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Most government positions could use almost anything. The reason many places use Windows is familiarity and cost of government licenses. Also note that modern se
by Hilift 1y ago
Most government positions could use almost anything. The reason many places use Windows is familiarity and cost of government licenses. Also note that modern services may have a term, for example Microsoft has licenses based on a six-year commitment.
There are scenarios where Windows may be problematic. Sometimes drivers for odd equipment are not available in Linux, or only some Linux distros due to fragmentation and not maintained very well.
- preisschild 1y ago> reason many places use Windows is familiarity And the reason for that is the problem. Too many schools use only Microsoft programs.
- aDyslecticCrow 1y agoNah most schools use chromebook now. And many schools use libreoffice to save cost.
- pjmlp 1y agoThat is a US phenomenon, Chomebooks are a rounding error outside the states.
- aDyslecticCrow 1y agoI'm European.
- pjmlp 1y agoMe too, and never seen them elsewhere other than weekly discounts at Media Markt, until the shop finally gets rid of existing stock. Also at least in Southern Europe, if kids use computers at the school at all, they tend to be desktop like deployments, and if families have to buy them, then Windows laptops get mostly acquired, as it is something actually usable, and in their budget.
- preisschild 1y agoMe too. Most schools here in Austria have Windows "workstations" in primary/secondary school.
- halffullbrain 1y agoMore that half of Danish municipalities have equipped schoolkids with Chromebooks -- but some failed to limit which services thay could/should use and so effectively send the kids' personal data out of the country, which caused quite the furor.
- pjmlp 1y agoThat is the first European country I am aware of doing such thing.
- raxxorraxor 1y agoI believe Chromebooks will damage childrens digital education. Especially in that age you learn by experimenting and such a system isn't made for that. It is made to display something an equally digitally unqualified teacher wants to display. Sure, schools cannot offer administration for the numerous IT related issues some systems might have. But that is a secondary problem. Also, the same problem of dependence remains.
- megaloblasto 1y agoI'm sure writing drivers for a few pieces of odd equipment is much cheaper then shelling out money to Microsoft for a license. Switching to linux seems like such an obvious move to me.
- deafpolygon 1y agoThe reason is “CYA”, not familiarity. If the shit hits the fan they want someone to blame, and it better not be them. Source: worked in government contracting
- ta1243 1y agoMost modern enterprises want things like fleet and software management. My personal kit is linux because it just works and I don't have time to faff around with windows when I'm not being paid. That doesn't work for enterprise though, and the difficulties of using windows are less important than the ease of enforcing policy. Do Canonical offer a similar solution for identity management - sccm, active directory, intune, end-point-protection, all that sort of stuff? I'm no expert, I don't deal with that at work either, but I do know it's a major consideration. This isn't the 90s. The problem with linux on the desktop in an enterprise isn't a lack of drivers or even software.
- curt15 1y agoHow is the MDM situation for Linux?
- bjackman 1y ago> Most government positions could use almost anything. Having worked for several years on bespoke IT for a megacorp, I think this is massively underestimating the challenge. There are literally hundreds of engineers involved and this is in a very well-established context. Building a reliable, secure and user-friendly platform is a seriously enormous undertaking. I am honestly kinda skeptical that it's feasible for a smaller European nation to do this at an acceptable cost. It absolutely needs to be done though. But I have a feeling everyone is doomed to fail if they try to do things on a custom basis. I think it has to be centralised one way or another. Whether that means growing firms like Canonical, or coming up with some EU-level public engineering institutions, I dunno. I guess the best would be a patchwork of several such solutions. I just don't really see how any of this can be done quickly enough to free us from US tech within 10 years :/ My fear is that people just don't do it properly. Then we end up with governments that are running on nonfunctional or horribly insecure IT. I don't think this is really better than being constantly fucked by Microsoft and the US govt.
- halffullbrain 1y agoConsidering just the office suites: Nearly all of state and local administration uses various 3rd party solutions which have bespoke Office add-ins and rely on close integration with the formats (and security models) on the Office suite -- and are likely shifting more heavily into Microsoft 365 specific features. So it's not as simple as rolling out LibreOffice and calling it a day. Much less Linux.