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Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

gds.blog.gov.uk

151–160 of 163 posts

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#151
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don’t even have to zoom in on Europe. In the US, it’s quite common for folks to expect public services (like public transit or even the USPS) to be profitable. Which means these services don’t get the investment they really need.

What percentage of US taxpayer money should go to subsidize money-losing services?

As much as necessary.

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Europeans have [...] Six weeks of guaranteed vacation that people actually take. That is false. EU mandates minimum 4 weeks of PTO across all members but varies wildly according to country, sector and company. In most EU countries I've seen the average tends to hover around 5 weeks while 6 weeks or more is usually for very generous employers trying to attract top applicants in employee friendly countries. I get you'…

> 4 weeks of PTO There’s vacation and sick leave in most of EU. PTO is an acronym used in the US and the concept doesn’t apply in Europe.

Vacation days in Europe are still paid time off technically.

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 4 weeks of PTO There’s vacation and sick leave in most of EU. PTO is an acronym used in the US and the concept doesn’t apply in Europe.

Vacation days in Europe are still paid time off technically.

Paid time off in the US includes sick leave. It’s not useful to stick to acronyms which aren’t applicable n that specific context.

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vacation days in Europe are still paid time off technically.

Paid time off in the US includes sick leave. It’s not useful to stick to acronyms which aren’t applicable n that specific context.

I didn't know the US has a monopoly on the term paid time off.

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#155
post #150

I've used the GOV.UK PaaS since the private beta. I was a user research subject and gave early feedback. I've used it on multiple projects since. As with Notify, the Design System, and all the other great tools that GDS produces, the PaaS is an absolute joy to use. Think Heroku, but built on top of FOSS, and with everything you could want to help you build the long tail of cookie cutter form or API-based government s…

I am wondering if there are political force behind it, that big Cloud Provider wants the Government to shut down their own PaaS.

PaaS ran on AWS anyway, so it wouldn't be Amazon (I would guess? Unless they think they can charge more/upsell by departments procuring directly from them). Perhaps Google or MS were upset that by PaaS running atop AWS, AWS became the de facto 'official' cloud service for government?

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#156
post #63

i was unable to update my driving licence for the best part of a year because of some (still unknown) internal issue. i hope they have better luck bringing back up a degraded/read-only etcd service after a power cut. unrelated - i guess i have some real contempt for the current deployment stack meta :/

DVLA systems seem to be an absolute mess, and many public-facing systems are still using the DirectGov styling (which was replaced by GOV.UK in 2012). A lot of their services are completely unavailable overnight from 7pm-7am. So if you sell a vehicle on the last day of the month and go to register the sale after 7pm, bad luck - you're getting charged another month of vehicle tax.

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don’t even have to zoom in on Europe. In the US, it’s quite common for folks to expect public services (like public transit or even the USPS) to be profitable. Which means these services don’t get the investment they really need.

If it was providing a service of as much value as was being spent on it, then why shouldn't it be profitable?

> If it was providing a service of as much value as was being spent on it, then why shouldn't it be profitable?

The entire point of a public service is that benefits accrue to people other than the direct consumers of the service.

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#158
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don’t even have to zoom in on Europe. In the US, it’s quite common for folks to expect public services (like public transit or even the USPS) to be profitable. Which means these services don’t get the investment they really need.

What percentage of US taxpayer money should go to subsidize money-losing services?

An amount equal to the external utility of the services.

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don’t even have to zoom in on Europe. In the US, it’s quite common for folks to expect public services (like public transit or even the USPS) to be profitable. Which means these services don’t get the investment they really need.

If it was providing a service of as much value as was being spent on it, then why shouldn't it be profitable?

Public services are profitable. You just need to look at the systemic effects of having the services available instead of just dollar signs

Just looking at money is incredibly short sighted and naïve

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any Europe-based PaaS currently operating, that are noteworthy? Most companies seems to be US-based.

Is OVH a PaaS?

Well they have many offerings one of which is a PaaS https://www.ovhcloud.com/en-ie/web-paas/
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