The European Union is considering a structural change in the computer systems of its public administrations. The plan involves gradually abandoning Windows to adopt Linux distributions. The main reasons are the reduction of maintenance and licensing costs, along with a reinforcement of system security against cyber threats.
Technical and Development Implications of the Migration 🛠️
The migration poses considerable technical challenges. It requires adapting or rewriting legacy applications, training thousands of civil servants, and standardizing on one or several distributions. The advantage lies in code control and security customization. This could boost the development of public software and the creation of open standards for interoperability between administrations.
Goodbye to Mandatory Update Reboots 😴
Imagine a world where critical updates don't require restarting the computer in the middle of a tax return. Where the message your computer will restart in 5 minutes stops being a constant threat. System administrators might, perhaps, sleep full nights. A dream come true, or the beginning of a new era where the excuse it was updating Windows will no longer be valid.