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GnarfGnarf ◴[] No.46181666[source]
I'm a Windows/macOS developer, but I strongly feel that all national governments need to convert to Linux, for strategic sovereignty. I'm sure Microsoft, under orders from the U.S. government, could disable all computers in any country or organization, at the flick of a switch.

Imagine how Open Source Software could improve if a consortium of nations put their money and resources into commissioning bug fixes and enhancements, which would be of collective benefit.

Apart from a few niche cases, the needs of most government bureaucracies would be well served by currently available OSS word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and graphics software.

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jll29 ◴[] No.46181734[source]
The sabotage scenario is perhaps less likely than the alternative scenario of industrial and political espionage.

There are also practical advantages: the ability to fix a bug in-house instead of waiting for a technology giant from another continent.

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whstl ◴[] No.46182436[source]
Less likely? This is exactly what happened earlier this year.

Here's an article from the same newspaper that showed up to me as "related" when browsing TFA:

https://www.heise.de/en/news/Criminal-Court-Microsoft-s-emai...

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1. nroets ◴[] No.46183933[source]
So you point to one instance of highly targeted sabotage aka sanctions. But Snowden and others exposed many instances of espionage dragnets.