The computer systems in 3 hospitals were shut down for 24 hours because of a virus attack. I am not sure whether to laugh or to cry — laugh, at the half-wits who have decided to use Windows for sensitive data of our National Health Service; cry, for the poor patients who no doubt suffered.
When will people realise that there is a computer operating system that is open, free in all senses, never crashes, and is never affected by viruses, and more sophisticated than anything else? It is called Linux. For a fraction of the taxpayer’s money spent on the National Health’s computer system, we could have had one that works, doesn’t crash, and holds patient data with much higher security than Windows ever can.
My partner and I run a business almost entirely centred around free, open software, with Linux as the operating system. In 12 years of working together, we have never lost any data due to a computer crash, virus, etc. We sleep soundly at night, and the money that we might have paid some bespectacled fellow in Seattle, we spend on our business. We are proud to be part of the free software community.
James
November 23, 2008 at 3:05 am
kaveh
November 23, 2008 at 5:58 am
Sure, OS X would be better than Windoze and would solve the virus problem, but two things for Linux:
– No cost, so saving money for NHS
– Open source, so better security… Patient data should not be held in proprietary systems.
James
November 23, 2008 at 10:25 am
– Ok but only Mac OS X could run Windows and Linux in virtulisation therefore offering a choice
– OS X has never been hacked and its FreeBSD underpinnings could lead to the same security argument about open source
– OS X has a user-friendly interface and would lead to time-savings therefore reduced costs
I’ll shut up now because in any case the NHS like most monolithic organisations would rather be tied into the M$ machine!