HP To Sell Custom High-Security GNU/Linux Distro

bc90021 writes: "CNET has this story about Hewlett Packard's new secure version of Linux. Using 2.4.2, it can supposedly detect attacks as they happen. (At $3,000, I think it should counter-attack, too.) It will be available on HP servers (duh), or on servers that pass the RedHat 7.1 server qualification tests."

Comments

$3000?

[EvlPenguin]

OpenBSD is free. "Four years without a remote hole in the default install!"

Re:They ship a IDS ?

[oingoboingo]

Is it really worth to pay $3,000 for a distro with an Intrusion Detection System like snort [snort.org] configured ?
I'd say the distro would pay for itself in about 2 seconds if it actually did what it is advertised to do. $3000 isn't much to pay to have HP say "This thing is guaranteed to be configured correctly, and work as advertised.
Sure beats have the monkeys from sysadmin bollocks around for a whole day on getting the config 'correct', only to find out when it's too late that they misunderstood something.
If you're going to pay for redundant power supplies, redundant cooling, RAID hard drives and dual NICs to make sure your hardware is done properly, then what's another $3k to make sure your intrusion detection works properly and you can call someone for help if it doesn't?
(Of course I'm assuming HP will actually answer the phone....)

HP "Gets It"

[istartedi]

The way to make money selling Free Software is to price it so high that nobody will burn a copy for their friends. "I payed $3000 for that. Buy your own d*** copy!"

Of course, perhaps HP is also fixing it up so it only runs with their stuff. That's another great way to make money on Free Software. Sell it as an option for something else, and make sure it's useless unless it's bundled with the Something Else. The key here is what you bundle with it. Bundling it with support gives you a disencentive to produce quality Free Software, but bundling it with hardware doesn't, at least not directly. If hardware vendors end up dominating the software market, they are likely to produce only a few killer apps, but at least they will put effort into those apps to reduce support calls.

Of course, Free Software tends to repel 3rd party software vendors. Perhaps Bill and Company gave 3rd party software vendors a bad reputation, OTOH, if the Free Software that comes with the system lags in features, then 3rd party vendors who are "pure plays" in the software market will step in, and people will pay money for 3rd party software that does more than the stock install. Then we are back to square one, with some future Microsoft breathing life into the 21st century's equivalent of the stale, boring mainframe world.