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World Govs Choose Linux For Security & More
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."
This guy knew enough to say that he hadn't the expertise, but he would like to accept their offer and bring some experts from the from the Bundesamt fuer Sicherheit in Informationstechnik and, of course, the Chaos Computer Club. Microsoft Germany did not respond after that.
To be honest, it could have been a good advertisement for MS if these guys had passed Win2K, but oh well, obviously they had their doubts.
See my journal, I write things there
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.
It's not just the Government, schools are switching as well!
We just finished switching servers to (SuSE 7.3) linux (vs Novell) for Wentzville, Missouri school district. (wentzville.k12.mo.us) The workstation machines might be next!
Not because anyone hates Microsoft or Novell, just because it was going to cost them a minimum of $13,000 a year for Novell licenses and who knows how much for Microsoft licenses.
They simply can't afford it and don't want to resort to piracy as so many other schools and companies have.
On top of that their getting a lot of added functionality they didn't have previously such as in house email, dns and web hosting.
We also got them setup with NAT, DHCP, and a firewall. None of which they had previously!
They are very excited to see it up and running so quickly. We're going to train them with what they need to know and they've got other training in their future budget plan.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Got to agree with you. The NHS (National Health Service) in the UK just linked up with Microsoft to use their software on all their computers. This includes office as well. The article is from BBC News.
The NHS is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) employers in the UK so a deal like this means a massive increase in income for MS - £5 billion according to the article (with discount!).
As the article says medical records need confidentiality and having MS "own" the system required to read it is potentially disasterous. The other computer projects that the NHS has undertaken have not been too great of a success e.g. the "NHSnet" (an internal network) which was buggy and used old protocols instead of using newer email protocols (i.e. they didn't use POP3).
I think that MS one this contract cause they are in bed with president tony (blair). I can't see how it is good for the health service if every machine is ms-dependent. They really should have tried splitting the system between different contractors (ms could still be involved) so that there is redundancy in the system. The thing is everybody attack IIS systems, and for some reason I think it will be a major hassle trying to locate and patch every single server the NHS has.
more links
500,000 winxp licenses for Uk.gov
NHS email system not working
Gates talks to NHS managers about using ms products
Doctors forced to use Hotmail for confidential medical records