It's official, Linux is for commies!

faethor said:
Putin orders transition to Linux
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He wouldn't be the first. I believe there are some South American countries that have adopted Linux. In fact, I have argued that all governments should adopt open source software. The fundamental reason is that as data systems get implemented and governments depend on them more and more governments become hostage to their software which means that if you depend on software that is privately owned then the government is owned to a certain extent by that same company. For most of the world the predominant owner of the desktop is a foreign corporation - that is a bad situation to be in.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
He wouldn't be the first. I believe there are some South American countries that have adopted Linux. In fact, I have argued that all governments should adopt open source software. The fundamental reason is that as data systems get implemented and governments depend on them more and more governments become hostage to their software which means that if you depend on software that is privately owned then the government is owned to a certain extent by that same company. For most of the world the predominant owner of the desktop is a foreign corporation - that is a bad situation to be in.
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Although I too support open source, technically you can achieve the above by using any software that uses open file formats. Patent free codecs and open formats are what we want more then anything - and is probably an attainable goal.
 
Glaucus said:
Although I too support open source, technically you can achieve the above by using any software that uses open file formats. Patent free codecs and open formats are what we want more then anything - and is probably an attainable goal.
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That's a good start but how do you audit proprietary software for hidden kill switches and other such nasties when you are buying from a potentially hostile nation?
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
That's a good start but how do you audit proprietary software for hidden kill switches and other such nasties when you are buying from a potentially hostile nation?
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That's a very good point, but a separate issue from what you stated above. It certainly makes a compelling argument. I do know that governments do write their own custom software for some core tasks, although they are likely using an off-the-shelf database engine and operating system. I am sure there are many factors involved, and my guess is that Canada probably trusts Microsoft where as Putin is probably very suspicious - and that's likely the motivation for him.
 
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