In peaceful times, people cling to broken systems simply because “that’s how it’s always been done”. Comfort is a prison.
This crisis is a great opportunity to screw Microsoft.
Chaos isn’t a pit. Chaos is a ladder.
Canadians should be agressively lobbying their politicians to embrace Linux and the open source ecosystem. Call your representatives. Write to your city council. Contact your town IT department. Do it now.
I work in government IT in Canada… that shit ain’t happening. I have been laughed out every time I’ve mentioned it for years.
I got approval from my managers and IT to install a Linux based OS on my work desktop, then a half-wit Windows-fanboy dev chimed in claiming our insurance would not cover the operating system if there were ever a security breach, data loss, etc. to say I was infuriated was an understatement.
All we use is a Web-App to accomplish our tasks, no in-house proprietary executables or anything along those lines, hell they claimed their Web-App wouldn’t work on Firefox browsers, which of course was a lie.
This person was lying to you.
Wow, I guess that makes sense. But if they were going to move to a significant count of Linux machines I would assume that an enterprise edition (like red hat) would probably be covered by insurance. Since they then have someone to blame.
Ottawa IT is a joke. The BMW turn signals of government.
Curious, did you mention this after annexation threats? I could understand before the second Trump term as most countries assumed that the US “checks and balances” wouldn’t allow a president to just lob grenades everywhere including at the US’s own feet.
Doesn’t matter if someone higher up is no longer laughing. All the people you heard laugh will be getting direct orders from above them to start pushing changes
More countries should look at the efforts made by the EU and member countries to reduce dependency on big tech.
Big same. I’ve been the cloud guy for years hosting linux servers exclusively. I win awards. Our budget to host our websites is the envy of other departments. The default is still Microsoft first for everything and I fight for every little open source win I can eke out.
exactly; i lost track of the number of times a government has stated an intention to ditch microsoft only to have them quietly withdraw it later.
And we just signed a new deal with Microsoft - after all this trade war stuff started happening.
Then the deal needs to be changed. Contracts are not above the law 🤷
Market share of linux in canada has been gradually increasing for around 2 decades (download the CSV for a clearer representation of the data). the more popular linux becomes the more likely it is the government will switch to it (more software support, funding etc).
You were laughed at? Really? Why?
I’ve witnessed this firsthand. Its because Microsoft has consultants embedded in the government and they have so many of the higher up bureaucrats under their thumb so brainwashed that yes, they laugh at attempts to deMicrosoft. Its ludicrous to them to abandon Microsoft.
Consultants? You mean lobbyists? This sounds like bribery.
It’s so fucked up.
“consultants” in that they are basically a mixture of cultists and also very aware their future is Microsoft or bust.
I fought and lost to get a simple LAMP box to run a web app for my squadron using software written by dozens of others in my specialty. We lost because a lt. Colonel with a guaranteed seat at Microsoft just said no.