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India Mandates Use of Open Source Software In Government
jrepin writes The Indian government announced a policy yesterday that makes it mandatory to use open-source software in building apps and services, in an effort to "ensure efficiency, transparency and reliability of such services at affordable costs." The new policy (PDF) states that all government organizations must include a requirement for their software suppliers to consider open-source options when implementing e-governance applications and systems. The move will bring the Indian government in line with other countries including the US, UK and Germany that opt for open-source software over proprietary tools.
This is the year if Linux!
The devil is in the detail - a requirement to "consider" open source software is not the same as mandating open source software.
You mean software without the NSA 5-eyes backdoors?
Face it, who the f*** wants US made kit when they're talking about compulsory backdoors, and its clear there may be a lot of backdoors in their kit already present.
It's not just the intentional backdoors, US companies report their zero day vulnerabilities to the NSA, and they use them in things like Stuxnet, so even buying kit from decent careful closed-source US companies is a risk.
If they go ahead an eliminate encryption, then technically no business in the world will be able to use US made kit, because they'd be exposing their business secrets, their financials details, their confidential customer records, everything to everyone.
It can't be taken propriatory if it's GPL.
All that is needed is a rule that all the code that is required to fulfill a government requirement is open to inspection.
You know, that's a great idea except... Usually there is no way to map from the source code you are given to the executable you where provided unless you have instructions on how to *build* the executable for your self.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
#1: AD isn't necessary except to do things the way AD wants them done. They don't have to be done that way. The only thing I've EVER had told me that AD did that wasn't replaced by SAMBA was to undo the dumbfuck way Windows treats a computer, where it wants things installed on the C: drive and locally installed with the registry set up. That's not what's needed, but it only exists to undo some of the dumb ideas that were implemented by Windows. But you don't have to use AD to undo them: you don't require it to operate outside its usage. And then AD isn't needed.
#2: Exchange doesn't scale anywhere near as well as the UNIX stalwarts. Even MS found they couldn't do it without massive and specific effort. You have no chance.
#3: UNIX manages desktops fine, better than Windows, because it was always a multi-user, non-owned user system, unlike Windows. So there's nothing to this "point" either.
#4: There's massive amounts of stuff to do backups for UNIX. Who knows what the hell you're thinking of to make you think Windows does it better.
#5: Managing and delegation of privileges are better on UNIX and Linux especially than it is on Windows. They're equal when you're talking about out-of-the-box normal privileges, excepting the Windows system wanting to execute anything, even if the execute flag isn't set, if it THINKS it should be executed. You have to do extra work to stop that, and you don't have to do that with Linux.
#6: NFS has no problems doing what you need to do with the filesystem too. Just because you don't know what they are doesn't make them nonexistent.
#7: It's easy-peasy to do what you demand on Linux. Issue a key to log on that only allows access 9-5, only from pre-configured systems, and always encrypted communication.
Not to say closed software hasn't got a place or doesn't work, it just doesn't work the same way. Between other closed source software or open sourced software. And demanding that what you do on one platform must be available on another otherwise "It just doesn't replace my system" is ridiculous and self-confirming fake incompatibility.
But demanding that just because the way you do something isn't done on another doesn't mean that the usage you want isn't available. It just isn't done with the same command as you're used to.
Huh? FoundationDB was closed source. The company published some supporting open source projects on github. Those are surely mirrored and will be reuploaded by others. If a truly open source database like cassandra was taken down by primary contributor, others would just take over.
If you do not know how to do it, others might...nevertheless the article is quite vague, and full of backdoors. I could very well maintain all the desktop environment in windows because "it works better", and only provide applications and servers in Linux.
Gee, most of what you claim is not possible truly IS possible on Linux/Unix solutions IF you know what you are doing.
With the possible exception of the Active Directory vrs OpenLDAP gripe of yours (and I'm just not prepared to argue that point with you, I think it's possible if properly managed and configured that OpenLDAP would scale just fine) everything you complain about are not issues without solutions, but solutions that you may not understand how to setup and use.
Linux generally has solutions to the above problems which do work and work well for the back of house stuff. What Linux doesn't have though is the developed "tribal knowledge" of skilled administrators who understand the solutions and how to properly implement them. (Not that the tribe of Windows administrators always understand their OS of choice either.)
Your complaints seem more born of frustration with people who didn't know what they where doing or what tools did what you are accustom to seeing than being actual limitations with Linux. Or perhaps you have had some bad experiences with Linux because somebody thought it was going to be cheaper to forget the license costs of Windows and run some half baked Unix solution instead. I can tell you that if you do the Linux thing because it is cheaper up front, you are sadly mistaken and wasting your time and money. Usually Linux requires as much budget up front as the Microsoft solution and only saves you money in years to come. Much pain is caused by half understood, improperly implemented and under funded efforts in either Microsoft or Linux worlds...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Yet another AC
I routinely hop onto Linux setups and do maintenance/upgrades on 10,000 systems. There are tools to do it fine, just like there are things in MS land to mitigate the pain.
The short story from any seasoned admin perspective: 'Whatever platform *I* know the tools for is better than the platform that I don't know the tools for'. This applies to all the parent posts. The Windows guy thinks Linux isn't enterprise ready because he doesn't know the tools. The Linux guy is shocked to hear this because Windows in his experience is a pain in the ass.
This gets me curious what tools people use for their larger deployments. I've used Chef and Puppet, as well as Splunk to consolidate logs, but if I get asked to find a tool that is to Linux as SCOM/SCCM is to Windows, what would be the best bet, as I see the above statement, "Linux can't be managed" repeated a lot, and that should be addressed.
Yeah, you're wrong... The Linux admins are far better at their job than the Solaris (and shudder HP-UX) admins.
DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE WINDOW GUYS!
There are bad apples in all the barrels. I've known good and bad Linux admins, good and bad Windows admins and a whole series of admins who don't know enough to realize they are making problems for themselves and others....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
The short story from any seasoned admin perspective: 'Whatever platform *I* know the tools for is better than the platform that I don't know the tools for'. This applies to all the parent posts. The Windows guy thinks Linux isn't enterprise ready because he doesn't know the tools. The Linux guy is shocked to hear this because Windows in his experience is a pain in the ass.
Of course leaving out the small detail that basically every managed Windows desktop uses AD and Windows admins either know it or they don't. If I search for tools to centralized manage Linux machines, I get dozens of alternatives in the top 50 hits. Like with everything else on Linux, there is no single standard.
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