South Korea switching their 3.3M PCs to Linux

>Not saying it's my favorite thing, but rolling updates and decent built-in anti-malware make it a fairly good option these days, and with WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) and Multipass, there's a lot of Linux stuff that can be done on Windows.

Those are great features and welcome to keep Windows 10 machines from turning into yet another botnet. But for some people the concern isn't about updates, it's about privacy. And frankly unless you otherwise need to use your Windows PC, there's no compelling reason to use it over a Linux machine.

>IMO, Windows 10, the separated kernel stuff they're doing, and their current support for Open Source software is the best thing Microsoft has done in a long time.

Yes they're doing a great job of improving Windows and converging Windows into a useful platform for Linux developers. However Microsoft being Microsoft there's always the fear this is another Embrace, Extend, Extinguish initiative. And here's the irony - as it becomes easier to do Linuxy things in Windows, it also becomes apparent that except for Windows-only tasks, there's no compelling reason to prefer Windows over Linux. Particularly in light of their mandatory user data collection.

At some point perhaps Microsoft will relent and make their Semi-annual Channel and Long Term Service Channel licenses more generally available. But for now their data collection is turning some privacy-minded people away from Windows.

If I could pay a reasonable price and reclaim my privacy I suppose I would, despite the fact this is Microsoft taking something from me and then charging me to get it back. But the cost of entry for a legitimate license to a less invasive version of Windows is just too high; hundreds for a mini purchase of servers + some CALs, or several hundred for a Visual Studio (formerly MSDN) Subscription.

I've met Microsoft in the middle and purchased a license but run it in a VM. The VM is on just long enough to patch itself and do the Windows-only things I need to do such as run Tax Cut to fill out this year's tax return. Sure I could ditch Windows and do my taxes online but that's just feeding my data into another marketing machine. I can't and don't claim to represent the majority view, but I doubt I'm alone in having marketing / data collection fatigue. And frankly I do resent Microsoft's deciding data collection is the new minimum price of entry to use their software.

In short: you're right they're doing some great things, but (for some of us) it's not about that. My apologies if that comes off a bit ranty. I suppose it's a hot button issue for me.

It basically gives domestic firms breathing room to survive and grow, versus being suffocated by the currently superior products or foreign firms. The hope then is that in the future, with a stronger financial footing, these firms' products will improve to be truly competitive with those of the global competitors.

At least in hardware/manufacturing, both South Korea and China have done this with great success thus far.

There are many reasons corporations choose Windows Desktop and Windows Server, many of which are not limited to backwards compatibility with existing infrastructure. It would take a large amount of money and resources to change over that infrastructure, and while it is doable, an intermediary has t he potential to save governments and corporations a lot of money and time.

Something like a server version of ReactOS[1] would allow existing infrastructure to continue to work as governments and corporations phase out their reliance on a foreign company's product.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReactOS

As much as I want to believe it, Linux is still quite lagging in the personal computing area, where hardware support, graphics support, creativity application support, and enterprise support are still far behind Windows/Mac. Linux still has a long way to go.

It will be interesting to see how it will work.

If they have been Windows for so long and all the way up to Windows 7, they must have a lot of software and more interestingly hardware that Win7 manages to get working.

All sorts of bits and bobs hardware will potentially make trouble.

I also see in the article: "The South Korean government also plans to implement a Desktop as a Service (DaaS) that uses a virtual PC environment that runs on a cloud by the second half of 2020. The South Korean ministry expects a 72% savings in cost with the DaaS move. Security standards and DaaS models are currently in development, and pilot tests are scheduled to start in October of this year."

This does make a lot of sense in a two-stage program, switch out the desktop to become thin-clients that connects to the DaaS. Then they can allow end user to connect to a Daas of Windows7, Windows10, Linux, DOS, I mean whatever.