> Android phones and Linux distributions don't have a single update channel for all of them
This is pretty much saying that, because an OS is open source, that means anyone can put it on almost anything and sell it, so the fact that the original developer can't control all possible distributions of the software that said software is untenable.
In practice, that is not how it works. You don't approach broad deployments of Android or, say, RHEL while getting supplied by a half dozen different OEMs. You pick one and stick to it. In much the same way Windows shops work - you normally either go with just Dell or just HP.
Hell, you can't lump Linux and Android in the same boat either. Vendors never guarantee perpetual phone OS updates on Android, because they always abandon their devices. The exception might be Google, maybe, with one of their device series from the last 5 years since the Nexus 4 which did get dropped, but you might be able to get a perpetual update contract with them for an extended support period. I have no idea.
But for something at Government scale, adopting Android is actually really trivial. At least it used to be - you could have just approached Cyanogen to support all devices with a guaranteed support period. Now I'm not sure if there is a corporate entity to barter with backing Lineage, but the same principal applies. There are ways around Android's horrible update model.
For desktop Linux, though, its no competition. You will always be going to one vendor, using that one vendor, and getting consistent updates from that singular vendor. Be it Dell or Red Hat or Canonical or whomever you plan to contract with. They aren't going to be throwing Gentoo randomly on a couple of your thousand Ubuntu boxes, and if you want they will certainly preconfigure the images to point the update servers to your own self hosted ones to control updates if you really want to.
True, but there's still a difference: One organization will homogenously use a single distributor/vendor/update channel within itself, sure. But different organizations might use different vendors, or even different sections of an organization if they're bureaucratically separated enough (e.g. not sharing budgets and IT staff).
If you're running Windows, you're getting it from Microsoft, end of story.
So... the reason it's so trivial to locate Windows and Office, and the reason why KMSPico et exist... is so that the latest version of Windows - and updates - actually propagate, er, fully.
Presumably so that Microsoft doesn't get bad press, and maybe due to (shady but arguable) legal implications.
This isn't really true. I know that both Google and Amazon (and likely others) have their own versions of desktop Unbuntu, and, importantly, all software comes from their own PPAs (including OS / kernel updates).
In terms of the "kill switch" threat, this pretty much removes it.
Additionally, desktop Linux systems are similar and open enough that it wouldn't be a big deal to move to Debian / others if Canonical went up in smoke or were compromised. It certainly wouldn't cost end users file compatibility.
> The exception might be Google, maybe, with one of their device series from the last 5 years since the Nexus 4 which did get dropped, but you might be able to get a perpetual update contract with them for an extended support period
Eh, Nexus 5x was The Phone for a while, released September 2015. EOL was announced in October 2016, software updates last until September 2017.
So it's still allegedly supported, but Android 7 update caused bootloops on a bunch of phones and Google determined it was a "hardware issue". Maybe it was, but I feel like Linux/Windows would work around this kind of issue, rather than shrugging and asking you to talk to the manufacturer.
In virtually all Linux distros you can switch software repositories or delay or block updates altogether. And if they go the Linux route they can always choose a distro maintained inside the EU.
This is pretty much saying that, because an OS is open source, that means anyone can put it on almost anything and sell it, so the fact that the original developer can't control all possible distributions of the software that said software is untenable.
In practice, that is not how it works. You don't approach broad deployments of Android or, say, RHEL while getting supplied by a half dozen different OEMs. You pick one and stick to it. In much the same way Windows shops work - you normally either go with just Dell or just HP.
Hell, you can't lump Linux and Android in the same boat either. Vendors never guarantee perpetual phone OS updates on Android, because they always abandon their devices. The exception might be Google, maybe, with one of their device series from the last 5 years since the Nexus 4 which did get dropped, but you might be able to get a perpetual update contract with them for an extended support period. I have no idea.
But for something at Government scale, adopting Android is actually really trivial. At least it used to be - you could have just approached Cyanogen to support all devices with a guaranteed support period. Now I'm not sure if there is a corporate entity to barter with backing Lineage, but the same principal applies. There are ways around Android's horrible update model.
For desktop Linux, though, its no competition. You will always be going to one vendor, using that one vendor, and getting consistent updates from that singular vendor. Be it Dell or Red Hat or Canonical or whomever you plan to contract with. They aren't going to be throwing Gentoo randomly on a couple of your thousand Ubuntu boxes, and if you want they will certainly preconfigure the images to point the update servers to your own self hosted ones to control updates if you really want to.