this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2024
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470
Why Microsoft is a national security threat (www.theregister.com)
submitted 7 months ago by kinther@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] pelya@lemmy.world 56 points 7 months ago (8 children)

Once the government switched to Linux en-masse, Microsoft will have no leverage whatsoever, no solution they can possibly propose will beat free software.

LibreOffice is totally adequate for most government jobs.

It's not like there's no precedent, Germany's government already switched to Linux

The only possible way to generate money is through the use of online document editing services, but Google Docs pretty much cornered the market here.

[–] ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world 80 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I just want to clarify that a german state switched. Not Germany.

[–] irreticent@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

And, IIRC, it's just a trial to see if it will work.

Edit: I should have read the article linked in a comment above...

"As spotted by The Document Foundation, the government has apparently finished its pilot run of LibreOffice and is now announcing plans to expand to more open source offerings."

"In 2021, the state government announced plans to move 25,000 computers to LibreOffice by 2026. At the time, Schleswig-Holstein said it had already been testing LibreOffice for two years."

So, it seems the trial may be over and they are migrating for good.

[–] northendtrooper@lemmy.ca 18 points 7 months ago (3 children)

I'm honestly surprised the us govt hasn't developed their own pos locked downed Linux os.

[–] masterofn001@lemmy.ca 12 points 7 months ago (2 children)

It seems the baddies are way ahead of the curve:

https://itsfoss.com/linux-national-os/

[–] Miaou@jlai.lu 2 points 7 months ago

"Baddies"

[–] breadsmasher@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

LTT had a video on using North Korea linux

[–] Hildegarde@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Blue Star OS?

[–] hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 7 months ago

Blue stripe os

[–] blurg@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Back in 2000, there was something like that for the kernel with SELinux (Security-Enhanced Linux). Which continues to live in various distributions' kernels. Not a full O/S though, and not generally regarded as a PoS.

[–] theneverfox@pawb.social 1 points 7 months ago

I always found it to be a real PITA... It felt like a parallel system to file permissions, which meant I had two things to configure instead of one and I never really saw the purpose. It seemed like it could be more granular than the default, but if it did anything more than that I never learned about it

Granted, I'm a dev, not an admin. I go back and configure the firewall after I shut it off because it was in my way... Eventually

[–] PresidentCamacho@lemm.ee 17 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Even if libre office didn't offer those features, I'd be willing to bet the gov could donate 1/100 what they pay Microsoft in a year to have them implemented.

[–] melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago

seriously. or just say "America's gift to the world" and wave their dicks around over in house programmers adding it.

[–] lemmyreader@lemmy.ml 10 points 7 months ago

Just for the record : Schleswig-Holstein is only one of Germany’s 16 states. Let's hope the rest of Germany will follow.

[–] moitoi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

France is here a better example. The Gendarmerie has its own distribution based on Ubuntu called GendBuntu. The state developed Tchap, a messaging system based on matrix. And many are looking to Linux to simply cut the cost like the french army.

Side note: The app Fedilab has its package name based on the french government open source projects (fr.gouv.etalab.mastodon).

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

They can also just use Office online. That should be good enough to get people to switch without a huge disruption in efficiency.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You underestimate how much people rely on Excel macros.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, but there are alternatives, so it at least provides a smaller change than completely switching to something else.

[–] Croquette@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah but years of macros over macros that keep the business running won't be easily ported to a new solution.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Sure, and being forced to redo it is probably a good thing in the long run.

Maybe they'll get a developer to build it into a reusable product instead of relying on Jim in accounting to fix the macros to get it working after an update. Or maybe they'll realize they could get the same result with a pivot table and clever formulas.

[–] Croquette@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I agree with you, but nothing is more permanent than temporary solutions.

Your response is the rational one, but rarely the one taken.

It works and the new solution would cost time and money, we can't have that.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 months ago

Yeah, this is government, not a nice FOSS project. :)