this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2024

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Petition on the implementation of an EU-Linux operating system in public administrations across all EU countries (www.europarl.europa.eu)

submitted 17 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

51 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Petition Summary: The petitioner calls for the European Union to actively develop and implement a Linux-based operating system, termed ‘EU-Linux’, across public administrations in all EU Member States. This initiative aims to reduce dependency on Microsoft products, ensuring compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and promoting transparency, sustainability, and digital sovereignty within the EU. The petitioner emphasizes the importance of using open-source alternatives to Microsoft 365, such as LibreOffice and Nextcloud, and suggests the adoption of the E/OS mobile operating system for government devices. The petitioner also highlights the potential for job creation in the IT sector through this initiative.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 hours ago

Well, what better way to embrace FOSS than dismissing the efforts of all the existing distro maintainers? Welcome to the community, guys. Good luck building your cathedral next to the bazaar!

How about they instead work together with the distros and create a way of certifying a distro as gov-ready?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 hours ago

Someone mentioned that M365 is properly not legal. Guess what, it isn't.

The EDPS (European Data Protection Supervisor) investgated the EU-Commissions' use of M365 and found it to be illegal in march 2024. EPDS gave the Commission until December 2024 to, among other things, stop transfers of Personal Information to third countries in M365 outside the EU. Which of course made the Commission sue the EDPS. And MS to do the same..

So M365 is NOT legal to use for any Public Institution in the EU. Unless the Controller make Microsoft change their DPA, contract etc. Kinda like MS did for the Dutch government after the dutch firm Privacy Company made an in depth analysis of M365 and found numerous illegal processing etc.

Fun how Microsoft was made aware of how they acted illegal, and changed it - only for the Dutch Government...!! The rest of their Customers still have the illegal DPA, terms etc... Also fun how it is Common knowledge and IT-departments still choose to use M365, and move as much as possible there from more privacy and security oriented services.

EDPS investigation into the Commissions use of M365: https://www.edps.europa.eu/press-publications/press-news/press-releases/2024/european-commissions-use-microsoft-365-infringes-data-protection-law-eu-institutions-and-bodies_en

My point? EU-Linux is a fantastic idea! 🙂

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

Just use OpenSUSE

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 hours ago

PSA: You can sign the petition even if you're not a European national. I registered and signed as a Canadian myself and it accepted it

[–] [email protected] 32 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I've said this a million times, but it's definitely about time we stop spending taxes on a rogue entity across the ocean who definitely does not have our best interests in mind. I'm not convinced it's even legal and I don't understand why the legal prospects have never been brought up about this fucking situation. R&D money should not go to a foreign corporation. In addition, I (and pretty much everyone else on the planet) already paid for microsofts products and services so my government can use it (against my will), so why the fuck do they get away with setting a public price at all? It should legally be free or the governments shouldn't need to pay for it in the first place, and it should legally be open source because it's publicly funded. There are just so many problems with the entire idea of our government using Windows, Office, and their services.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Linux is still mostly US-dependent as a project.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

If the Linux project and all its developers and maintainers disappeared tomorrow, the kernel would still exist, be useful, and be forkable.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 hours ago

Especially since many Linux related organizations like SUSE and KDE are based in the EU.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

Fucking over microsoft is always good

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 hours ago

It's not fucking over Microsoft, it's prevent Microsoft from fucking us over. Microsoft is not the victim in this.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 12 hours ago

I imagine this would work out to be something similar to redhat enterprise linux, but with the EU funding it's development instead of the US

[–] [email protected] 18 points 15 hours ago (3 children)

Focus instead on enforcing standards' compliance so i can open a .docx with any program and be usable anywhere.

Then focus on enforcing FOSS software in public services but don't bother with a "european linux distro", that's just a waste of resources. There are already a great deal of distros around. Considering geopolitics i'd go with SuSe or some other EU-based distro.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Focus instead on enforcing standards' compliance so i can open a .docx with any program and be usable anywhere.

That's an impossible task. Not even Microsoft manages that. Do not want to count how often i used libreOffice to repair or convert an older MSOffice file so it can be opend with modern Versions of MSOffice.

Once there was a 500MB Excel Sheet with lime 500-1000 used Cells, opened and saved it to.a xlsx file using libreOffice and reduced it to a few MB while still being fully functional.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

@ShortN0te @0x0 I mean the real problem here is that MS office is a mess but somehow still standardized, so "enforcing standards" would be as easy as showing MS the middle finger and using libre office. They'd save a lot of money and time, it's a clear win-win scenario imho

[–] [email protected] 7 points 14 hours ago

Open standards are the first step of a functional transition to an open government. From there Open Source Software can compete against commercial software, once the ppl see that the FOSS offers the same features then the proprietary paid software they can easily switch to it. With open standards they only need to train the users, no data to migrate etc.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

OOXML is Microsoft's proprietary format it itself doesn't implement consistently.

Either you meant OpenDocument or you meant that you want a magic wand.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 hours ago

Yes MS intentionally implements it inconsistently and yes that's why i meant whichever format is open.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 15 hours ago

Focus instead on enforcing standards’ compliance

For sure, but ¿por qué no los dos?

Completely agree with your other prioritisations.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

They could call it Eunux!

Oh...

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 hours ago

Eubuntu.

Or Keubuntu, the KDEU spin.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 13 hours ago

Especially in light of Microsoft CoPilot. You do not want obvious spyware on any computer.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 14 hours ago

https://publiccode.eu/en/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I'd really like to see this. However I don't have high hopes when looking at the current state in Slovenia, where Microsoft is deeply rooted in all public and non public sectors, starting from schools. Most know only Windows and Word while they don't distinguish between the two and schools system doesn't give a shit about teaching anything about computers let alone non Microsoft. One of the reasons is, of course, teachers being computer illiterate or ... know only Microsoft. And so on and so forth.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

This is education everywhere

[–] [email protected] 14 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

As long as the EU doesn't reinvent the wheel, why not? I mean if they are going to fork Linux and rewrite a EU-based linux OS, this would further divide the community and make issues and security a lot more wacky... Not sure this is a good idea.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Pretty sure they're talking about making a distro, not forking the Linux kernel. I don't see any reason why they would need to fork it anyway.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago

One reason could be possible US restrictions and sanctions.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

This is dumb. Hand over development to bureaucrats? create a set of guidelines and requirements, and allow distros to be certified, and fund development of distros that are being used.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 16 hours ago

It would make so much more sense to fund existing Linux development than making a new distro, tbh.

If the EU changed to Linux systems and donated the same amount back to open source development as they currently pay for Microsoft licenses, that would make a hell of a difference.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago

100% I can imagine they don't want to rely on third parties to develop their distribution, but, realistically, all the software that keeps the system going will be developed by "randos on the internet" still, so might as well hand over all the development effort to who has the knowledge already, while providing funds/grants

[–] andrew_bidlaw 1 points 12 hours ago

I don't know how it works with a frequently updating OS. In my mind beaurocrats can become asses about certifying one exact version they inspected and then making users afraid that open source community can inject the next version with viruses and they can't be sure it's okay too. Ah, and making each certification a paid service and somehow fucking it up.

In Russia there are like two projects of local Linux with custom wine that you can buy just like other software, certified by FSB for sensitive business (I believe them being the first pieces of software to get it except specific cryptographic stuff), but I feel the reason it's getting adopted and certified is because there are some nepotism and illegal connections with money not really changing pockets.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

@JRepin

just an idea, it could be based on #NixOS , if I remember well the project was partially funded by European Research or Opensource funds.

Please correct me if I am wrong on the fundings, I say this from distant memory.

EDIT: it was just an idea, as it is not the most user-friendly distro out there...

[–] [email protected] 11 points 17 hours ago

Or they could use a distro that's already been created by a European vendor, maybe even create a competitive tender. There's no point in creating a new distro, add a new repository if you must.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 15 hours ago

Exists already; OpenDesk

[–] Dariusmiles2123 5 points 17 hours ago

If only the GAFAMS could stop getting money from taxpayers! It would be a big start and then it would just be the individuals who would decide to support by buying their products or not.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 16 hours ago

the eu is a pet the US keeps close. this will never happen.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 16 hours ago

Thanks but no thanks.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 17 hours ago (4 children)

If they really expect the average white collar worker to learn Linux they probably should touch some grass

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago

There's literally nothing to learn 💀. They will continue using same special app that their employer provides. They won't be able to fix any issues by themselves still because they werent able to fix these issues on windows either, so nothing is gonna change in this department.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

There is no learning curve. Where have you been over the past 7 or 8 years?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 12 hours ago

I will reiterate and ask you to touch grass

[–] [email protected] 11 points 15 hours ago

I work in a public administration. And 90% of our work is done on webapps anyway. There will be no difference if the os is windows or linux.

[–] Enkers 16 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Honestly, in a managed environment, there's not really much learning to do. All the hard part of learning Linux is dealing with system issues, or when shit breaks. In corporate land, you've got IT staff for that.

The biggest hurdle would be learning libre office, but considering the average white collar level of mastery of MS office is pretty poor, the basics really aren't that different in LO.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

Exactly, for the pencil pushers it's going to be a transition from one desktop and office suite to another. Hardly "learning Linux".

I see more of a challenge on sys admins and department IT support who may have gotten comfy giving mostly Microsoft product support.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

TBH I feel like many IT people are employed because they're "microsoft certified", not because they know anything about linux. This kind of gatekeeping is a big part of why windows is so entrenched.

[–] andrew_bidlaw 0 points 12 hours ago

I see it generating less work for the helpdesk than Windows currently does. Linux can hardly brick itself without root while Windows can and has a lot of bloat and problems occuring on random on identical PCs. It also works fine on HDD and with less than 8GB of DDR3 RAM, so older hardware won't become garbage that quick. And since users aren't yet familiar with any Linux, there is a 5 year lag between deployment and when average users would start to dig in settings and customization parameters fixing\breaking things themselves like they do on their home machines.

It's investing in your own working future.

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