be the ideal vehicles for long-term investments. It's usually public corporations that are mostly concerned with the short term, it shouldn't be governments. If the SK government would seriously commit, in 10 years Linux would be the new normal and it would be Windows that requires extra staff, support etc.
        jaabe 7y ago
        I actually personally think all public software should be open source so citizens can have access to what they pay for. It’s a tough sell though, because of how massive of an undertaking it is. We simply have too much software that only runs on; and too much staff schooled for Windows. You’re right that we could change if we wanted to, but it’s just hard to justify such an investment in an area where it would mean that we had to fire teachers and nurses to pay for it. We don’t even have a good business case. I mean, our total Microsoft licenses are around the same expense as 4 employees. It would be literal decades before we brought the investment home if we made a full switch. That doesn’t really work in political organisations, and it’s likely why all the previous attempts to switch have failed. To do this, we’d need massive public support for it, so the political leadership doesn’t get cold feet during the “short” term investment, and the truth is, the public couldn’t care less. That doesn’t mean we can’t get there eventually. We try to buy more and more open source, we set up co-operations across municipalities to define architectural standards so suppliers can’t define our infrastructure anymore. But it’ll take a long time, and maybe it’ll never make sense to leave Microsoft. I mean, what’s the open source alternative to office365?
0815test 7y ago
Yeah, they're not going to do it. Or do you think they could ever stand to be seen as running the exact same OS as their northern, uh, neighbors? I mean, let's get real.
- sincerely 7y ago
  Doesn't NK have it's own special linux distro?
  - Rychard 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Star_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Star_OS
mtgx 7y ago
And suddenly three new Microsoft HQs appeared in SK.
pcurve 7y ago
With more things running on Web I think they could probably do partial transition of some computers.
giancarlostoro 7y ago
Whats worse is they could all pull it off if they invest in existing Distros and hire people to build out the main infrastructure they need. If they rely on legacy Windowd OS' the licenses for new OS' wont matter. They need secure systems to avoid being hacked by external malicious state actors. I would love to see some countries adopting Linux for government systems and funding research and development e.g. maybe fund Libre Office or the KDE one more and then build out other tools to be cross platform.
- 1f60c 7y ago
  The French police uses a custom distro based on Ubuntu 16.04: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu
  - jeroenhd 7y ago
    Why are they using a custom distro? Is it just different graphics or do they have changes significant enough that a customised Ubuntu installer wouldn't suffice?
    - notatoad 7y ago
      what's the difference between a custom distro and a customized installer?
    - Mikeb85 7y ago
      Likely it's simply Ubuntu + some custom repos + different graphics (because why not).
    - kakwa_ 7y ago
      They have some customized parts. For example, IIRC, they use a smart card to authenticate on their workstations, and also on their web applications. For that you need to customize a bit (better out of the box support for pkcs11 devices, integrate the Certificate Authorities needed, drivers). There are a few contributions to open source projects: A few years back, they were contributing to a fork of Thunderbird called Trustedbird for example. There are also a few individual contributors inside the Gendarmerie, for example Xavier Guimard creator and one of the current developers of LemonLdap (SSO portal). Also just as a side note, this distribution is used by the Gendarmerie, which is not exactly the national Police. In France you have both a Police Nationale and the Gendarmerie National. The Gendarmerie is military personel (the Police is civilian). I'm guessing national sovereignty plays a small role in that (VS using MS Windows, which is completely controlled by a US company, bounded to the US government).
Buetol 7y ago
As a french, I have to say the french local police (gendarmerie) has been using Ubuntu in all their stations for years and they are very happy with that !
- choeger 7y ago
  Wait until chrome is not fully working anymore and all their shiny webapps require it.
  - gpm 7y ago
    Chrome is planning on dropping Linux support!? That seems exceedingly unlikely so I'd appreciate a source.
    - randomcoder1000 7y ago
      Not possible.. chromeos is chromium on the Linux stack?
    - Buetol 7y ago
      Since Google internally uses Ubuntu (so most devs of Chrome), we will have to wait till they switch to fushia :)
    - choeger 7y ago
      Linux gives you control. But Google wants to control chrome on your machine. At some point, this conflict will turn ugly.
  - Mikeb85 7y ago
    Considering Google uses Linux extensively, I doubt that'll happen any time soon.
macspoofing 7y ago
Yep. That's one common outcome. Another one is where they actually move and discover it's a nightmare to train people, and maintain the infrastructure.
nwah1 7y ago
Still means Linux is working as intended. Freedom means options. Options means bargaining power. Bargaining power means monopolies can't push you around as much.
- fny 7y ago
  Unless the monopoly knows you are bluffing?
robben1234 7y ago
Good ol' "Cristiano Ronaldo wants to return to Manchester United" every time he wanted a raise from Real Madrid.

As I recall, this sort of public statement is used as a lever to squeeze some discounts out of Microsoft's Enterprise Sales team before the government "decides" to stay with Windows.

AsyncAwait 7y ago

As a Linux aficionado, I have to agree with you, unfortunately. I've seen this too many times over the years not to be cynical about it.

jaabe 7y ago
As someone who likes Linux and genuinely believe that software that was paid for by the public should be open source, I just have to ask you why that is. I work in a Danish municipality with 100.000 citizens. We operate more than 300 IT systems, some of these are one of a kind systems that have no alternatives and some of those only run on Windows. We also have 8000 employees, a lot of them couldn’t tell you if the smartphone they use each day is an android or an iPhone. They know windows and they know office, switching them to pages and macOS would be almost impossible, Linux and libre office is out of the question. We have an IT staff of skilled people who were willing to skip pay for ideology they are all certified Microsoft and have little other education. They could all easily leave for other positions in the Microsoft infrastructure. It would cost around a million to replace just one of them. We could easily switch our tech to Linux, we would need to build a lot of replacement software but that could be done in a reasonably manner, but moving the business side to Linux would be the most expensive thing we ever did. Which is why I’m a skeptic of something I believe should happen. We pay a tech tax to Microsoft, by we can’t stop. It’s just not doable.
- detaro 7y ago
  partial counter-point: many large companies, universities, schools etc have switched to things like Google Docs. Most use of office software is simple enough that people can transfer (afaik a big part in the Munich migration was making sure all the templates used for common documents where ported properly and people could easily access to). Specialist software is a big problem of course, likely leading to a parallel Windows infrastructure of some kind, either dedicated Windows workstations for the workers that need it or a terminal-server setup of some kind - I know companies that used the latter to keep Windows XP applications available in an isolated environment too. But it's all a bespoke process.
  - jaabe 7y ago
    That is not really a counter point though. I mean, education is part of a municipality, it makes up around 15% of our work force, and you’re right, they could probably be switched to Linux. That doesn’t really make sense though, because our IT staff can’t support it, so we would need 1-2 guys extra which is more expensive than the windows licenses for 1200 employees.
    - AsyncAwait 7y ago
      That's basically why vendor lock-in works, you'll always stay on Windows. I get that, but that's the case for everything. If you want to change anything in your life, there's some need to get out of your comfort zone, since not doing so means only doing what you're comfortable with, thus not changing anything. There's no doubt there'll be increased support costs in the short term, but this should be a long-term investment to get off of proprietary software and embrace open formats, (in my humble opinion, governments should by law be required not to produce documents that require proprietary software to open properly). Governments should be the ideal vehicles for long-term investments. It's usually public corporations that are mostly concerned with the short term, it shouldn't be governments. If the SK government would seriously commit, in 10 years Linux would be the new normal and it would be Windows that requires extra staff, support etc.
      - jaabe 7y ago
        I actually personally think all public software should be open source so citizens can have access to what they pay for. It’s a tough sell though, because of how massive of an undertaking it is. We simply have too much software that only runs on; and too much staff schooled for Windows. You’re right that we could change if we wanted to, but it’s just hard to justify such an investment in an area where it would mean that we had to fire teachers and nurses to pay for it. We don’t even have a good business case. I mean, our total Microsoft licenses are around the same expense as 4 employees. It would be literal decades before we brought the investment home if we made a full switch. That doesn’t really work in political organisations, and it’s likely why all the previous attempts to switch have failed. To do this, we’d need massive public support for it, so the political leadership doesn’t get cold feet during the “short” term investment, and the truth is, the public couldn’t care less. That doesn’t mean we can’t get there eventually. We try to buy more and more open source, we set up co-operations across municipalities to define architectural standards so suppliers can’t define our infrastructure anymore. But it’ll take a long time, and maybe it’ll never make sense to leave Microsoft. I mean, what’s the open source alternative to office365?

0815test 7y ago

Yeah, they're not going to do it. Or do you think they could ever stand to be seen as running the exact same OS as their northern, uh, neighbors? I mean, let's get real.

sincerely 7y ago
Doesn't NK have it's own special linux distro?
- Rychard 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Star_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Star_OS

mtgx 7y ago

And suddenly three new Microsoft HQs appeared in SK.

pcurve 7y ago

With more things running on Web I think they could probably do partial transition of some computers.

giancarlostoro 7y ago

Whats worse is they could all pull it off if they invest in existing Distros and hire people to build out the main infrastructure they need. If they rely on legacy Windowd OS' the licenses for new OS' wont matter. They need secure systems to avoid being hacked by external malicious state actors. I would love to see some countries adopting Linux for government systems and funding research and development e.g. maybe fund Libre Office or the KDE one more and then build out other tools to be cross platform.

1f60c 7y ago
The French police uses a custom distro based on Ubuntu 16.04: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu
- jeroenhd 7y ago
  Why are they using a custom distro? Is it just different graphics or do they have changes significant enough that a customised Ubuntu installer wouldn't suffice?
  - notatoad 7y ago
    what's the difference between a custom distro and a customized installer?
  - Mikeb85 7y ago
    Likely it's simply Ubuntu + some custom repos + different graphics (because why not).
  - kakwa_ 7y ago
    They have some customized parts. For example, IIRC, they use a smart card to authenticate on their workstations, and also on their web applications. For that you need to customize a bit (better out of the box support for pkcs11 devices, integrate the Certificate Authorities needed, drivers). There are a few contributions to open source projects: A few years back, they were contributing to a fork of Thunderbird called Trustedbird for example. There are also a few individual contributors inside the Gendarmerie, for example Xavier Guimard creator and one of the current developers of LemonLdap (SSO portal). Also just as a side note, this distribution is used by the Gendarmerie, which is not exactly the national Police. In France you have both a Police Nationale and the Gendarmerie National. The Gendarmerie is military personel (the Police is civilian). I'm guessing national sovereignty plays a small role in that (VS using MS Windows, which is completely controlled by a US company, bounded to the US government).

Buetol 7y ago

As a french, I have to say the french local police (gendarmerie) has been using Ubuntu in all their stations for years and they are very happy with that !

choeger 7y ago
Wait until chrome is not fully working anymore and all their shiny webapps require it.
- gpm 7y ago
  Chrome is planning on dropping Linux support!? That seems exceedingly unlikely so I'd appreciate a source.
  - randomcoder1000 7y ago
    Not possible.. chromeos is chromium on the Linux stack?
  - Buetol 7y ago
    Since Google internally uses Ubuntu (so most devs of Chrome), we will have to wait till they switch to fushia :)
  - choeger 7y ago
    Linux gives you control. But Google wants to control chrome on your machine. At some point, this conflict will turn ugly.
- Mikeb85 7y ago
  Considering Google uses Linux extensively, I doubt that'll happen any time soon.

macspoofing 7y ago

Yep. That's one common outcome. Another one is where they actually move and discover it's a nightmare to train people, and maintain the infrastructure.

nwah1 7y ago

Still means Linux is working as intended. Freedom means options. Options means bargaining power. Bargaining power means monopolies can't push you around as much.

fny 7y ago
Unless the monopoly knows you are bluffing?

robben1234 7y ago

Good ol' "Cristiano Ronaldo wants to return to Manchester United" every time he wanted a raise from Real Madrid.