8 ms·

French National Police Switch 37,000 Desktop PCs to Linux

142 points by Libertatea 13y ago

zmmmmm 13y ago
I wonder if Windows 8 will be accelerating this kind of thing. The metro UI is so annoying, useless and unsuitable in a corporate environment, it finally provides a climate where even people who like Windows are happier with Ubuntu than they are with Windows 8.
- selmnoo 13y ago
  I know this horse has been already beaten to death... but, I just got a laptop with Win8 this week and I have to say this, my goodness I am just awestruck that this Metro interface actually made it to the public in its current form. What the hell happened? Isn't Microsoft a company that conducts very basic UI tests before shipping a big product? I like to think of myself as a fairly technical person, and yet I could not figure out how to do simple things like close windows, change windows, shut down, etc. for a good while. My dad, a 68 year old guy, calls himself a geek computer person, his friends affectionately/comically refer him to as a "computer genius". He was trying out the Win8 laptop the other day... and I heard him say "Hm, I'm not as good with computers as I thought I was". That just really made me very sad. I'm just going to get a Win7 laptop for him now.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - spongle 13y ago
    To be honest, 8.1 is OK. It's not perfect but it sits in the rankings between XP and 7. It's also going to be a free upgrade. Basically you can turn off most of the crap and use the start screen as a start menu and it's bearable. I'd take it over XP but not 7 (which it looks like I'll be using until 2020)
bdfh42 13y ago
I suppose the moment when there are only two questions to be answered before a non-developer's device is selected has arrived. Q1: Does it run a mainstream, grade A browser? Q2: Is there an adequate way of generating documents I can share with users of other devices? Answer yes to both and it is down to price, convenience and aesthetics - with (for some) the added advantage of a selection making life tougher for inter- (and infra-) national spies.
- simgidacav 13y ago
  As mentioned by many people, open source gives you peer review as an advantages, and bugs (both in-good-faith and intentional) get more easily spotted. This however doesn't prevents bug from be there, and the question is: will those guys be keeping their custom systems up to date? Also, as you point out, a lot of the work is now moved on this [gorram] cloud, and unfortunately the simple fact you're running GNU/Linux hardly prevents information from leaking. I wonder if they will also be using strong cryptography or custom online services! EDIT: the distro is likely being a spin-off of something existing -- indeed, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu as somebody linked -- so yes, that will be up to date.
  - devcpp 13y ago
    At least they get to solve the problems. You can't do that with closed OSs. Same goes for the cloud vs. your own server.
- bencollier49 13y ago
  Q3: Is it supported by a company I can trust?
philhippus 13y ago
Slow clap from Linux users everywhere. I think we are so jaded that some of us prefer the masses to remain ignorant to the fact of a more powerful, more stable and free OS. Things have become familiar this way.
- ZenoArrow 13y ago
  "more powerful, more stable" Assuming you're comparing to Windows, in what ways more powerful and more stable? I've used various versions of Linux and Windows, and in my experience Linux is great to use, until something breaks and you want to refresh that component. When I first started using it around 2005 it was network issues (luckily things are much improved now), when I use it now I most frequently have issues with sound. On the other hand, Windows might not be as nice a development environment, but at least you can rely on the drivers (for the most part).
  - narag 13y ago
    These problems are much less important when you use it inside an organization, with a support department and hardware certification.
  - babuskov 13y ago
    Stability depends a lot on the distribution you use. I've used various Linux distos over the last 10+ years. If you use something like Slackware, it is rock solid. I still have some 5+ year old installs that simply just work. However, distributions that update/upgrade and install software automatically have lower stability as more people are involved in creating packages, and not of all of them are skilled or careful enough. Packages are often patched versions of vanilla software and sometimes the patch was just wrong because it does not sync well with some other installed software. I still recall major mess by Ubuntu and Fedora and their derivatives at many points in the past.
  - username42 13y ago
    "refresh that component". That's the way of thinking in windows where you reinstall random stuff until system works as expected. In Linux, you will need to go through a lot of documentation and forum until you learn enough about the component to understand how to fix the issue. This may seems a huge effort, but it is very rewarding: your problem is solved forever, you know what caused it, you have discovered many useful features of you OS that you did not know, you have learned how to analyse similar issues. Linux is very stable: almost everything I have learned 20 years ago remain useful.
cones688 13y ago
> transferring to GendBuntu from a proprietary system means the staff member receives a new computer with a widescreen monitor. (0) This is a great idea to get staff to accept the change, not "forced" upon them but how about a bigger screen and a faster computer, now your colleague has one and you have a slow old one... it's a no brainer really. (0) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu
- netcan 13y ago
  It's the exact opposite of the linux desktop tradition: take a seven year old dust caked laptop. Put linux on it. Get excited about how much better it is than Windows NT. Hand it over to your 17 year old niece and watch her compare it to her friend's new macbook air.
masklinn 13y ago
There's an extensive discussion on the subject a few links below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6469559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6469559
bambax 13y ago
Gendarmerie is not "national police"; they are different entities (and of course they hate one another).
- johnchristopher 13y ago
  Keep it that way. It didn't do us any good to merge both (Belgium).
  - mercurial 13y ago
    This makes me curious. Can you elaborate?
    - johnchristopher 13y ago
      Yes. In a nutshell: - It was really expensive ; - the merging destroyed what used to work well within both groups but didn't produce a better group ; - the old guard is still actively resisting changes in both groups ; - a lot of discrepancies between level of powers (local, regional and national) that both groups weren't seeing in the same way (they had a different who's who to call for help when they needed to push things around and people lost some status or credit when trying to prevent it). The main problem that should have been addressed (better coordination between both groups) still remains as far as citizens are concerned. There was a clash of culture since the "gendarmerie" was more like military and police more like armed civil servants. Lines are being blurred now but there are still weird intermediate unofficial rankings that are in place only for legacy and "don't move my cheese and hurt my feelings" reasons. Salaries inequalities were too obvious and "adapted" responsibilities didn't match people's experience and training. The overlap between the geographical regions each group were assigned to before the merging still transpires in the new system, like a ghost. There was a huge power struggle. I am sure these problems will totally disappear in a generation but it didn't go anywhere as smooth as the politicians said it would. And the results isn't necessarily better. One thing hasn't changed though: they still send officers from one linguistic region to the other when dealing with protestations motivated by hot and sensible topics. There still are two different kind of police: the local one and the federal one. The local authorities hire officers while the federal one has an endless supply of new recruits* but every officers come from the same police academies. * gross exaggeration here. To be honest it's not a problem of merging two groups or having only one police faction. It was badly handled and rushed by the political world at the time (they were in a hurry to fix many problems that were hot topic at that time, people were in the street and the merging was part of the answer). But I can't see how such huge changes in a society could be made without the political world being under huge pressure to do so. So I can't see how those kind of changes can't be done without being rushed. Keep in mind it's only my advice and it was a sensible topic at some point. Some opinions are really polarized about all this.
haiduc 13y ago
This is NOT the Police but the Gendarmerie, one of the four military bodies along with the navy, the army and the air force. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Gendarmerie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Gendarmerie They are soldiers, not civil servants. Unlike french public administrations, when the army has an execution plan, it get things done!
- yannickmahe 13y ago
  Didn't they just move from Defense to Interior?
  - masklinn 13y ago
    For budgetary/employment yes (back in 2009), but status-wise they remain a military force. So they're really halfway, under both defense and interior.
    - venomsnake 13y ago
      So they can influence and share that know how with both departments? This could be interesting. I am really surprised that they managed to do it and it will be an easier sell now with the MS/NSA collaboration thing. So maybe we could expect other big deployments of that kind.
- Vlaix 13y ago
  Getting things done ? You must have missed the Louvois scandale. You know, thousands of soldiers no being paid for almost a year and stuff...
AnilaRashid 13y ago
Well they should look for some updation on those PCs
vinight 13y ago
we will definitely start to see more and more stories like this around the world. obviously not in the US.
fyolnish 13y ago
2013: Year of linux on the desktop!
r0h1n 13y ago
It's so heartening to see the scales finally beginning to tilt in favour of free and open-source software after decades. While one reason (for OSes) is of course the much improved UI, installation/upgrade and app availability, I wonder how big a role the relative decline in the importance of the OS itself plays? I chanced by this tweet earlier today: "Steve Jobs told Dropbox they were a feature. Increasingly its looking like he had it backwards, the host OS is the disposable feature" (https://twitter.com/tolmasky/status/384756799351451648 https://twitter.com/tolmasky/status/384756799351451648)
pilooch 13y ago
Interestingly, Linux is moving to win on several fronts. Economy and debt crisis, in addition to rising Ubuntu-like UI (easy to use, LibreOffice included, etc...) increase the benefits for governments and agencies. That's one front. On another front, Linux clearly being the top platform for software development, it can naturally then be a top OS for game development, and become a top gaming platform itself, typically with SteamOS and Android. At Ubuntu install parties, it's been a pleasure to see older French citizens coming in with already good information, knowledge and know-how of the Linux platform, for some because of their daily job at government agencies. And they want the OS at home! What else ;)
lloeki 13y ago
A bit of trivia, which makes the title actually wrong: it's "Gendarmerie Nationale" (which is a military corps, handled by "Ministère de la Défense" ~ DoD), not "Police Nationale" (which is not a military corps, under "Ministère de l'Intérieur" ~ DoHS). The USA relies (IIUC) on 2nd amendment to resist oppression, possibly from its own police forces and government, whereas in France guns are outright forbidden but there are by design those two distinct and independent entities, with an autonomous chain of command, hopefully guaranteeing one will defend the people rights should the other be subverted.
- jackjeff 13y ago
  Sort of... There has been a lot of talks about merging the two bodies, and some steps have already been made towards that goal by the current administration and the previous one. It's not unthinkable that distinction and separate chain of command would eventually go away in the next decade or so.
- epsylon 13y ago
  > A bit of trivia, which makes the title actually wrong: it's "Gendarmerie Nationale" (which is a military corps, handled by "Ministère de la Défense" ~ DoD), not "Police Nationale" (which is not a military corps, under "Ministère de l'Intérieur" ~ DoHS). Well, since 2009, the Gendarmerie receives its budget and orders from the Ministère de l'Intérieur. It's not a police force stricto sensu, but their missions are those of a police force.
  - scriptproof 13y ago
    Gendarmerie is the police for rural areas.
- mathattack 13y ago
  This seems very much a French ideal. I used to visit France a lot for work, and there seemed to be a lot of disrespect of authority. (Strikes, unions, etc.) This gets me thinking about Open Source. I would think that adoption is consistent with the Power to the People ethos in France. How is their Linux adoption as a country compared with the rest of the world?
brudgers 13y ago
"The migration started in 2004, when the Gendarmerie was faced with providing all its users with access to its internal network. In order to save money, the agency switched from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice. Then the agency rolled out Firefox and Thunderbird in 2006. Finally, in 2008, it switched the first batch of 5,000 users to a Linux OS based on the Ubuntu distribution." They started the transition to FOSS in 2004, which means planning began even earlier: That's more than a decade. They have transitioned approximat 7000 users a year to Linux for the past five years. They still have a significant fraction of their desktops that have not transitioned. As an enterprise, they not only have state level funding but funding at the level of a security/military organization. In my opinion it would be a mistake to ignore the scale and pace at which the transition was made. It would also be a mistake to discount the way in which the character and culture of the institution facilitated the transition - corporations don't have enlisted and staff officer cadres. Sure there is no longer conscription, is not as if a gendarmerie can just quit for a job elsewhere in the industry if they prefer OSX.
- lloeki 13y ago
  > As an enterprise, they not only have state level funding but funding at the level of a security/military organization. Which also means that they're procedural and bureaucratic in a way that can make the term "enterprisey" sound like euphemism.
josteink 13y ago
Good for them! As more and more people transition away from Windows, I'm always sad to see some move to OS X. If you're going to leave one proprietary, commercial & licensed platform for another, then really what's the point? This sort of migration at least brings some tangible benefits, with one of them being tax dollars not spent paying Microsoft a tax for having a PC. These sort of stories definitely cheer me up.
- forgottenpaswrd 13y ago
  "If you're going to leave one proprietary, commercial & licensed platform for another, then really what's the point?" The point is using a complete UNIX operating system that works with any Unix code using standards like OpenGL, but at the same time, is respected by manufacturers of hardware and supported by service providers. Half our computers(lots of them)in our company are Linux, half of them Mac. Using Unix means we could inter operate between them very easy, not like using Windows forcing DirectX(in theory you could use OpenGL, ha!). Using Linux means we have total freedom in what we could do. We are outside USA, not software patents here.
  - johnchristopher 13y ago
    What exactly are you working on ?
dublinben 13y ago
This article was already posted yesterday. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6469559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6469559 Just another duplicate spam post from Libertatea.

142 points by Libertatea 13y ago

I wonder if Windows 8 will be accelerating this kind of thing. The metro UI is so annoying, useless and unsuitable in a corporate environment, it finally provides a climate where even people who like Windows are happier with Ubuntu than they are with Windows 8.

selmnoo 13y ago
I know this horse has been already beaten to death... but, I just got a laptop with Win8 this week and I have to say this, my goodness I am just awestruck that this Metro interface actually made it to the public in its current form. What the hell happened? Isn't Microsoft a company that conducts very basic UI tests before shipping a big product? I like to think of myself as a fairly technical person, and yet I could not figure out how to do simple things like close windows, change windows, shut down, etc. for a good while. My dad, a 68 year old guy, calls himself a geek computer person, his friends affectionately/comically refer him to as a "computer genius". He was trying out the Win8 laptop the other day... and I heard him say "Hm, I'm not as good with computers as I thought I was". That just really made me very sad. I'm just going to get a Win7 laptop for him now.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- spongle 13y ago
  To be honest, 8.1 is OK. It's not perfect but it sits in the rankings between XP and 7. It's also going to be a free upgrade. Basically you can turn off most of the crap and use the start screen as a start menu and it's bearable. I'd take it over XP but not 7 (which it looks like I'll be using until 2020)

bdfh42 13y ago

I suppose the moment when there are only two questions to be answered before a non-developer's device is selected has arrived. Q1: Does it run a mainstream, grade A browser? Q2: Is there an adequate way of generating documents I can share with users of other devices? Answer yes to both and it is down to price, convenience and aesthetics - with (for some) the added advantage of a selection making life tougher for inter- (and infra-) national spies.

simgidacav 13y ago
As mentioned by many people, open source gives you peer review as an advantages, and bugs (both in-good-faith and intentional) get more easily spotted. This however doesn't prevents bug from be there, and the question is: will those guys be keeping their custom systems up to date? Also, as you point out, a lot of the work is now moved on this [gorram] cloud, and unfortunately the simple fact you're running GNU/Linux hardly prevents information from leaking. I wonder if they will also be using strong cryptography or custom online services! EDIT: the distro is likely being a spin-off of something existing -- indeed, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu as somebody linked -- so yes, that will be up to date.
- devcpp 13y ago
  At least they get to solve the problems. You can't do that with closed OSs. Same goes for the cloud vs. your own server.
bencollier49 13y ago
Q3: Is it supported by a company I can trust?

philhippus 13y ago

Slow clap from Linux users everywhere. I think we are so jaded that some of us prefer the masses to remain ignorant to the fact of a more powerful, more stable and free OS. Things have become familiar this way.

ZenoArrow 13y ago
"more powerful, more stable" Assuming you're comparing to Windows, in what ways more powerful and more stable? I've used various versions of Linux and Windows, and in my experience Linux is great to use, until something breaks and you want to refresh that component. When I first started using it around 2005 it was network issues (luckily things are much improved now), when I use it now I most frequently have issues with sound. On the other hand, Windows might not be as nice a development environment, but at least you can rely on the drivers (for the most part).
- narag 13y ago
  These problems are much less important when you use it inside an organization, with a support department and hardware certification.
- babuskov 13y ago
  Stability depends a lot on the distribution you use. I've used various Linux distos over the last 10+ years. If you use something like Slackware, it is rock solid. I still have some 5+ year old installs that simply just work. However, distributions that update/upgrade and install software automatically have lower stability as more people are involved in creating packages, and not of all of them are skilled or careful enough. Packages are often patched versions of vanilla software and sometimes the patch was just wrong because it does not sync well with some other installed software. I still recall major mess by Ubuntu and Fedora and their derivatives at many points in the past.
- username42 13y ago
  "refresh that component". That's the way of thinking in windows where you reinstall random stuff until system works as expected. In Linux, you will need to go through a lot of documentation and forum until you learn enough about the component to understand how to fix the issue. This may seems a huge effort, but it is very rewarding: your problem is solved forever, you know what caused it, you have discovered many useful features of you OS that you did not know, you have learned how to analyse similar issues. Linux is very stable: almost everything I have learned 20 years ago remain useful.

cones688 13y ago

> transferring to GendBuntu from a proprietary system means the staff member receives a new computer with a widescreen monitor. (0) This is a great idea to get staff to accept the change, not "forced" upon them but how about a bigger screen and a faster computer, now your colleague has one and you have a slow old one... it's a no brainer really. (0) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu

netcan 13y ago
It's the exact opposite of the linux desktop tradition: take a seven year old dust caked laptop. Put linux on it. Get excited about how much better it is than Windows NT. Hand it over to your 17 year old niece and watch her compare it to her friend's new macbook air.

masklinn 13y ago

There's an extensive discussion on the subject a few links below: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6469559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6469559

bambax 13y ago

Gendarmerie is not "national police"; they are different entities (and of course they hate one another).

johnchristopher 13y ago
Keep it that way. It didn't do us any good to merge both (Belgium).
- mercurial 13y ago
  This makes me curious. Can you elaborate?
  - johnchristopher 13y ago
    Yes. In a nutshell: - It was really expensive ; - the merging destroyed what used to work well within both groups but didn't produce a better group ; - the old guard is still actively resisting changes in both groups ; - a lot of discrepancies between level of powers (local, regional and national) that both groups weren't seeing in the same way (they had a different who's who to call for help when they needed to push things around and people lost some status or credit when trying to prevent it). The main problem that should have been addressed (better coordination between both groups) still remains as far as citizens are concerned. There was a clash of culture since the "gendarmerie" was more like military and police more like armed civil servants. Lines are being blurred now but there are still weird intermediate unofficial rankings that are in place only for legacy and "don't move my cheese and hurt my feelings" reasons. Salaries inequalities were too obvious and "adapted" responsibilities didn't match people's experience and training. The overlap between the geographical regions each group were assigned to before the merging still transpires in the new system, like a ghost. There was a huge power struggle. I am sure these problems will totally disappear in a generation but it didn't go anywhere as smooth as the politicians said it would. And the results isn't necessarily better. One thing hasn't changed though: they still send officers from one linguistic region to the other when dealing with protestations motivated by hot and sensible topics. There still are two different kind of police: the local one and the federal one. The local authorities hire officers while the federal one has an endless supply of new recruits* but every officers come from the same police academies. * gross exaggeration here. To be honest it's not a problem of merging two groups or having only one police faction. It was badly handled and rushed by the political world at the time (they were in a hurry to fix many problems that were hot topic at that time, people were in the street and the merging was part of the answer). But I can't see how such huge changes in a society could be made without the political world being under huge pressure to do so. So I can't see how those kind of changes can't be done without being rushed. Keep in mind it's only my advice and it was a sensible topic at some point. Some opinions are really polarized about all this.

haiduc 13y ago

This is NOT the Police but the Gendarmerie, one of the four military bodies along with the navy, the army and the air force. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Gendarmerie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Gendarmerie They are soldiers, not civil servants. Unlike french public administrations, when the army has an execution plan, it get things done!

yannickmahe 13y ago
Didn't they just move from Defense to Interior?
- masklinn 13y ago
  For budgetary/employment yes (back in 2009), but status-wise they remain a military force. So they're really halfway, under both defense and interior.
  - venomsnake 13y ago
    So they can influence and share that know how with both departments? This could be interesting. I am really surprised that they managed to do it and it will be an easier sell now with the MS/NSA collaboration thing. So maybe we could expect other big deployments of that kind.
Vlaix 13y ago
Getting things done ? You must have missed the Louvois scandale. You know, thousands of soldiers no being paid for almost a year and stuff...

AnilaRashid 13y ago

Well they should look for some updation on those PCs

vinight 13y ago

we will definitely start to see more and more stories like this around the world. obviously not in the US.

fyolnish 13y ago

2013: Year of linux on the desktop!

r0h1n 13y ago

It's so heartening to see the scales finally beginning to tilt in favour of free and open-source software after decades. While one reason (for OSes) is of course the much improved UI, installation/upgrade and app availability, I wonder how big a role the relative decline in the importance of the OS itself plays? I chanced by this tweet earlier today: "Steve Jobs told Dropbox they were a feature. Increasingly its looking like he had it backwards, the host OS is the disposable feature" (https://twitter.com/tolmasky/status/384756799351451648 https://twitter.com/tolmasky/status/384756799351451648)

pilooch 13y ago

Interestingly, Linux is moving to win on several fronts. Economy and debt crisis, in addition to rising Ubuntu-like UI (easy to use, LibreOffice included, etc...) increase the benefits for governments and agencies. That's one front. On another front, Linux clearly being the top platform for software development, it can naturally then be a top OS for game development, and become a top gaming platform itself, typically with SteamOS and Android. At Ubuntu install parties, it's been a pleasure to see older French citizens coming in with already good information, knowledge and know-how of the Linux platform, for some because of their daily job at government agencies. And they want the OS at home! What else ;)

lloeki 13y ago

A bit of trivia, which makes the title actually wrong: it's "Gendarmerie Nationale" (which is a military corps, handled by "Ministère de la Défense" ~ DoD), not "Police Nationale" (which is not a military corps, under "Ministère de l'Intérieur" ~ DoHS). The USA relies (IIUC) on 2nd amendment to resist oppression, possibly from its own police forces and government, whereas in France guns are outright forbidden but there are by design those two distinct and independent entities, with an autonomous chain of command, hopefully guaranteeing one will defend the people rights should the other be subverted.

jackjeff 13y ago
Sort of... There has been a lot of talks about merging the two bodies, and some steps have already been made towards that goal by the current administration and the previous one. It's not unthinkable that distinction and separate chain of command would eventually go away in the next decade or so.
epsylon 13y ago
> A bit of trivia, which makes the title actually wrong: it's "Gendarmerie Nationale" (which is a military corps, handled by "Ministère de la Défense" ~ DoD), not "Police Nationale" (which is not a military corps, under "Ministère de l'Intérieur" ~ DoHS). Well, since 2009, the Gendarmerie receives its budget and orders from the Ministère de l'Intérieur. It's not a police force stricto sensu, but their missions are those of a police force.
- scriptproof 13y ago
  Gendarmerie is the police for rural areas.
mathattack 13y ago
This seems very much a French ideal. I used to visit France a lot for work, and there seemed to be a lot of disrespect of authority. (Strikes, unions, etc.) This gets me thinking about Open Source. I would think that adoption is consistent with the Power to the People ethos in France. How is their Linux adoption as a country compared with the rest of the world?

brudgers 13y ago

"The migration started in 2004, when the Gendarmerie was faced with providing all its users with access to its internal network. In order to save money, the agency switched from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice. Then the agency rolled out Firefox and Thunderbird in 2006. Finally, in 2008, it switched the first batch of 5,000 users to a Linux OS based on the Ubuntu distribution." They started the transition to FOSS in 2004, which means planning began even earlier: That's more than a decade. They have transitioned approximat 7000 users a year to Linux for the past five years. They still have a significant fraction of their desktops that have not transitioned. As an enterprise, they not only have state level funding but funding at the level of a security/military organization. In my opinion it would be a mistake to ignore the scale and pace at which the transition was made. It would also be a mistake to discount the way in which the character and culture of the institution facilitated the transition - corporations don't have enlisted and staff officer cadres. Sure there is no longer conscription, is not as if a gendarmerie can just quit for a job elsewhere in the industry if they prefer OSX.

lloeki 13y ago
> As an enterprise, they not only have state level funding but funding at the level of a security/military organization. Which also means that they're procedural and bureaucratic in a way that can make the term "enterprisey" sound like euphemism.

josteink 13y ago

Good for them! As more and more people transition away from Windows, I'm always sad to see some move to OS X. If you're going to leave one proprietary, commercial & licensed platform for another, then really what's the point? This sort of migration at least brings some tangible benefits, with one of them being tax dollars not spent paying Microsoft a tax for having a PC. These sort of stories definitely cheer me up.

forgottenpaswrd 13y ago
"If you're going to leave one proprietary, commercial & licensed platform for another, then really what's the point?" The point is using a complete UNIX operating system that works with any Unix code using standards like OpenGL, but at the same time, is respected by manufacturers of hardware and supported by service providers. Half our computers(lots of them)in our company are Linux, half of them Mac. Using Unix means we could inter operate between them very easy, not like using Windows forcing DirectX(in theory you could use OpenGL, ha!). Using Linux means we have total freedom in what we could do. We are outside USA, not software patents here.
- johnchristopher 13y ago
  What exactly are you working on ?

dublinben 13y ago

This article was already posted yesterday. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6469559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6469559 Just another duplicate spam post from Libertatea.