A national, open-source operating system could help reduce Canada’s dependence on the U.S. while improving security and saving a surprising amount of money.
  • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
    3·
    3 days ago

    I have absolutely zero faith the government could create a whole secure operating system with the apps it would need.

    Just use Linux ffs

      • Random Dent@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        5 days ago

        But then how else will they be able pay Accenture $10 million to vibe code something that’s a piece of shit that doesn’t work?

        • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.caEnglish
          1·
          6 days ago

          Why make their own distro?

          Because the Canadian government needs to make a simple solution as shitty as possible and hire hundreds of consultants to insure it will never work. They never got Phoenix Pay working.

          • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            0·
            5 days ago

            I mean, I’ve seen a lot of noise by Canada and Europe about how they need to distance themselves from the United States, meanwhile if you look at the world’s top visited websites, more than half of them are US based, from major search engines like Google to AI stuff like Gemini and ChatGPT to marketplaces like Amazon and eBay to social media like Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn to video media hosting like Netflix, Youtube and Twitch. Canada has one entry: Pornhub. EU countries have two: XVideos in France and XHamster in Cypress.

            “Switching to our own operating system” means switching from an American corporation, to some American non-profit foundations. Trading Microsoft for GNU/Linux. Still running on Intel x86 architecture machines. Don’t get me wrong, the attempt is adorable, but you’re four decades behind in a four decade old discipline.

  • Croquette@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    6 days ago

    Linux is right there, no need to reinvent the wheel.

    Libre Office to replace most of Microsoft 365 suite.

    Pick a distro and help develop it to make it more robust.

    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.caEnglish
      1·
      5 days ago

      So they can hire hundreds of IT consultants to fuck the dog around Ottawa cafes for three years, then deliver a system that doesn’t work/ ne fonctionne pas.

      This is how government IT works. They couldn’t even implement a system to pay themselves.

  • five_bucks@lemmy.ca
    0·
    6 days ago

    I’ll probably take shit for my comment, so preface: I use FOSS and self-host a lot of stuff at home, my Elbows are Up, and Fuck M$. Now then…

    Yeah, the federal government could give up MS licenses for the public service and switch to OpenBSD or Linux and use LibreOffice. Excellent! Big savings.

    Now then, how about all the ancient databases and applications used by the CRA and regulatory agencies. Will they keep working or will they need attention? Downtime is not an option.

    Then there’s weird things like lab equipment and remote devices that provide earth sensing data for weather forecasts and probably tsunami warning for all I know.

    Every one of those things needs, at least, thorough consideration and many will need specific attention from developers who are familiar with some pretty old tech. The public service does not have that capacity on hand. Contracting (expensive) private sector companies is a given.

    I haven’t even mentioned the requirements for handling protected data or liability. Who does the government sue for damages if there’s an unpatched exploit in OpenBSD?

    Anyway, all the above can be addressed. Nothing’s impossible. But the estimated cost-savings are not realistic. Like, at all.

    You may now tear me to shreds.

    • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      6 days ago

      You’re not wrong exactly, but I think you’re perhaps assuming an unnecessarily absolutist approach. If there are legacy systems that need windows, keep windows for those legacy systems. What you’re describing are exceptions, not the norm. The vast, vast majority of public service computers could just as easily be running Linux.

      As for who the Federal government sues, that’s why you go with an enterprise release like Red Had or Ubuntu. You find a company that you’re happy to work with, you pay them maybe 25% of what you’re paying MS right now, and in return you get a full support plan with clearly defined SLAs.

      This isn’t so much “Nothing’s impossible” as it is “It’s really not that hard.” These are solved problems. Plenty of governments have already switched over to open source.

  • historicaldocuments@lemmy.world
    0·
    7 days ago

    Author of the article missed the Netherlands going to NixOS by a week.

    And Canada already has a homegrown operating system that’s just waiting for someone to read the handbook thoroughly, read the manual, install it themselves, and see what’s up. Canada has already played host to a free operating system with OpenBSD thanks to crypto being a munition back in the 90s and there’s no reason to not look at both Nix and OpenBSD if they’re going to head down that road.

    I’ll go ahead and write the international treaty:

    Canada and the Netherlands agree to go halfsies on a trusted NixOS and OpenBSD repo.