Yet government moves to Linux fall because it's complicated. It's not that simple unfortunately.
There needs to be a driving force (eg. Like china pushing it's os, or maybe this one with captain orange)
Everything is driven by the end user. And unfortunately we are a gray continent so the younger generation must start.
Alternatively I can't get my wife out of an iPhone because a Samsung is just to confusing.
What I can do in the background I do but it has to be easy and recognizable for 75% of the population.
They went through the effort of creating their own fork, Limux. It has nothing to do with money (cant find the amount of money invested on the implementation btw) or deferring anything. No need to attach the process there. Yes, i'm sure there were some issues with printers and other stuff but that could be solved by replacement.
The problem was not Limux. The problem were the users as i pointed out. The Gray people and the "touchscreen" people that are stuck on something are going to rebel. As said before, your users need to be able to work with it and like it.
I consulted on multiple implementations and the main thing that matters to people for acceptance is: "is it sexy?". If its sexy, people will adopt it easier. Linux at that time was generally looking blegh.
Users have to get used to something different, big hurdle. When looking at it, it looks like garbage, no interest.
It all depends on acceptance.
It could be that it would succeed now because the UI has come a long way.