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The Helsinki Times reports that Finland's Minister of Finance suggested during a recent foreign policy speech that Finland and the EU could pursue self-sufficiency in computing, in particular to avoid over dependence on just a handful of companies. She pointed out that this overreliance on said companies has become so severe that company policy has already started to override existing relevant legislation. The topic had earlier been brought up by President Sauli Niinistö. So far, though, not even Russia has made progress in that direction despite over a decade passing since announcing plans.
"Cyber self-sufficiency, in practical terms, could mean having a European operating system and web browser. The EU could also function as a provider of certificates," she envisioned in a foreign and security policy speech in Helsinki on Wednesday, 26 February.
Previously:
Moscow Bans Sale of Gadgets Without Russian-Made Software
(Score: 2) by mechanicjay on Thursday February 27 2020, @08:28PM (12 children)
so dumb.
Build your own operating system and browser? What? Why? That is the worst and most narrow minded "solution" to this problem that will change exactly nothing. "We have a problem with the mainframe, we'd better build a new terminal!" I was hoping this was going to be an enlightened call to action about using open standards, protocols and systems, to avoid getting stuck with shitty vendors. It seems the person issuing this statement is only aware of the front-end of the computing systems they use, which at this point is almost trivial to swap out. They should be focusing on their back-end data systems if they want to be self-sufficient.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Thursday February 27 2020, @09:04PM (10 children)
It's not that dumb. It's not like you need to start from scratch. Since it's intended to be the official OS of multiple governments, GPL should be fine. The problem, such as it is, is handling maintenance. Even that's not too large a problem. Lots of people would be willing to get paid to work on GPL systems...as long as they stayed GPL and open.
I do think, however, that they should avoid systemd. It makes designing repairs difficult.
OTOH, if they want to keep things secret, they could start with one of the BSDs. That makes maintenance and such more difficult, and probably makes it more expensive, since you can't get community help, but it's still readily doable with a government's budget. Probably even Grand Fenwick could do it.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday February 27 2020, @09:10PM
OTOH, thinking it over a bit, perhaps he was thinking of Intel as the company on which they were too dependent. That's a much harder problem, as AMD isn't that much a "better choice" in the area of reducing dependence on externalities. Even China has been having problems with that one. And then there's the question of fabs. If you want to run your own fab at one step below cutting edge, you're talking real money.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday February 27 2020, @10:32PM (8 children)
Why do you think you can't get community help with BSD? I've found many individuals quite helpful in OpenBSD, and to be fair, most of the time all you need to do is RTFM. I can understand being told to RTFM may be frustrating, but in OpenBSD's case, it can solve many problems. Best documentation I've seen.
There's a couple of pretty good forums too.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday February 27 2020, @10:57PM (7 children)
The idea here would be that the justification for that choice would be to enable secrecy. I.e., closed development.
Yes, there are openly developed BSDs, but if you're going to choose BSD over Linux, the most significant reason to do so is because you can close the code. (There are some other reasons, but the BSDs are basically devoted to a large niche: stable, long-uptime centralized servers. For general use Linux is a more reasonable choice.)
However, if you want to take your code closed source, BSD is an extremely much better choice. (A government could decide that "government interest" trumped copyright laws, but this would cause lots of push back from diverse sources.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Dr Spin on Thursday February 27 2020, @11:56PM (6 children)
if you're going to choose BSD over Linux, the most significant reason to do so is because
you want stable code that is properly engineered, well documented, and does not support systemd.
People with no BSD experience are probably not the best once to advise on this kind of decision.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by edIII on Friday February 28 2020, @12:30AM
Thank you. The reasons to choose BSD are far and beyond just having "closed code", which is a new consideration for me.
Proper stable code, excellent documentation, no systemd (meaning the absence of that terrible philosophy that goes against UNIX), are just some of the talking points.
I rather like the fact that Perl, which comprises most of the tools and scripts I've created recently, has the most important core modules reviewed and repacked every cycle. No chance of infection from a compromised repository, when you're doing it right.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 28 2020, @02:06AM (4 children)
SystemD does not support BSD, neither care much about other libc than glibc.
OTOH, a BSD muppet praised it and wants to recreate it in BSD.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday February 28 2020, @02:14AM (2 children)
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAHAHAHAHAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAH
You think there was resistance in Linux? Try OpenBSD. SystemD's feet shall never feel the blessed lands that are BSD. Ever.
The core philosophy is at odds. Not just a little, but extremely.
You may as well as try introducing pork to Islam.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 28 2020, @04:24AM
I did not say there will be no resistance... jus that a muppet is trying to get something like systemd in BSD (most probably making some going "oh, see, systemd is good, BSD people want it too" in Linux land). That was the sad joke, the sycophants.
And that systemd has no will to support anything they do not want (kernel, libc or whatever) because the whole point is vendor lock-in and making Linux ecosystem their bitch.
Of course OpenBSD is going to say no, and any other BSD worth it's name. Like non-glibc libc mantainers, once they realized what the game was about. Same thing about tmux / screen coders when systemd demanded special changes to keep on running after log out.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Friday February 28 2020, @07:19PM
You think there was resistance in Linux? Try OpenBSD. SystemD's feet shall never feel the blessed lands that are BSD. Ever.
There are other BSDs than just OpenBSD. FreeBSD comes to mind and there several muppets, Benno Rice to name one, have been going praising systemd and scheming to get someting similar injected into FreeBSD. It could be Poe's Law in action, but they seem serious. I could see FreeBSD eventually succumb to the SJW politics that carried in systemd. However, for OpenBSD, I don't see it gaining a foothold there, ad least not as things stand for now, even if one does sometimes see some shaky stuff there now and again, unlike in the old days. So all that said, a collaborative fork of OpenBSD could be a great base for a national or regional operating system: the code is very cleanly written, well-documented, and actively culled to remove bloat.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 28 2020, @07:11PM
SystemdExit.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Friday February 28 2020, @09:35PM
The browser and the operating system are the entry points to the modern communication system. If you're going to secure a place, it makes sense to guard the entry points, and not let the evil eavesdroppers in, no?