Nice idea but...
Ignoring the Linux vs Windows, open-source vs proprietary for a moment. We have an NHS estate with around 20000 users/desktops and 1000 servers, all running some flavour of Windows and Office.
There's a point in 2020 where the desktop/server OS versions become unsupported and another one later in that year where the current Office suite goes the same way.
Regardless of what we intend to use we have to replace all of this stuff in the next 18-24 months.
So we have a choice. Do we go to open source for the desktop, server and office suite or stay with the current Microsoft products that we have. Bear in mind that even if we swap the desktop out, you still have to pay Server CALs for end users to access things like Active Directory.
If the NHSE can negotiate a new EWA with Microsoft that gives me all the elements that I need to replace what I have, then I can just get on and replace like-for-like.
If I went open-source (which is a commendable goal) then I have to do all of the work that I have to do in the Microsoft variant, but now I have to identify new applications to replace Wintel ones that we currently have. We need to test all of these for interoperability with systems. We need to find *nix drivers for the shonky printer that is lurking in an office that is part of some vital environment. And we have to do this with a team of staff that currently have little to no Linux experience, where our external third line support is 4 volunteers?
I know it's a circular argument - we only have skills in Microsoft because we only have Microsoft - however for 90% of IT departments that is going to be the reality, like it or not.
As other posters have mentioned, the NHS is highly risk-averse. The risk to do something like NHoS now - given the impending 2020 deadlines - is just too great. That's why NHS Digital is looking to create a new EWA as there will be >1m users in the same boat.
However, once that next milestone is out of the way and there is no looming deadline to meet, then *that* would be the time for the NHS to look at open source alternatives. Although I think by that time the desktop will start to matter less as systems become "cloudy" and browser-based.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
