Let’s all stick with Microsoft because this is what we know…

One of the leading “opposition” newspapers[arabic] published today two big pieces on Linux on page 14 which deals with “technology” and what you get from those articles is the a clear smell that Microsoft or one of its agents has actually written or inspired those articles.

The issue is that the Bahraini government, specifically the Central Informatics Directorate has decided to use Linux for their central servers[arabic] rather than Microsoft’s products. It is possible that they will even use MySQL to hold the data rather than one of the big names – but I cannot confirm that. What the articles are doing is completely attacking that choice and pointing the finger (more like blackmailing) the government under the guise of that we do not have any Linux expertise on the island so that we will have to depend on “untrustworthy foreigners who do not love Bahrain as we the locals do to handle very sensitive information.”

Well, I don’t agree with the government’s steps on introducing a smart card that will hold all of our private information, I’ve detailed my objections on this issue on these pages. However blackmailing the government to do away with Linux because we don’t have “experts” hence we must use Microsoft only is just down right ugly.

What the writer fails to realize is that we have to start somewhere, and if this is the first step the government takes on the road of Microsoft independence, then I am fully behind them.

The articles also stress that the university and government training institutes do not have Linux training in their curriculum. I say “wake up and smell the humus!”

I’m not sure what the writer wants as he just criticizes the government’s choice of Linux without offering solutions other that “stay with our friends Microsoft.” The irony is an article on the very same page which clearly states that Germany, Brazil and other countries have adopted Linux and its solution to run their countries and/or cities. What he should have concentrated on is to support the government’s move because this is one thing that is done in the national interest and encourage the government to sponsor Linux training and creating job opportunities relating to Linux.

A few weeks ago, the IBM training centre in Bahrain has received Red Hat certification, so they can certainly be commissioned to train young Bahrainis in Linux system administration, programming and support.

There is no pleasing some people.. I hope that Al-Wasat is not going to be yet another “brown envelope newspaper!”