Posted on 11/06/2003 11:28:52 AM PST by antiRepublicrat
Is there any significance to what Web server/platform combinations 2004 presidential candidates are using?
As we swing into the thick of the 2004 electoral playoffs, it's interesting to see what kinds of platforms are running under the candidates' official campaign Web sites. Netcraft has a handy feature called "What's that site running?" that lets us see combinations of Web servers and OS platforms. So here's a quick rundown, in alphabetical order:
As of this writing, November 5, 2003, the RNC has an uptime of 4.26 days (maximum of 39.04) and a 90-day moving average of 16.91. The DNC has an uptime of 445.02 days (also the maximum) and a 90-day moving average of 395.38 days.
Draw your own conclusions.
Yep, totally missed it. I wonder why Novell bought them. Maybe they have lots of support contracts hanging out there? Maybe to get an inside foothold in the EU?
Par for the course, for Novell to be "buying somebody". They've ruined how many companies now, and how many did they want to ruin but weren't able to get control of. So they're just going about their normal business, trying anything, this time it's Linux, another product with little proof of profit and more hype than anything.
What it shows more than anything is that at $200 million, there's any number of larger tech companies that could have eaten that up a LOOONG time ago if they thought there was any value in a Linux company. But there's not, simply because whatever technology you have, the guy next door has basically the exact same stuff. Worse, whenever you make yours better, you have to give him what you did.
They might make a go of it, but people looking at Linux solutions usually aren't ponying up much dough.
Unless there's a monopoly situation, "unfair" is the cry of the people whose business model or practices can't hold up in the free market. But "free" isn't really that free. In most operations, licensing costs are a small percentage of TCO. Therefore, Linux cannot win only on free, but on technological merits and other factors involved in TCO.
I'm pretty certain Thomas Jefferson wouldn't have been interested
Thomas Jefferson tried to prevent even the limited monopoly allowed by the Constitution. He new that arts grow fastest when information is freely shared, unencumbered by artificial monopolies.
No reason those servers couldn't be loaded with ... Windows.
Hilarious!
But without software income, there's no R&D, and ultimately new products and features.
There's software income for anything they write on top of it if they want to. Otherwise, they get to cut total system costs by going Linux and then -- oh no! -- make more profit due to OSS.
These foreigners and hippies here in America are looting our intellectual property
Thses foreigners and hippies are GIVING US intellectual property for FREE. I like that.
It's 90% of IBM putting Unix trade secrets into Linux, and letting people like jong jemin download it for nothing
You believe that SCO garbage? Everything so far points to the suit being a sad attempt of the failing company trying to initiate a buyout. BTW, did you know that SCO is in violation of hundreds of copyrights by Linux authors all over the world? Oh yeah, they value IP.
They're offering inferior cloned technology of our already existing commercial products, and in return they want the significantly more advanced technology of ours that their rip off design was originally based on. They can have their immitation, but we shouldn't destroy our advantage by showing them how to make their attempted copy anywhere near as good.
Everything so far points to the suit being a sad attempt of the failing company trying to initiate a buyout.
That suit may or may not have merit but the principles they are arguing are correct - that America's intellectual property is very valuable and should be protected, and not given away to the rest of the world for nothing. Same with music and other software on pirate websites like kazaa.
I think I know why they bought SuSe. Despite Microsoft sending Steve Ballmer over there, despite Microsoft digging into its multimillion dollar slush fund to lower licensing costs, despite Microsoft offering flexible licensing deals never before seen, SuSe/IBM won the $37.5 million contract for the city of Munich to port 14,000 seats from Windows to Linux.
That contract was actually MORE expensive than the Microsoft solution after Microsoft dropped their bid by 35% when they saw they may lose the contract.
That contract is seen as just the beginning, because other cities and the federal government are seriously looking at OSS.
And that leads to another compelling reason for Open Source in government. Simply, it's open.
Why not, if we can make money off of it. Speaking of imitation, you've just described 99% of Microsoft Windows, but at least the Linux imitators give back what they did.
That suit may or may not have merit but the principles they are arguing are correct - that America's intellectual property is very valuable and should be protected,
And it should be protected. Anyone writing for Linux should be able to show originality of code. Most closed-source software companies have procedures in place for this too, only we don't get to look and see if our stuff got copied. Want to take bets on the amount of copied code in Windows? Too bad we'll never know the answer though.
The people running the Linux kernel have asked to see the questionable code free of restrictive terms. They have offered to immediately remove any code that SCO can show copyright for. This offer of immediate redress is standard operating procedure for honest organization finding itself in violation of copyright. But SCO doesn't want to let them redress any violations by showing the code. Why?
The absolute #1 reason Munich made that deal, especially the part about paying more than M$ would have cost (how in the world could "free" linux cost more than M$?), is that SuSe was not an American company. Also the exact reason they didn't chose Red Hat. With this change of events, they very well may be regretting that decision already.
And that leads to another compelling reason for Open Source in government. Simply, it's open.
The government uses levels of "classification" of their information which demand increasing levels of secrecy. Not really a compatible environment IMO.
That's simply wrong, Windows never had the exact same command syntax of another product, nor the same primary directory names, nor compatibility with other software of any other system.
Unfortunately you're starting to display the tactics of some of the fanatics I was happy to see you denounce earlier - when you begin losing the argument, switch to bashing M$ as quickly as possible.
Want to take bets on the amount of copied code in Windows? Too bad we'll never know the answer though.
Well if M$ is found guilty, they should pay, just like always. And the important thing is, commercial software companies can pay, because they have income, and can fully restitute if code theft occurs. In open source, there's no restitution of damage because some guy working in Russia could get pinned for the blame, and the customers who aren't protected by any sort of guarantee become liable.
But SCO doesn't want to let them redress any violations by showing the code. Why?
Because it's so obvious how much code it is. It's all the code that was in AIX, that now is in Linux. Which is tons. There are contracts with IBM and other companies now owned by IBM that said derrivative software rights remained with ATT/SCO, and that's what their calling them on.
Novell is stepping right into the crossfire as well. How ironic if they become liable to SCO for software infringement, for the very source code they once owned.
First, remember that licensing isn't the largest part of TCO. Second, Microsoft has a multimillion dollar slush fund. This fund can be used by account executives if they fear they may lose an account to Linux. They are to dip as far as they need to, even going into a loss, but they are to never lose an account to Linux. That's why MS sent in Steve Ballmer when they lost the first round. That's why they agreed to the unprecedented unbundling of MS Office components to shave even more off the cost, plus they extended the "software assurance" term.
One big reason they lost was the MS software assurance program. In this program, they have a set time they have to upgrade in, or face much higher upgrade costs later on. They didn't want to find themselves a few years down the road being forced to needlessly upgrade licenses for software that is currently fulfilling their needs, just to save money in the long run.
is that SuSe was not an American company.
Actually, they outsourced a technical and financial review of the offers and Linux came out ahead in the points.
The government uses levels of "classification" of their information which demand increasing levels of secrecy. Not really a compatible environment IMO.
I know this personally. You should see where I work -- don't get caught without your badge.
First, we'll deal with classification. If the government uses closed-source software, they do not know of any bugs in the system, any weaknesses of the code, and any back doors written into the code. They, for the most part, have to trust the company. MS has come a little way in allowing large governments to review code, but the rest of us can't. With Open Source, you can see the code, see it works, see that it is clean of any back doors.
On a more fundamental aspect of security, if you think that hiding source code will increase the quality of your encryption, then you are just setting yourself up for failure. Security through obscurity always fails. However, an OSS encryption solution that has been picked over by cryptologists all over the world is much more likely to be secure.
The NSA found merit in Linux, and was working on a hardened linux project to develop a highly secure strain. Microsoft lobbying put a stop to that.
On the "open" point, the government has to communicate with its citizens. Having to buy a Microsoft or Adobe product to edit or use published government information is just plain wrong. There is also the problem of file formats of deceased companies. How do you expect the average person to access government information or documents when it's near impossible to find a modern application that can read the format. Open Source means open formats. The formats are freely available for anyone to build a reader or editor, free of the need for reverse engineering or running into copyright problems (DMCA).
Some governments are looking to mandate OSS for just that reason alone.
The whole idea of Windows is stolen mostly from other people. The command line of DOS and what earlier versions of Windows had was taken from CPM and UNIX; actually DOS was pretty much a copy of CPM. Plus, most of NT was based on VMS.
Well if M$ is found guilty, they should pay, just like always.
How? You'll never see the code. Trust them?
and the customers who aren't protected by any sort of guarantee become liable.
No software companies protect their customers. HP with Linux is the first one I've ever heard of.
Because it's so obvious how much code it is. It's all the code that was in AIX, that now is in Linux.
Then show it to the kernel maintainers and demand it be removed. 1KB or 10MB, not too hard to transfer these days. The more it is, the worse off for Linux. Otherwise, it's questionable as to who owns what code in the IBM contract chain, but we'll just have to take SCO's word for it since we haven't even seen any samples of offending code.
How ironic if they become liable to SCO for software infringement, for the very source code they once owned.
That's what SCO is doing right now. They are claiming rights to code in Linux, yet they are distributing Linux themselves. This is in direct violation of the GPL license, and therefore copyright violation. Counting many thousands of copies of their Linux distributed by them times several hundred authors whose copyright has been violated, that stacks up to the mother of all copyright violations.
In response to this, SCO has stated flatly that they don't care, that the GPL license is invalid, giving them the right to do what they want with other peoples' hard work.
Let me rephrase that. They own code that is in Linux, and they are distributing versions of Linux with that code in them, but they are not licensing that code under the GPL. That is a violation of the license, and therefore a violation of the copyrights of hundreds of programmers.
Glad to make your acquaintance, and I'm sure you'll keep this public discussion completely declassified.
If the government uses closed-source software, they do not know of any bugs in the system, any weaknesses of the code, and any back doors written into the code. They, for the most part, have to trust the company.
That is absolutely incorrect. The US Government, including it's military and supporting contractors as selected for the duty, get routine access to any source code they so choose, and are in fact perpetually involved with each major US hardware/software vendor on special projects, especially at the operating system level. Not every government organization need burden themselves with this responsibility, although the large software vendors enjoy a call from any potential US government customer more than just about any other.
With Open Source, you can see the code, see it works, see that it is clean of any back doors.
Problem is, everybody in the whole world has the same level of access as you - total. You have no way of calculating the likelihood that the number of "good eyes" ever exceeds the number of "bad eyes". It's a simple hope more than anything. This wide open architechture gives potential hackers the ability to freely roam throughout the code, making themselves infinitely more familiar with design and potential exploit methods.
However, an OSS encryption solution that has been picked over by cryptologists all over the world is much more likely to be secure.
Not only has there been some recent controversy over those processes, you are talking about an extremely small portion of code for the encryption algorhythms. Just one distro of Linux is infinitely larger.
Having to buy a Microsoft or Adobe product to edit or use published government information is just plain wrong. How do you expect the average person to access government information or documents when it's near impossible to find a modern application that can read the format.
HTML is the best universal format, and most government systems use it as their interface. Not sure what you point is, other than resorting to bashing M$ again.
It's been around forever. Surprised since you like to bash M$ so much you didn't know, since this pertains to many of their infringements. Everytime M$ has been held liable for something, like Stacker, there never was any end user threat because we as end users don't 'own' our copy of the software. We're not liable, except as a user.
Most all software works that way, Linux just turns everything on it's head. And much of that isn't good.
The more it is, the worse off for Linux. Otherwise, it's questionable as to who owns what code in the IBM contract chain, but we'll just have to take SCO's word for it since we haven't even seen any samples of offending code.
Until the judge makes them, if ever, they don't have to name the code. They just want damages, which can be generally calculated without counting the exact number of lines.
They (SCO) would probably like for the code to remain in Linux, and my guess is if the judge rules it's theirs then it will stay there, and IBM will license it just like AIX. At least IBM will, and any other company that doesn't would then face litigation from SCO. This is all if of course.
That's what SCO is doing right now. They are claiming rights to code in Linux, yet they are distributing Linux themselves. This is in direct violation of the GPL license, and therefore copyright violation. Counting many thousands of copies of their Linux distributed by them times several hundred authors whose copyright has been violated, that stacks up to the mother of all copyright violations.
That very well may be true, and if any open source programmer feels exploited they should be suing SCO. They better hurry up, because if this judge agrees with SCO that "copyleft" is illegal and voids the GPL distro of Linux, it will be Humpty Dumpty time for the OS.
Mac is for work, Linux is for server and Windows is for Solitaire
You don't own your copy of Linux either. Copyright (or fault for copyright violation) remains that of the person who wrote the code. There is a trail of who submitted what.
Until the judge makes them, if ever, they don't have to name the code.
Fair enough. They're not going to have a chance of proving copyright violation without producing what was violated. And then the fact that the Linux managers made a good faith effort to try to fix it and were rebuffed will be held against them.
That very well may be true, and if any open source programmer feels exploited they should be suing SCO.
C&D letters have already been sent.
They better hurry up, because if this judge agrees with SCO that "copyleft" is illegal and voids the GPL distro of Linux, it will be Humpty Dumpty time for the OS.
If the GPL is ruled invalid then for purposes of copyright in the U.S., regular old copyright law is applied. In that case, SCO is still left distributing thousands of copies of software where the copyright is held by hundreds of people. The GPL was, until they violated it, the only thing allowing them to distribute that software.
Yep, their feeble minds cannot comprehend how working together without a profit motive to create an economically valuable product could be anything other than a grand vision of Socialism for the computer industry. Those of us with more brain cells than a fruit fly though, understand that peaceful, cooperative behavior is always compatable with capitalism.
We ain't doin a damn thing! They are giving away their code. It's their right, they wrote it.
I think what GE missed when saying OSS is the anthesis of America is that OSS is constructive volunteerism at its very best. One of the things that makes America great is our strong sense of volunteering our talent and time to make this a better place.
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