why does deep space nine keep running what is essentially a cardassian operating system. give that thing to the right nerd and they'd have Linux running on it in a weekend
since this post did well, here's some cool/good additions people made:
You think it was tough to get wifi drivers working in the 00s? Imagine the entire hardware stack is totally non-standard, up to and including the firmware that controls stuff like "breathable air" and "keeping the doors unlocked". And if you think the failure conditions for those systems aren't hostile to the developer, the end user, and life itself, you have never spoken to a Cardassian.
Look, we all know those devs who make things needlessly arcane and undocumented just to keep themselves in a job. On Cardassia Prime, that's considered an engineering best practice. There are three people in the quadrant who know the protocol for opening the docking bay and none of them will explain it to you for anything short of a high-ranking position in the bureaucracy and the title to an estate in the demilitarized zone.
The only reason anything gets done at all is only because O'Brien spent his free time during the war reading technical manuals he'd scavenged from overrun Cardassian outposts, and the pressure from Central Command to make the OS itself comprehensible enough that training new military engineers was cheap. But the drivers? If you think you can get them talking to Linux without a fully staffed university department and a five year grant, you're dreaming.
Also: isn't the station technically Bajoran, and only run by the Federation? Imagine the bureaucracy needed to change the operating system of a place like that! The Federation would of course want their own tech there, but they couldn't just give it to a non-member world for free. The Bajorans on the other hand couldn't afford thr expense (plus how good is their tech really?). Which is why they sent O'Brien there.