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Microsoft Battles Free Software at Pentagon
Spirit of Ishmael writes "The May 22 Washington Post is running a story under the headline Microsoft Fights Free Software at Pentagon. According to the story: 'Microsoft Corp. is aggressively lobbying the Pentagon to squelch its growing use of freely distributed computer software and switch to proprietary systems such as those sold by the software giant, according to officials familiar with the campaign.'"
Mitre has been tight with the government since just about the dawn of time. They were one of the origionators of what became the internet. At this point, I doubt Mitre has much difficulty getting contracts, especially from the DoD, since they have such a long-standing relationship. I think it is significant, however, that Mitre is pushing Linux. That, even more so than IBM's efforts, tells me that Linux has made it to the big time.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
At least with an open source system, they could have patched the code and moved on. But with the closed source Windows NT system, the USS Yorktown had to be towed into harbor and let the boys from Redmond check under the hood.
Thank God it was peacetime..
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
"a senior Microsoft Corp. executive [who] told a federal court last week that sharing information with competitors could damage national security and even threaten the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. He later acknowledged that some Microsoft code was so flawed it could not be safely disclosed."
Which would be a national security threat?
And they wonder why the Pentagon is Doubtful?
It certainly doiesn't sound like something worthy of milspec regulations.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Denning was one of the main professors pushing Clipper.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
SELinux is not well understood. NSA has built a version of Linux with a mandatory security module. The idea is to allow people to experiment with a system that enforces mandatory security (which can be tough to live with) and to develop apps that can work within that model.
If you want to move things along, download SELinux and make some application work within a mandatory security model.
As someone who has worked for MITRE, I know there's a reason that it "has been tight with the government since just about the dawn of time:" That's the company's purpose. It's a private company whose mission is to provide independent contracting for the government, so it has all the benefits of being able to do cool scientific research for DoD, DoE, the military, etc. with all the benefits of not actually being a government agency.
What this means is that a large number of its employees have advanced degrees - especially Ph.Ds - in scientific fields, so they have probably done their share of academic research in various *nices. They're used to it, and it's definitely pervasive throughout the company - plenty of Linux machines as well as Solaris and others - because they know they can use it for research and they don't have to worry about government licensing and other paperwork when buying their own equipment. They're free to push these systems all they want because they know they work and they have plenty of freedoms that a normal government agency might not have.