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World Govs Choose Linux For Security & More

Posted by Hemos on from the preaching-to-the-choir dept.

pjones writes "Government Technology reports that "For reasons of national security and national pride, government officials in countries like China, France and Germany are increasingly adopting the free, open-source computer operating system known as Linux." Noted in the article are China's Red Flag, NSA's Security-Enhanced Linux and much more."

9 of 228 comments (clear)

  1. this story is old by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    World governments choosing Linux for national security (Dec. 1, 2001)

    http://detnews.com/2001/technews/0112/01/technol og y-356385.htm

  2. Red Flag Linux by nsample · · Score: 4, Informative

    You can get ahold of Red Flag Linux, no problemo. You should be able to read chinese, however.

    http://www.redflag-linux.com/

    1. Re:Red Flag Linux by Wizard+of+OS · · Score: 4, Informative
      The english version is here

      Some quotes from the page:
      • "Redflag Joins Hands with EdgeMatrix of Singapore to Tap China?s Multimedia Communication Market", nice to know that the linux distro taps communication.
      • ControLinux finds application in lottery machine?s operating system, yeah, it must be coincidence that the name is 'Control-inux'
      --

      --
      If code was hard to write, it should be hard to read
  3. Money Matters by villoks · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well,

    In Finland the goverment and some of the biggest cities like Turku are currently spending quite serious money to find out if Linux / Open Office would offer a more sensible option than the MS-products. The reason -money. The new MS-lisence scheme has really irritated the local decicion makers. It's not easy to find 30-50% more money for software licenses at the same time as unempleyment rates have started to raise again...

    The added security of OSS-products is of course nice benefit, but it's not the main factor.

    v.

  4. Re:Could a non-Finish European please... by hughk · · Score: 3, Informative
    In Germany, forget Linus, it is Suse that matters. They are big enough and successful enough that the government feels that they could do with an extra bit of help. I doubt, for example, that the Bundestag will use RedHat!

    Also, slowly, people realise that when you have source, you are not dependent upon that corporation , wherever they are.

    Many people are amused by the Finnish link but it doesn't necessarily sell the product as 'european'.

    --
    See my journal, I write things there
  5. Re:Could a non-Finish European please... by kzadot · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yeah for sure, most of us are developing sickening feelings whenever we see how our culture is being overridden by americanization. Not just with computer software, but with music and movies etc too. The backlash against this is slowly building up steam, but a lot of the young'uns still see america as the coolest place in the world. Once they get to high school though, cynicism plays its part, and people start to question americas dominance of everything.

  6. good news, but don't cheer to early ! by gismo · · Score: 4, Informative

    european govs _talk_ about using linux - but they talk for a couple of years now.
    The german "bundestag" diskusses about switching from NT to linux - but the same time windows-based e-gov solutions are presented.
    ( Windows 2000 for virtual city-halls (e))
    Meanwhile MS announces to show theire sources to european govs (XP-source for gov of austria (e))....
    i hope, linux will make it into our govs - but i do not really believe into it.

    re china: they are not realy "anti-MS" anymore - their mayor ISPs switched to MS - most of them predicted to sitch to linux half a year ago ( breakthroug for MS in china (e))

    sorry for all the links to german heise news - i read things like this on other (austrian/german) news-services, but heise has the better search-engine ;-)

  7. and the other way round ... by belbo · · Score: 2, Informative
    Don't want to dip my fly in everybody else's ointment, but royal.gov.uk recently switched from Linux to Windows 2000.

    b.

    --

    --
    "Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple."

  8. Re:Competative Advantage by CaptainZapp · · Score: 2, Informative
    I opened a business, a couple years ago. It's a modest consultancy, specialising on big, complex data management architectures.

    When evaluating the IT infrastructure, I almost fell into the Ye know, my customers use NT and we'll have to interchange documents trap.

    For one reason or another a properly licensed OEM copy failed to install on my box (which only was Win98 taxed, so I had to buy NT in addition).

    To make a long story short: I was rather pissed, went to a bookstore, obtained a copy of SuSE-Linux and installed away (I planned Linux as a second partition anyway).

    Was it painless ? Hell, no! Wasting a day, trying to configure a modem which turns out to be defective is not much fun. The learning curve is partially steep (and that's not an install matter) and surprises clutter your path. But

    It was the best business decision that I made. Not only do I have three industry strength databases running on essentially on a PC reliaby, but I very rarely have IT problems and if I do, they can usually be solved.

    Yep, definitely a competitive advantage. And this is not a price issue.

    --
    ich bin der musikant

    mit taschenrechner in der hand

    kraftwerk