Rant about French government

Machiaveli said:
That alone resumes it all imho and is the only reason they went back using MS products 😅:beer:
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Linux is pretty pricey if you want/need full support.
All sysadmins can click mouse in GUI, few of them can script and very few can do it properly. And that can be pricey too.

And do not underestimate the stupidity or rather laziness of average pencil pusher. Special kind of lazy - Brain lazy.
I have seen things you people wouldn't believe. Secretaries would rather change venue time or address all day in a Word document with every invitation on separate page - rather than bothering to learn mail merge

Microsoft changing menu layout triggered total panic. They have few step by step instructions written down tied to specific icons/names. They do not know how and why they click things. They are simple automatons. If I want to attach something to document I click here, then here, then O.K. button - god forbid I have to navigate folders (a few know what that is, having missed the lesson 1 of computer proficiency and they do not want to understand it).

Now imagine you present them with Linux desktop and Libre Office - they will nag the bureau heads to death or until they switch back to MS Office...like they did in German Foreign Service Bureau for example.
 
If I remember correctly, Steve Ballmer came in person to München arguing for Windows, and he was most annoyed of one sentence coming again and again: "What else can you offer?"

They sure as heck did not want to see a bigger customer ditching them and having no big problems. This customer would have pockets deep enough to pay the admins they needed and the planning capacity to run the switch smoothly. After this, a lot more effort was spent on making things cloudy and SAAS, to make it even harder to switch.

Microsoft infra structure is a lot like tic-tac-toe. The only winning move is not to play.
 
Crivens said:
If I remember correctly, Steve Ballmer came in person to München arguing for Windows, and he was most annoyed of one sentence coming again and again: "What else can you offer?"

They sure as heck did not want to see a bigger customer ditching them and having no big problems. This customer would have pockets deep enough to pay the admins they needed and the planning capacity to run the switch smoothly. After this, a lot more effort was spent on making things cloudy and SAAS, to make it even harder to switch.

Microsoft infra structure is a lot like tic-tac-toe. The only winning move is not to play.
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In case of German Foreign Office afaik, they have the advantage of being Cloud averse due to state secrets certifications largely prohibiting it.
However the deep pockets are not for hiring sysadmins. They are primarily for hiring or rather bribing loyal friends who are plenty and very eager since they can't feed themselves outside of government.
Also there is another matter. To certify Windows for state secret matters is much easier than custom Linux solutions.

Similar situation is developing around vmware. And that is no concern of cloud or SAAS - it is for on prem solutions. Broadcom hiked prices, everyone wants out but when you do the math it is not that easy.
German companies would prefer (sort of domestic) SUSE but the final bill seems to be the same at best.

Hint sheet of what priorities to offer to corporate or gov managers/buyers:

1. Responsibility avoidance - you sign with us we take the responsibility for downtimes
2. See above
3. See above
4. Low price...at the moment of signing. For annual hikes the signators will be long gone.
.
.
1000. No need to hire or bother internal sysadmins/experts - as they are often opinionated, expensive and/or weird nerds.
1001. Functional/effective solution well integrated, modular etc.
 
DanielBowman said:
Linux is pretty pricey if you want/need full support.
All sysadmins can click mouse in GUI, few of them can script and very few can do it properly. And that can be pricey too.

And do not underestimate the stupidity or rather laziness of average pencil pusher. Special kind of lazy - Brain lazy.
I have seen things you people wouldn't believe. Secretaries would rather change venue time or address all day in a Word document with every invitation on separate page - rather than bothering to learn mail merge
...
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But.. but.. they told us we could GET RID OF ALL THOSE EXPENSIVE GUYS and the secretaries and a couple of teenage interns that we can string along without paying them anything would be able to do the work! They just have to click the mouse button a few times and it's all going to be ok, and the rest of it will be 'self-healing'... RIGHT??!
 
blackbird9 said:
But.. but.. they told us we could GET RID OF ALL THOSE EXPENSIVE GUYS and the secretaries and a couple of teenage interns that we can string along without paying them anything would be able to do the work! They just have to click the mouse button a few times and it's all going to be ok, and the rest of it will be 'self-healing'... RIGHT??!
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They already got rid of majority of those guys. It is largely outsourced beyond basic clicking and a few over-worked and under-paid proper admins in the house.
The thing is outsourcing Linux admins is way more expensive than getting a bunch of guys to do Windows.
 
Yes $100 dollar cordless power tools netted 1000x. Good investment on the money.
Just walk in like you own the place.
The sad part is the trashed imperial crown the dopes dropped as they were scootering away.
 
You put a diamond blade on a Dewalt Grinder and there is not much you cannot penetrate.
Make it cordless and you have created serious security troubles.
Sort like using Liquid Nitrogen/CO2 on a kryptonite bike lock. It quickly defeated the best lock known...
One more nick in security theater.
 
Interesting... seems like NixOS is getting some attention. I wonder who in the nixos team is mates with the people making the decisions in the dutch and french gov's... :-)
 
blackbird9 said:
Interesting... seems like NixOS is getting some attention. I wonder who in the nixos team is mates with the people making the decisions in the dutch and french gov's... :-)
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Being Dutch, I don't trust this. Something's wrong wih this narration of OS choice to NixOS and its apparent adoption.
Is NixOS able to compile itself from source without any requirement of binary data? That's a deciding factor. If not, they are silently messing with it for surveillance infrastructure. which obviously has to be hidden in executable data.
 
MG said:
Being Dutch, I don't trust this. Something's wrong wih this narration of OS choice to NixOS and its apparent adoption.
Is NixOS able to compile itself from source without any requirement of binary data? That's a deciding factor. If not, they are silently messing with it for surveillance infrastructure. which obviously has to be hidden in executable data.
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You can be assured that in anything significant there is secret police involved. It is their job and it is human nature to maximize control/power.
In this case, until it is mandated for personal use....
They already have backdoors in processors most likely....we know of some in Intel. OS or even compilers vulnerability is therefore somewhat irrelevant. It is like worrying about knee pads while riding a wild tiger.

NixOS makes perfect sense on functional and political level. It is not USA centric and technologically it is a step up from usual distro management tools/methods which are fine for one geek user but are pain in enterprise.

It would be nice to have more options than Washington/Tel Aviv, Beijing or Moscow.
Not that Brussels can do better but having functional OSS infrastructure on other continent can benefit everybody, especially Europeans. Competition usually does improve things. And the Linux world is being swallowed by the few big players in USA.

Maybe NixOS will not pan out. But the scaffolding and momentum will remain.
Maybe FreeBSD will become the headless servers. Serving zfs, bhyve and pf to NixOS clients 🙀
 
DanielBowman said:
NixOS makes perfect sense on functional and political level. It is not USA centric...
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I doubt it. We are more or less obligated to using USA ecosystems on our smartphones and all municipal offices are all-in MS cloud including personal financial and biometric information.

I expect this initiative to fail because people will find out, and they will spin it to user-unfriendly like they always did with linux in the government office.
 
MG said:
I doubt it. We are more or less obligated to using USA ecosystems on our smartphones and all municipal offices are all-in MS cloud including personal financial and biometric information.

I expect this initiative to fail because people will find out, and they will spin it to user-unfriendly like they always did with linux in the government office.
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Europeans are obligated because they are protectorate i.e. not sovereign.
For sovereignty you need first and foremost Guns and (willingness to dish out and receive) violence.
The other important tools are money.
Then you have information. And that ecosystem is the easiest to change, provided if guns and money let you.

Of course it all depends greatly on economic prosperity.
And all that depends on (cheap) energy...as all is energy in the end...even so called particles of matter.

Can EU do that all? Nope 90%. You are right to be sceptical.
But NixOS can be done. Especially today when every app is mostly a browser and serious automation is afoot, anyway.
It would be miniscule step to sovereignity but a step in the right direction...to OSS realm.
1595513587128.jpg
 
DanielBowman said:
Europeans are obligated because they are protectorate i.e. not sovereign.
For sovereignty you need first and foremost Guns and (willingness to dish out and receive) violence.
The other important tools are money.
Then you have information. And that ecosystem is the easiest to change, provided if guns and money let you.

Of course it all depends greatly on economic prosperity.
And all that depends on (cheap) energy...as all is energy in the end...even so called particles of matter.

Can EU do that all? Nope 90%. You are right to be sceptical.
But NixOS can be done. Especially today when every app is mostly a browser and serious automation is afoot, anyway.
It would be miniscule step to sovereignity but a step in the right direction...to OSS realm.
View attachment 27433
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Really? That's primitive fascist rhetoric. Nevermind. 😑
 
MG said:
Argeument? I say what I see. Jap jap about government authority and glorificatiom of Violence. Disgusting...
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a] let's take it somewhere else
b] statement of fact i.e. real-politik, is not glorification
c] Disgusting is riding on the high horse of idealistic oblivion sneering on messengers
 
I'm just a bit surprised they didn't choose one of the larger european distros, like Suse or even Ubuntu. Nixos seems to be quite a small outfit. But I wish them good luck, hopefully they will get some funding and support from the governments involved. It's always a healthy thing to have more options.
 
We could talk about politics all day, sitting around with something to drink. This ain't the place. Also, consider me having the short straw this weekend and I have to watch here and also watch my kids. That's not funny. But if someone has a suggestion for say, next weekend, we might get to sit around and exchange our views of world politics.
 
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