Indian Defence Ministry set to replace windows with home-grown "Maya OS"

ZeroXHunter@lemmy.world to Linux@lemmy.ml – 334 points –
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I ain’t a super Linux user, but I find it crazy that so many governments aren’t scared to put their data in the hands of US corporations like Microsoft of Apple.

I work for the state in Geneva, Switzerland, and my employers gives me an iPhone and forces me to use Windows at work.

I know that developing your own Linux distribution or any other solution is difficult but my country is even using a foreign cloud service instead of a swiss one😨

People are so shortsighted about this. Spend billions on Microsoft products to prevent spending millions on a safe solution that will never be suddenly deprecated.

you're ignoring the very large elephant in the room known as "maintenance". r&d is only the first hurdle.

I mean, you guys have all that Nazi gold still so I’m not sure extrapolating that “neutrality” to other countries is necessarily useful

I’m just talking about keeping your data and those of your citizens away from Apple and Microsoft.

I don’t know enough about the nazi gold, but whatever your country is, I’m sure it has a dark history too. Still this is in no way related to the original post.

I mean my country is no longer engaged in active genocide but yours still fights tooth and nail to keep Jewish gold and you don’t even know about it

So yeah, there’s a difference.

Goddamn your right. The Nazi/Jewish gold hoards are... Why they... Use a foreign cloud service?

They outsource the data keep because it's cheaper... nowdays even family package on Microsoft for onedrive is very cheap...

Won't supply ammo for German weapon systems in Ukraine because they are "neutral"

Kinda like they were in world war 2...

This won't end well...

Not because of Linux or Windows, but because India's government is one of the most corrupt in the world, and everyone is just going to get bribed into saying "this is great" and it'll get implemented without any flaws being addressed

India's space program is doing more than fine.

Not really...

They use the same propaganda tactics as Russia. No matter what the result is or what they said before any mission starts, they declare everything means they succeded and that their now a world super power.

Exactly.

Thanks for the example!

They didn't accomplish their main goals or any research they said they'd do. But because it continued to orbit for longer than the mission (that failed) would have taken... They celebrate as a success and "proof" that theyre a world power.

I really don't think you meant to, but this is exactly what I was talking about.

TFA says India was the first nation to achieve Mars orbit on the first attempt. Standing on the shoulders of giants, and all, but still... that's surely an exceptional feat?

Is it better to set the bar high and fail to achieve every goal, or set the bar low and achieve less, but be able to claim 100% success?

I dunno, man... I kinda feel like putting something in Mars orbit on your first try deserves some respect and recognition.

TFA says India was the first nation to achieve Mars orbit on the first attempt

It's not a question of if anyone could tho, it's a question of why would anyone waste all that money for basically just PR...

To my knowledge no one has taken money from their starving citizens so they can light a billion dollars on fire. I still wouldn't be impressed if someone did it, even if they get to tell "first!" after it.

I kinda feel like putting something in Mars orbit on your first try deserves some respect and recognition.

Again, just because no one has done something yet, doesn't mean no one else could. They just choose to spend their money on something other than PR.

why would anyone waste all that money for basically just PR…

It's not just PR. Developing the engineering capability to reach Mars is a goal of its own. There are not many nations that can achieve that.

There are not many nations that can achieve that.

Did you get caught on a loop?

I'm not going to keep explaining the same thing to you over and over again and hoping you eventually respond. If thats the level of attention you need, just read my comment over and over again

The very fact that they can send working spacecraft is already an accomplishment. How many countries can do that?

They are not yet a world power even if they claim to be. No doubt about that. But they are projected to become one in the not so near future. No doubt about that too.

No, any country that wants to pay for it can.

India prioritized it over other things like this:

India's latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS), which shows that children in several states are more undernourished now than they were five years ago, is based on data collected in 2019-20. The survey was conducted in only 22 states before the onset of the pandemic - so experts fear the results will be much worse in the remaining states, where the survey began after the lockdown ended.

In places such as Dahod, however, the problem seems to have begun earlier. The district has seen a steep rise in the proportion of undernourished children compared with 2015-16, when the last survey was conducted.

Stunting among children under five in Dahod is up from 44% to 55%. And the proportion of severely underweight children in the district has risen from 7.8% to 13.4%.

Most Indian women are anaemic and poor women, especially so. And since undernourished mothers give birth to undernourished babies, experts say the worsening rate of malnutrition could be a result of women struggling to access nutrition benefits.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-56080313

I'm not going to clap because Modi decided a pointless space mission that might trick people into thinking India was a world power is more important then the worst childhood malnourishment rates in the world.

He's letting children starve and develop life long issues so people like you do what you're doing right now.

what made you think India prioritised it over those things?

the budget for ISRO is much, much lower than the budget that goes towards programs to fix poverty related issues. ISRO is 0.27% of the indian budget.

the remote sensing satellites have helped farmers, fishermen with actual food production, weather satellites with predicting disasters and saving lives.

for us its worth the investment even without factoring in the nice to haves like finding water on the moon or launching private satellites.

No, any country that wants to pay for it can.

No my country can't.

He's letting children starve and develop life long issues so people like you do what you're doing right now.

I am. not even Indian. I reckon what ever he's doing affect me the same way it affect you. And I don't even like him.

But I am not that bias to mix national interest with domestic interest - to paint bad picture on a target, to excavate the worse and burying the good.

No my country can’t.

They can if they stop paying for what the vast majority of the world considers basic decency.

I am. not even Indian. I reckon what ever he’s doing affect me the same way it affect you

Lots of people care about starving children...

Not everyone is a psychopath.

But it's pretty telling you keep repeating Indian propaganda while claiming you live in a different country you won't disclose. Even though I never said the only people falling it were from India. In fact, I've said Modi did this explicitly to trick people from other countries.

I really don't understand what you're saying at this point...

It's like you're halfway understanding my comments and just know no matter what you need to defend Modi

They can if they stop paying for what the vast majority of the world considers basic decency.

No. They can't. Have you ever been travelling the world, where your ideology is derived not just based on what you read and taught? Not every country can afford and even if they can, have the technology to do space exploration.

But it's pretty telling you keep repeating Indian propaganda while claiming you live in a different country you won't disclose.

Because I am being realist, to express my view without being bias; not like you. Yes, there are propaganda in play, but that's not the whole. story. At one point it about domestic interests i.e. to fulfill their locals needs. One the other hand is about national interests - to fulfill the need of their citizens by securing the country against external threats. And how do any country deal with this two needs is based on what they can afford. They can't simply let go of one aspect to concentrate on the other. There's a level of compensation to be made. That's basic knowledge - but it seems that you have a difficulty to understand that.

You don't seem to realize it, but the way you write is like you are a from a propaganda media being hired to bash on another country (India for this case) and to nitpick every little faults you can find. First you talk about India's (space technology) propaganda, then suddenly you dive 180-degree south talking about them starving their locals. It doesn't make sense to mix these two arguments together. It's like you try to go all out to prove the India are evil. It's like me telling you that you country is shitty for having big military and space defence budgets when the money should be allocated to you local citizens to eradicate homelessness, illiteracy, poverty, racial disparity and thousands of other problems in your country. But it would be stupid for me to say that for the same reason I stated before - your country needs to weigh its resources wisely between locals and national needs. But you don't seem to understand that. Or maybe you do understand but you don't really care because you're driven by your own little agenda.

The cost at which India achieves these accomplishments are a fraction of what other Space Agencies. It's something they should be proud of.

I went through the link and the entire fact that the article is using a small remote town to justify it with the entire India's population is mind boggling to me. As someone from data science background, it just reeks as falsehood as no accurate source of data, sampling of such large pop and etc are mentioned.

It's a problem all over India...

Your have a "data science background" it's odd you can't handle a Google search if you didn't like my choice of link.

Well, I am just pointing out the problem with the article given its coming from BBC. If you could link something with much better sources, please do.

That person you're dealing with got a confirmation bias syndrome. The best they can do if to provide any sources they can find to justify their skewed argument.

Let me just provide different source to counter-prove that, to show the Indian government is taking care of their fellow citizens - government banned the export of non-basmati white rice to “ensure adequate domestic availability at reasonable prices". To keep rice at reasonable price is good enough to show that the country is taking care of its citizens and not letting them starving - countering the argument being put forward by sub-OP above. So, to totally claim that India is neglecting its citizens will be misleading.

To tell you the truth, I don't even like Modi, but I couldn't care less. You have a country and its citizens to deal with, your own domestic issues- its not me to judge. But to bash a country like the Mr-know-it-all above did, that'shitty. It's like trying to impose one solution for all the world's problem. To put it bluntly, that's shallow-minded.

Not too dissimilar to Elon Musk really.

We have the same kind of rot, it's just that corporate layer somehow makes us think it's not the same as the corrupt bullshit in other countries. But it's not all that different.

Elon represents Elon, and he likes to hear himself talk. A government that represents a billion people should act a little differently than someone like him.

Someone is really getting the fucks for basically parroting the usual narrative of the deep states lol.

but because India’s government is one of the most corrupt in the world

This same country also has a space organization that is well-respected all around the world. If we can launch rockets, we sure as hell can build a secure Linux based distro lol.

Half the mobile rom teams are Indian devs

We have some serious manpower for cheap, that's smart, development/employment focused, and intuitive

No doubt about it. Indian devs all over open source. But do you really think they will recruit the FOSS crew when contracting time comes lol

I want to make my own thing with their DE

stuff based on opensuse as a base(leap for workstation, tumbleweed for consumer and enterprise for enterprise users, see how it shapes out

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This same country also has a space organization that is well-respected all around the world

Lol, sure...

Other countries don't pay India lip service because it's a large 3rd world country poised to become the newest sweatshop of the developed world...

It's because they respect a space program who retroactively changes their goals and tells their uneducated masses that everything was a resounding success.

Just like "any day now" for the last 30 years they are going to become a world leader.

My country once successfully launched 104 satellites with a single rocket. And this guy really believes we can't build a secure linux distro because we're nothing more than a "3rd world country poised to become the newest sweatshop of the developed world". Wow, okay dude.

Hey, another example of India doing something that makes no logical sense just for the PR and then gullible people thinking that just because no one else has done it, no one else could have!

Man, you all are making this easy

Hey, another example of India doing something that makes no logical sense just for the PR

Only 2 of those 104 satellites were Indian. Rest all were foreign satellites. In fact 96 of them were from the USA. But yeah, obviously all these foreign satellites satellites serve no purpose whatsoever. Obviously they were launched just so ISRO could score some PR points 😂

There is absolutely nothing impressive about launching 104 satellites in one go. What would be truly impressive is building a linux distro, amirite?

Man, you all are making this easy

Insert wojak crying behind mask meme

no logical sense except the indigenous technology advancements that make sure india doesn’t need to rely on others for crucial operations (US denying gps info to india comes to mind) along with the money that they earn from private satellite launches, yes.

i wonder why this is so easy for you, surely it isn’t because you are conveniently ignoring all the positives of a space program.

If they were doing it for real reasons...

They'd have launched a few big ones.

Not just throwing a bunch of junk into space to beat a record no one else is trying to beat.

Although, to be honest I thought no one would be dumb enough to fall for the propaganda and think any of the stuff people keep bringing up in this thread was worth bragging about.

But I can admit when I'm wrong.

what reasons are real enough for you?

is a navigation system real enough? are weather satellites helping with disasters and saving lives real enough? is telecommunications real enough? is the millions they earn from private satellites real enough?

i’m sorry all of this falls under propaganda for you. for me personally, these are all real enough to warrant a space program.

But I can admit when I’m wrong

doesn’t look like it

doesn’t look like it

His brain thinks a country that can successfully launch rockets surely doesn't have what it takes to build a secure linux distro. You think that brain is capable of admitting to mistakes?

Well... No idea if US landed on the moon but the videos are sus AF

Countries spinning PR is tale as old as time

Yeah, the whole moon race was propaganda...

The main reason America went was so USSR couldn't say they were first.

Everyone's known this for like 50 years now...

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This has little to do with government officials. Though very less information is available, I believe the military will use its own personnel or private contractors.

Oh yeah, far right authoritarian governments have nothing to do with their militaries...

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The article says this will be “based on Ubuntu” but it will probably actually just be Ubuntu with custom defaults, pre-installed software, and maybe repositories.

This just makes sense in my view. The cost relative to the number of machines they must deploy will be miniscule. If they do not mess with the core system too much, they can outsource almost all the admin and expertise to Canonical in terms of security and packaging. People saying this will blow up. Why? It does not sound like they are really creating a full distro from scratch. Is Ubuntu not viable?

In terms of why crating a custom version instead of just using actual Ubuntu. Again, the cost of customizing a distro can be dramatically less than making even simple configurations on every system after the fact. They can standardize what the desktop will look like and set key defaults. They can choose what applications are installed by default. They can remove applications from the repository that they do not want to be installed. The can ensure that localization is done well, etc.

I remember when Ubuntu was just Debian with custom defaults, pre-installed software, and their own repositories. Basically what every new distro is in the beginning.

And yeah creating dpkg packages isn't really all that difficult. Don't know why people are saying this will be a disaster. There's a lot of technically proficient people in India that could handle doing QA, and putting a dpkg on a server that gets automatically picked up by all the various systems that need it. Hell, they could develop their own applications and package them up and distribute them around much easier on a Linux system than a Windows system.

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"home grown" Ubuntu spin, got it

Chalega, it's a step in the right direction

It's certainly a step in some direction, I'll check back in a few years and see if it was the right one, or if it's just a publicity stunt.

Even if it is, this is an instant attitude switch for uncles who go "open source is not acceptable in the industry" or "open source is not sustainable"

Only if it actually succeeds. If the Indian gov't gives up on it after a year or two, then maybe it'll have the opposite impact.

I work with some Indians, so I'm going to ask them their thoughts. I'm genuinely interested in whether there's a will in India to actually make this a thing. I know it wouldn't fly in my area (US), but it has worked to some extent in other regions.

Potential is 100% there if they can get some stuff running

If the DE, compatibility layer and the antivirus thing is open source I want to make an openSUSE spin of it with kiwi

Very cool! Always good to see more countries get closer to embracing FOSS. Really helps with the collaborative benefits that FOSS can have, plus allows for organizations to have more control in their digital destinies instead of simply being customers.

Hope the best for the project!

This is 100% a nationalism thing. They want to be able to say we make our own operating system. That's it. It's going to be a disaster when they inevitably fuck up because they are doing g it for the wrong reasons.

How is controlling the package repo for your gov a bad thing?

Because they aren't doing it to control the package repo, they are doing it to score nationalism points.

Guess what, nationalism and security go together for all the right reasons.

Finally something done right by India (just my rough impression, I remember them like banning VLC and then encrypted apps, idk exactly what they do.)

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Hopefully they pull it off for real and it will not get bogged down by bureaucracy and red tapes.

My main concern is support and delay b/w security patches the OS will introduce. I'm making a wild guess, but I think they should have lot older hardware devices and from performance pov, they should benefit given latest Windows are not that great on older devices and older win versions have already reached EOL.

If they do get it right, they probably need to retrain their staff to be able to use other apps like Libre Office and more.

A lot of schools and colleges in Kerala (Indian State) use Ubuntu. Kids are taught how to use software like GIMP and Audacity in schools. It has become part of the syllabus in public schools.

12 th standard students have to do maths practical in GeoGebra.

Kerala has a very good relationship with Free Software Foundation. Here is a video of Stallman speaking in the inauguration function of "Free software foundation of India" in Kerala broadcasted on State television https://youtu.be/ZnlslvE2A9U

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Can they do it? Yes. Can they do it with a reasonable level of support for many different desktop hardware so it’s cheap to implement? Probably, though it won’t be as comprehensive as windows. Can they get a 1:1 replacement for windows that has the same level of security as windows? No, because many national governments collaborate on windows security. But! They’ll be safe-ish from NSA back doors in windows (if you think there are any)

The likelihood that windows doesn’t have a back door for the US government is irrelevant.

No windows user can guarantee every part of their OS is clean.

Linux users have the advantage of Open Source.

If you run Linux, you can audit the code. Can’t do that for windows.

For governments, big businesses, etc windows is already open source

Nice... So anyone with any dignity won't tolerate being spied on. Only cattle and sheep get subjected to this abuse. Checks out.

Switched to Linux due to being treated like cattle by windows.

Many national governments collaborate on Linux security as well.

Interesting because to airlines, using a Linux-based RTOS is a major security issue to the point where most airlines use homegrown RTOS solutions. But this isn't the first national government switching to Linux for operations I'd argue are equally if not much more sensitive.

I did not know linux-based RTOS is a security issue for airlines, do tell me why. And ofcourse it will take a toll on the military to maintain the OS. As before this I assume they used enterprise version of windows, so the burden was share between microsoft and the military.

Whatever the reason is, it probably has very little to do with the described use case since RTOS is a very different use case to desktop copmuters. I didn't even know that people were making an RTOS that is based on the linux kernel. You could never bring the device support the linux kernel has to the RTOS world.

This video from the linux foundation mentions some of the supposed concerns for Linux in aerospace: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=skaj70Qo3FA&t=1228s&pp=ygUbZGViYXRpbmcgbGludXggaW4gYWVyb3NwYWNl

Haven't there been issues with other governments maintaining their own distribution? Why not just maintain a repo thats added with a script or something.

Apologies - my memory doesn't always serve me well. But didn't Micro$oft bring a copyright lawsuit against a Linux distro... was it Canonical?

I think its their loss as Microsoft products are know for quality with less bugs. Also American products should be used by every country. I think India and China should be put in the blacklist so that they can't buy any US hardware and chipset.

Microsoft absolutely is not more quality and less bugs. It's the opposite.