EU OS

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Goals ​

WARNING

This page is work in progress. Related issue: #2

EU OS is a Proof-of-Concept for the deployment of a Fedora-based Linux operating system with a KDE Plasma desktop environment in a typical public sector organisation. Other organisations with similar requirements or less strict requirements may also learn from this Proof-of-Concept.

Despite the name, EU OS is technically not a new operating system. Distrowatch lists currently over 250 Linux distributions and their various flavours, spins or subvariants are not even counted in. The added value of EU OS is a different one:

  • a common Linux OS as a base for all EU OS users with options to layer on top modifications (national layer, regional or sector-specific layer, organsation-specific layer)
  • a common desktop environment
  • a common method to manage
    • users and their data
    • software
    • devices

Layers define a clear and transparent hierarchy of responsability for software and configuration. Each layer to EU OS would only contain the very specifics for their use cases and users. Using common layers allows then to pool responsability at the appropriate level, so that teams close to the end users can keep the focus on their specific environment.

When at the beginning the user base is still to small to pool enough resources to take care of the EU OS (base version) within the public sector, it may be possible to contract commercial support for maintenance. For this reason, the EU OS Proof-of-Concept proposes to choose an upstream Linux OS with options for commercial support.

Motivation ​

EU OS is not the first to propose a Linux-based operating system for the public sector. The motivation is often the same and can be looked up from projects like GendBuntu 🇫🇷 and LiMux 🇩🇪

  • ‘public money – public code’ means the public investment profits the entire public (and private) sector (see also: use cases)
  • synergy effects lead to tax savings, because there is no per-seat license cost
  • independence from software suppliers and vendor lock-in
  • independence in scheduling software migrations and potential hardware upgrades
  • deploy new technologies with controlled cost
  • use of open standards to foster innovation
  • better use of IT administrator resources (reportedly for the French use case with 90000 seats)
  • ability to do own code analysis
  • worldwide free software community

References:

Next Steps ​

  • build with gitlab.com CI an atomic operating system and demonstrate how layers can be used to build variants on top of it
  • test installs on some devices
  • describe methods to manage users, data, software and devices
  • implement the proof-of-concept with some early adopter organisations (see: use cases)
  • convince the European Commission to host the project at https://code.europa.eu and take over some ownership (more is better)

Similar Projects ​

This non-exhaustive list is open for your feedback via Gitlab or our social channels.

Philosophy (Doctrine) ​

  • use of open source
  • use of desktop environment KDE Plasma (though Gnome as alternative not excluded)
  • use of Gitlab (though forgejo as alternative not excluded)
  • use of vim (… just a joke! 😉 )

Project Scope ​

There is no clear scope yet and the scope may evolve in the future.

Rule of thumb so far: In the scope is everything that is necessary to deploy a Linux-based operating system to an average public body with few hundreds of users.

Clearly out of scope is:

  • The development of a novel Linux operating system (‘distribution’) from scratch. Instead, EU OS should build on top of an existing well established Linux distribution.
  • The deployment of EU OS outside of a corporate environment. For their personal computers, people can already choose between a large variety of Linux distributions.
  • The deployment of EU OS on other devices than typical desktop workstations or laptops. Hence, smartphones are out of scope.