My observations have been that situation is intentionally cultivated: You no longer have any institutions or governments with anything even resembling the problem-solving IT departments of yore. What you have now is microsoft resellers in large numbers in their place and using up their budget. So even if they did know of real computer technology they sure are not going to admit to it. They would get a severe reprimand from their real supervisors upstream towards Redmond. They would also greatly fear getting frozen out. since m$ products not documented and knowledge about them is only transmitted orally. Getting frozen out would leave them unable to continue climbing the m$ ladder.

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...not to mention that they are only given certain budget, and M$ retailers make sure they bid within that budget - leaving little, if any room for non-M$ retailers to bid. And their budgets certainly wouldn't cover retraining staff to use a different system or apps, which would likely be an extra cost.

Totally agree with you though.

Yes. And to further add to the damage they do, they have in some countries what amounts to their own union and use that to maneuver against institutions and even individual staff. Then there are the slush funds from HQ which are availabe for making sure that for no reason will they be allowed to 'lose to Linux'. The now-defunct Groklaw used to have the court evidence from Comes v Microsoft (aka the Iowa case) which documented some of their attacks.

There were very many others which were not documented officially though. In one instance they got wind of a "Linux test" and the local hardware vendor flat out refused to sell a machine for the project. The project eventually went to the international headquarters and had them force the sale, but then by that time, M$ reps had shown up and "joined" the project, tripling the FTE involved. To no one's surprise that 'evaluation' got nowhere.

They're all variations on a theme. The cult-like nature of M$ is at the bottom of it and many of the otherwise puzzling events make sense once one realizes that it is about control, especially political control, and not about money.

Ok, so all this talk about how difficult it is to switch for reason XYZ... So what is really needed to switch?

When it comes down to it, it's only really about mass deploying it on different types of hardware and then leaving them to it. That might sound a bit harsh, but as long as they have a desktop, they should be able to figure it out. And if they have an IT department, they should be able to adapt.

Humans are very adaptable, both in terms of brains and body, (when they have to).

But it isn't that simple though, most people who have been using M$ Windows for the last 20 years or whatever don't really care about the OS, and more to the point, don't like change. Especially if they had to learn a completely different system, with different apps. You also ignore the fact that government departments in particular have to work within whatever their IT budget is, and as has been said above, M$ suppliers/retailers sign long contracts with those same government departments and basically lock them into an agreement that they buy M$ products and not use other systems like Linux. It's the same as M$ having agreements with virtually, if not, every major computer manufacturer on the planet saying they'll preload a copy of M$ Windows on at least every 9 out of 10 PC's sold.

So it just isn't as simple as that, if it were, then why wouldn't Linux have a far bigger market share? (esp. if Linux vendors could push it more than what they currently can)

Yes I agree! Most users have used Windows for so long, they can't imagine that they could change that ever.
But a small budget would be a good reason to change to Linux.

Or maybe it is..

If you work in a company, you pretty much just have to do what they tell you to. So if they change to a new system, you're simply told to accept it and adapt. Ofcourse there can be alot of drama about it and such, but..

I know about the Microsoft monopoly and OEM situation, sadly..

Ok, so my country is quite small actually, and if I think about it practically, it would benefit my country alot to switch, and not just in one way, but in many. And I can hardly see any downsides. IT skills are quite sought after, and people are generally willing to learn IT. My country also need to develop more skilled IT people. Same goes for education, it has been an issue for decades now, and switching would really help the primary educational system as well. Kids learn so fast, and if they have proper access and proper tools, it can make a massive difference.

If my country did a large switch, we would ofcourse save licence money, but we could also save money on hardware, by maintaining it better. I'm not saying we need to do what Cuba did with cars, but ALOT of wasted hardware purchases are not necessary, and much of it can be re-purposed as well. Primary schools where the hardware squeeze is the hardest due to budget concerns, would have much better access to computers with modern tools on them. More young people would learn more advanced skills, if not under a teacher directly, simply by access to advanced IT tools.

The money saved could be spent on development of various software that institutions need for various functions and purposes too.

Overall for my country it is a "no-brainer". Yet, it's not like that at all, and there are so many issues, high cost, wasteful spending, throwing away useful hardware, low access in primary schools, few good tools, a lack of proper/fundamental IT skills among young people, which leads to a lack of high skilled people in the workforce.

I submit that may no longer be the case. If one was running Windows XP, I think the switch from XP to Win-7 would be at least as challenging as the switch from XP to Linux. And I find the occasional upgrades to the next Linux far less challenging the each time I have to upgrade to the next Windows.

Same for apps like office.

I wonder of Linux has surpassed Windows in easy of use over time. Windows goal is to make money and making changes to enhance the purchasing of a newer version (as opposed to enhance worker productivity) is a result. Linux does not suffer that problem.

Actually, this should be pretty hard. In a secure environment, your "users" should not have administrative privileges. The basic operating system should be set up so serious compromise of the system is impossible (without a bug in the underlying OS code). For systems where only local access is allowed and it must be in an access controlled building, you have shutdown many avenues of attack for an agent located in another country.

Careful here. Admins can also be idiots.
I posted this before - it's a fun read and shows that "hardening" any OS is hopeless when the humans operating it are beyond clue- and careless.

There's no one magic formula for a safe OS, it's a process, requires not only setup but also continued maintenance with know-how.
And there's no "impossible" here either, sorry to say.
Like the old saying goes: the only secure computer is one you lock in a concrete basement, throw away the key, and most importantly: never switch on.

Generally speaking, azalea4va, I think you are preaching to the choir here. And you're not the first.
Sorry if we aren't as enthusiastic about making the world see the light of FOSS as you appear to think would be appropriate, but that doesn't mean we don't basically agree that Linux is safer - but never unconditionally.

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I'm not going to delve into the sociopolitical or economic aspects of it since A) they're very likely to be wrong and B) I'm sure RMS already beat that horse to death sometime in early '91.

So aside from those, and only to speak for my country here ... I'm sure hardened Linux or something that borrows heavily from a hardened Linux distro is already being used in the US military. Tails and TENS are only the two that the OSS community at large knows about.

Also, where Windows is still being relied upon, I'm willing to bet that compatibility with older systems running Windows 98/2000/XP or such is a major concern for them. The infrastructure of the FBI alone, to say nothing of the CIA or DoD, must be massive.