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Comment by gscott | Hacker News Reader

This is important. There is a Government website that I use that only works in IE. They built it years ago through contractors using .Net and I bet they don't have any ability to change it. I wonder if they even have the original source code.

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At some point, the government is going to have to realize that the internet has long passed the days of moving slow.

Putting unrealistic restrictions (only works in IE, can only use .Net) is going to hinder the progress of its development.

There are times where vetting and change management make sense. But then we have applications that were built before 2008 and realize that in the long run, with the tools of today, it would be easier to use the tools of today than adding another feature to this bloated mess.

That is unrealistic (I work for gov ATM). There is no such thing as incentive in gov, stuff is mandated by low. You don't want to use IE ? Your problem, you can explain it to the judge. That is how majority of gov services work (not only IE, multiple domains).

We had services from ALL major IT companies in the world that still need IE (or Firefox, or Chrome, exclusively) , so this is even not strictly in gov or IE domain only.

Some gov companies are lucky to have somebody that lives in 21st century that is on such position that can change some of it but that is merely a fluke.

I would be also interested in what country it is.

We had similar case - few years ago, the tax office switched to electronic VAT tax returns, which was Windows-only. There was a company that continued to fill their returns using the old-fasioned way (paper). In the court, they won, because the filing system was Windows-only, and the state cannot force you to purchase your software from a specific supplier.

Serbia.

Perhaps you can win on court. But what about time and energy you will lose. Nobody wants that. They got sued, thats what I am talking about.

Sure, they certainly had some dreamless nights, but I'm glad they stood by their principles. We are all benefiting. Since then, all state-financed projects have to be accessible cross-platform, using open formats and protocols.

Yeah, no reason to do otherwise, even if there are 10 users IMO.

And according to my Kibana presentation on IIS logs there are actually ~100 linux users in entire country (not counting mobile users on Linux of which there are a lot due to Android). This might be related to concrete gov domain (accounting and VAT) tho.

Its principles 100% for me.

Out of interest, which country are you referring to here? GDS in the UK fully support Chrome, Safari, IE and Firefox [1].

[1] https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2012/10/11/what-devices-are-we-suppo...

Gov.UK is not really representative. Its outlier.

I was at their Velocity conf presentation and immediately took them as show case on how gov stuff should be done.

I'm working under the GOV.UK umbrella at the moment. The browser compatibility is mainly achieved by using JavaScript very sparingly and trying not to deviate from the Design System[0]. Accessibility is really important and we can't take sites/apps 'live' without undergoing a full assessment.

[0] https://design-system.service.gov.uk

Something like that might be a solution for UI limited sites such as GOV.UK (the reason why I like it, gov sites should look like that, be clean, informative and no distractions).

We use Vue.js for frontends so 'using JavaScript very sparingly' doesn't even compute to me. Switched from Angular and I totally understand what you mean (given its more JS hardcore and more problems).

Yeah, we've got more than enough history to look at to draw conclusions from re: "web" and "internet" software/services.

Any new projects should have a "migration" or "upgrade" metric associated - how long will it take to upgrade to the next major version of the employed platform? how long will it take to migrate to a different platform? no doubt there are not always simple answers, but it's something which needs to at least be considered. And there are sometimes really "single source" options with no viable competition, but those are possibly more rare than we'd think, and even if not, the risk needs to be called out even more in those project/contracts then.

I called tech support for Ameren UE the other day to complain that their payment page is down. The rep asked me why I wasn't using IE. I said the page had worked for at least six months in chrome, and she got mad at me. So, a regression to IE-only, at this modern date. Monopolies are at least as pathetic as government agencies.

"IE was replaced by Microsoft nearly 6 years ago, and doesn't meet current security requirements."

This could be said about literally any technology, like HTML 2.0, tn3270, floppy disks, or fax machines. Thankfully, we don't push for all new PCs to have built-in floppy drives and fax modems, just because there's still some legacy users. And specialty software is even easier to install in a computer than hardware interfaces.

...another point in the favor of legally forcing governments and public institutions to use open-source software and open data formats.

This should be as plain and simple as stating that "if there exists a fully functional open-source technology that satisfies a public institution's need, the institution should be forced to use such technology instead of any proprietary alternative, or to demand it's contractors to develop a custom open-source solution, even if it's more expensive then a proprietary alternative" (with some "sane" limit like it can be "up to but not more than 5x as expensive" - there's befits to society from funding "a bit" of os dev from public funds, but not over do it...).

"Software capitalism" and public infrastructure don't mix well. And private companies can still make tons of money developing, customizing/extending and supporting open-source software for use by gov clients.

But if it's paid from people's taxes, it should only be open-source!

I wouldn't go that far to recommend non custom gov software to be open source (mainly because its far less realistic), but custom should be mandatory. There are very few countries that request that now AFAIK - Romania I think on state level, and many on city/region level.

Yes, use oracle junk instead of postgre if you want, but software MUST BE open source, its only logical given that is financed by the budget and analyzed, tested and influenced by the gov people. Otherwise, you have private companies that get rich on taxpayer money, and not only that, but monopoly, zero reuse between regional local govs, worst quality and security etc.

You wouldn't believe the resistance I have, trying to introduce this in my country.

How do you solve the issue of a tech-illiterate government throwing bundles of cash at the first company that sets the most unrealistic expectation at a cost that still seems 'valid'?

Half the stuff a government has contracted out for mils or bils could have been mostly implemented by small shops charging a few hundred K tops.

Unless you still believe a glorified CMS/ERP takes billions to write.

It can be solved. Gov tech people could be excluded from the laws dictating gov salaries. They must have concurrent salary.

Given that, most would stay in gov I think - the domain is fantastic for serious engineers - entire country of clients, usually all domestic companies or people must be involved, most services should work 24/7, have zero downtime etc. Its as hard as it can get without being at Google and Facebook IMO.

There are other ideas to solve this problem too, but let me not digress here.

I agree.. the issue tends to come down to...

CITY: Hey, we paid for this, but these other cities using it aren't funding (chipping in) for further development...

Microsoft knows how to play that game. They will just lobby the government to specify that they require some feature that only Microsoft happens to offer.

...even by forcing them to play, it's still a win because there is some cost in playing the game.

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