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canopic jug [soylentnews.org] writes:

The site It's FOSS is reporting that India's Defense Services are switching to GNU/Linux [itsfoss.com], ditching an insecure legacy operating system, with an August 15 deadline. Little is known about their home spun distro except that it seems to be based on Ubuntu.

What's Happening: According to a recent report, the Defence Ministry of India has decided to replace Windows with an in-house developed Linux distro called 'Maya' on all computers that are connected to the Internet.

Also reported at The Hindu, Defence Ministry to switch to locally built OS Maya amid threats [thehindu.com], which explains that this move is a reaction to increasingly successful attacks against a certain, pervasive, desktop legacy operating system. x

Currently, Maya is being installed only in Defence Ministry systems and not on computers connected to the networks of the three Services. On this, the official said the three Services had also vetted it and would adopt it on service networks as well soon. The Navy had already cleared it and the Army and the Air Force were currently evaluating it, the official added.

Maya was developed by government development agencies within six months, the official said. Maya would prevent malware attacks and other cyberattacks which had seen a steep increase, the official noted.

However, the attacks in and of themselves are less of a problem than the fact that a large, and increasing, number of them are successful against that aging legacy desktop operating system.

For India to pull this off successfully, they must study how their opponent has maneuvered over the years against GNU/Linux deployments and in particular look at case studies like Kerala, Munich, Lower Saxony, Vaasa, and Turku. India's opponent in this move has had many programmes, years ago one was EDGI [techrights.org], and a long standing mandate that "under NO circumstances lose against Linux".

Previously:
(2018) German Documentary on Relations Between Microsoft and Public Administration Now Available in English [soylentnews.org]
(2018) German State of Lower Saxony Plans to Switch From Linux to Windows [soylentnews.org]
(2017) Munich Switching From Linux to Windows 10 [soylentnews.org]
(2017) Linux Champion Munich Takes Decisive Step Towards Returning to Windows [soylentnews.org]
(2016) Draft Report Doesn't Say -Which- Software is Causing Problems in Munich [soylentnews.org]
(2016) Munich: The High Cost of Having Committed to Closed-Source Software [soylentnews.org]
(2014) Another German Town Says It Has Completed Its Switch To FOSS [soylentnews.org]

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