On 06/08/2021 12:31, Andy Smith via GLLUG wrote:
To be honest I am so disillusioned with the level of corruption in government that I can't see how there could ever be a level playing field for open source software in this market.
I used to work for a Government department, and realised that there was no hope whatsoever for FOSS when certain ex-Prime Minister was bought a Belgravia house by a large software company......
The persistent argument in Governmental Departments is that "there's a warranty with Windows". They also find that "Windows Sysadmins" are cheaper to hire than the likes of you and me, so the supposed economics of proprietary software win out every time. They simply can't understand the fallacies inherent in that viewpoint, and when questioned on the actual validity of any Windows "guarantee", they insisted that they would be able to "apply governmental pressure" to Microsoft to make them fix things! The degree of delusion in government is truly scary.
I was at a demonstration of the vulnerabilities in Windows 7, provided by the "cyber security" bods from GCHQ. They broke into a few "password protected" Win 7 laptops and "secure" Blackberries, and recovered supposedly "secure" emails. At the discussion after the demonstration, the Minister present pointed out that the vulnerabilities "would allow Government to keep a watchful eye on all that's going on" - they WANTED vulnerabilities! When it was pointed out that anyone else would be able to break into those laptops, including "foreign actors", they said that they were unconcerned because "no major foreign power would be the slightest interested in the minutiae of British government"!
No government IT project has ever come in on budget, and exactly none of them has worked as advertised. They have squandered £Billions in the last 40 years, and have achieved almost nothing. The NHS IT infrastructure has never worked, despite them throwing ever more money at the problem, and hospitals and GPs are still keeping all patient records on paper.
They really are clueless/ Chris -- GLLUG mailing list GLLUG@mailman.lug.org.uk https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug
