NHSbuntu – an OS for the NHS [video]
nhsbuntu.org
nhsbuntu.org
Also, while updating individual Linux systems is easy, patching Linux at scale across the thousands of desktops in the NHS needs a proper, thought-out patching strategy to eliminate breakage. You also need to consider -- in what cadence do I actually evergreen old systems?
The NHS could easily have this problem with any OS -- the actual culprit being a total lack of security-mindedness among the various NHS trusts' budget-holders. They viewed IT Security as not worth spending upon and are paying the price.
Then the tenders for buying those devices should state "Devices that work with $YOUR_FAVORITE_DISTRO will be given preference.". If it's a reasonable one, they will make a driver for it. Customer demand always generates product; and the NHS is about the biggest customer there is.
I mean we are talking about large multinational pharmaceutical, medical equipment and software companies buying something from the largest employer in the world with a tech budget of roughly £1 billion a year (I think).
If the NHS stuck to it's guns, somebody would provide the goods.
But it would mean giving a huge F* YOU to established networks of parasi- er, vendors specialised in public sector tenders - Microsoft being the king of them all.
Also https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla...
Firstly, tender bids have prerequisites on their bidders. You need to be on the "preferred provider" list. Security checked. Higher-level security vetted. DBS. Etc. This is the sort of stuff that stops small local companies getting in.
That means lack of competition and that means —as well as the price being 10-20× that in the natural market— that vendors have all the power when it comes to detail negotiation. They spec out the cheapest, easiest option for them, not what's best for the customer.
If the customer (a lowly NHS trust or CCG) turns around and says "no Linux, no sale" they'll offer a [much] higher price for the open system, or just say no. All three vendors that responded do the same. Windows remains.
This will only be solved when CCGs start working together and start in-housing some of this development work. But it's still apparently better to spunk £50M over HP for some dodgy tablets that don't work than hiring a team of (eg) 40 developers for 10 years. That sort of developer time, working on site, you could actually start to fix things.
But now I'm being optimistic. A Tory government in-house something when their mates own shares in HP? Not likely.
That's why it is so difficult to update all those machines. They are simply not designed to be updated by anyone. For most of them, updating to Windows 7 or anything as recent is impossible because they have proprietary ISA or PCI cards or similar ancient technology that is used to interface with the actual hardware.
And that's exactly how I feel about all of these proprietary device providers that have all these massive contract with the NHS. It really should be "Want this massive NHS contract, fk you, support our OS"
I'm quadriplegic and rely on the NHS for my life, literally for my life and this kind of shit scares the absolute crap out of me. Yes it will be difficult, yes there are challenges but we are one of the richest countries on earth and we invented the Sinclair C5 for goodness sake. This is not beyond us.
Sorry, this hack and finding out about all those XP machines has terrified and angered me beyond all reason.
Edited to Add: Just to be clear, I agree with the OP!
I'd say it'd be a very solid investment. If it's made open-source and some attention is dedicated to build a community and a vendor ecosystem around it, it'll save the NHS and many other similar organizations everywhere a huge amount of money.
Also there is ReactOS which is an open source older windows which might be useful for running old windows software on a relatively secure OS.
Also - yes, any OS could be used including Windows. However the problem is that if the system is not free (in the FSF sense), the NHS is not in control. This is the real problem, not costs or missing drivers in my opinion.
Of course, nobody thinks that this project will "save" the NHS or influence it in a major way. But it could at least be the start of a discussion. Or am I too naive?
IMHO, the main cost is replacing the old window support guys by linux support guys because people a rarely competent in both and erasing the windows way of thinking is very difficult. The new team has to learn the specific needs and manner of NHS. Once they have the same experience as the previous team, the cost should melt.
When you deploy an os over something as large as the NHS, your going to hit a few snags, perhaps at the code level. You will need somebody who you can phone up, who will then go bug fix those issues.
Vendors like redhat have support licences that support this. And those licences are still fairly expensive.
If NHS was going to deploy a Linux Distribution, they will have to bring a Linux distribution vender onboard which would take the role Microsoft does now.
Looks like the full budget might be closer to 1B GBP:
http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/your-practice/practice-topics/it...
Is this not enough provide infrastructure to keep maybe 200K PCs up to date? (I don't have number on how many PCs they have...).
I'm not saying it is, or isn't. But I would be useful to explore the issue. Throwing more money at the problem isn't necessarily the solution.
Just to reassure people who maybe think because of the timing of our launch that we had something to do with the recent NHS Cyber Attacks, it was just an unfortunate coincidence.
I'm an NHS doctor and the rest of the team are NHS tech specialists, including a Technical Architect and a CIO. We've no interest in ransoming the NHS, but we did want to disruptively highlight the non-Microsoft OS options available.
We know the name NHSbuntu is a bit stupid, for several reasons, but (for the target audience) in 8 characters it does explain what we're trying to do fairly concisely. Neither Canonical or the NHS Brand Police seem particularly upset by it, so that's a good sign. Maybe in the future we'll have to change to something more suitable.
Anyone wanting to get involved please join in at www.nhsbuntu.org (we have a Slack team and a forum) - we are trying to build a team of contributors.
I'm an advocate of open-source software, but lets not pretend it'll solve everything.
Also, what about all the software they can't afford to replace? A lot of it is bespoke, and it's written for Windows. Don't pretend they have the money to port it. Their budget never will be the 350 million per week the public seems so obsessed with.
Finally, this is just Ubuntu, right? What's all the NHS branding for? If they're going to seriously consider it, surely they are going to look a bit further than the shiny surface NHSbuntu provides them.
Conclusion: Yes, use open-source operating systems, but no, it doesn't fix all, or sometimes even any, problems unless the code is thoroughly audited (shout out OpenBSD).
If you really want to do this, one thing you'll need is to make sure existing vertical market software works perfectly in Wine - e.g. Informatica, which is stupendously popular in England and Scotland and is officially supplied by NHS Wales.
[1] https://nhsbuntu.org/nhsbuntu/2017/01/31/initial-post/ [2] https://nhsbuntu.org/nhsbuntu/2017/04/26/sxsw-show-and-tell/
THAT is what they need for the NHS, and any other industry that needs a really long support period.
RHEL gives ~10 years support, the MRI scanners etc need at least 15. On top of that, the customers also need guarantees that the vendors of the MRI scanners or whatever will keep up with this.
So - no more of using whatever library you like, or php extension - it's a case of - this is the base OS, build it on that.
This is a fuckup on so many levels - the vendors, the NHS for not giving a shit, the government for not mandating an open solution. The one I can't blame, for once, is Microsoft - they're supported XP for 13 years, thats enough.
[0] It's really all the site and video say...
If you follow that address, you find this forum post: https://www.openhealthhub.org/t/welcome-to-nhsbuntu/908
NHSbuntu was launched 20 days ago, before the recent attack.
If not, it's a no go for an organisation such as the NHS.
On a more serious note, I agree that the name choice isn't particularly good, but is *buntu really relevant? I get that it might appeal to the technical minded people (and the creators probably belong to that category), or may sound a bit familiar to the masses, but I don't see any reason for them to keep this part of the name.
I would have named it after a drug or a scientist, I think.
The bottom line is that the name itself isn't very relevant. A good name would be something easy to spell, and with a neutral conotation, not too hard to remember, but without attracting too much attention, as this is supposed to be just a tool.
Just like NHS's Windows boxen.
Only thing I can think of is really, really far-fetched. Someone who know what was about to happen to the NHS inserted a backdoor into this distro, and is now advertising it to them.
Yeah, I know. Probably not.
Seriously, what is the NHS? Nothing defines the NHS, including the about page.
That's the about page, what's the problem?
Fifth largest employer - in the world.