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Putin's Internet Czar Wants To Ban Windows On Government PCs
SmartAboutThings writes: The Russian government is allegedly looking to ban Microsoft's Windows operating system, increase taxes on foreign technology companies, develop its homegrown OS and encourage local tech companies to grow. All these proposals comes from German Klimenko, Vladimir Putin's new 'internet czar, as Bloomberg describes him. In a 90-minute interview, Klimenko said forcing Google and Apple to pay more taxes and banning Microsoft Windows from government computers are necessary measures, as he is trying to raise taxes on U.S. companies, thus helping local Russian competitors such as Yandex and Mail.ru.
A re-branded version of some popular Linux distro...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Exactly. With the privacy blunder Microsoft committed with Windows 10, plus its NSA collaboration, it is not unreasonable for other countries to ban Windows for government work and spend the money on alternatives.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
When the US government is in court with Microsoft over how they could use secret laws to claim Microsoft has to break the laws of other countries ... I fail to see how Microsoft, or any US company, can really be trusted.
This seems an entirely prudent response from Russia. I'm actually surprised more companies aren't actively wondering just how much Microsoft and others can be controlled by the US government.
When the US government is actively trying to ensure backdoors in encryption and the like, why would you assume there aren't any? You think these companies are going to make the international version with no US spying capabilities?
Good luck with that.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I disgree. I think Windows is both seriously crap for usability and inherently very insecure when compared to most Linux distros, and who knows what info Microsoft (and therefore the US gov) can/is using Windows to collect/phone home with.
Factor in that Linux is free (in both senses), has inspectable source code, is more standards-compliant and supports more hardware, and has more free professional-grade apps, and the decision is (or should be) a complete no-brainer, especially for governments.
In fact it boggles my mind why anyone is still choosing to use Windows for anything at all, except maybe gaming, and then only because many games devs still dont make Linux versions of AAA games, although tthat seems to be (too slowly for me) changing too.