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USDOI Goes 100% Microsoft
SatanIsHere writes: "A memo (here, here, here, and here) dated September 19th, 2002 from the Department of the Interior's Acting CIO notes the new policy of a "Department-wide standard for computer operating systems (desktop and server)" Of course the good news is that this will herald a new era in government transparancy for the Department of the Interior.
SatanIsHere Continues: "On September 13, 2002, the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget signed the attached Findings and Determination establishing Microsoft Corporation's enterprise desktop and server software as the Department-wide standard for computer operating systems (desktop and server), office automation, and asset management software.... Benefits of establishing this new Department-wide standard include:
- Lower Total Cost of Ownership for the desktop, including lower user training costs.
- Centralized and efficient security policy administration
- Greater flexibility and management functionality from products that offer a broader range of management solutions that integrate with non-Microsoft environments
- Greater productivity and reliability attributed to less downtime.
- Extended support for a large base of software applications.
Business specific application software requirements (such as Sun/Solaris, IBM, AIX, etc.) outside the established Microsoft standard may be addressed through the OCIO waiver process."
This looks to freeze out an entire Federal Department (70,000+ employees) from non-Microsoft solutions, requiring a "waiver" to use anything non-MS. One more step to complete Microsoft World Domination. This is particularly ironic considering the problems DOI has had recently regarding IT security. If this isn't leveraging a desktop monopoly into other areas I don't know what is. :-P"
Sure, Go 100% Microsoft. It'll make the drooling MCSE's on the site titter with glee at the thought of "unifying" everything in the Microsoft way.
But you know what 100% Microsoft translates to? 100% downtime when the next "melissa" or "nimda" hits. I've BEEN there. I've worked at companies like this. Just wait--they'll get tagged by the next Outlook script and the entire site will be down for a day or two while ONE MCSE pokes at the keyboard, surrounded by one or two other MCSEs standing and staring at the guy typing--all the while pulling in huge $$$ in overtime, on top of the huge $$$ they get just for having a 4-letter Microsoft-approved title. Everything is on hold until the next virus update to "fix" the problem, since goodness knows there isn't much in terms if diagnostics and repair you can do in WinNT by itself.
There's a reason why I gave up being a sysadmin--100% Microsoft is mostly why. Can anyone else stuck in 100% Microsoft/MCSE land corrorborate the above story? I'd be surprised if the exact same song-and-dance didn't happen at every Microsoft site.
What the head article fails to mention is that a Federal judge ordered the Department of the Interior to shut down all internet connections last year. With no from-the-outside network attacks, the Microsoft systems might stay up for days, even.
Offtopic example.
Peter: "Why not cross the streams?"
Egon: "It would be bad."
Peter: "Define bad."
Egon: "Imagine all life as you know it stopping instantainiously, and every molocule in your body exploding at the speed of light."
Peter: "Ok that's bad. Important safety tip."
Ontopic example.
Hemos: "Don't post links to That server!"
chrisd: "Why?"
Hemos: "It would be bad."
chrisd: "Define bad."
Hemos: "Imagine all internet traffic as you know it stopping instantainiously, and every packet on the network bombarding the server at the speed of light." chrisd: "Ok, that's bad. Important safety tip."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
OK, since my earlier attempt at taut humor met with a troll mod, I will attempt to elaborate what I meant by "Brilliant Tactic: Now they can blame MS for their abysmal performance".
/. the sites. Just google for some combination of: Department of Interior, Native American, Environment, Pollution, Oil, and - if you really want to loose the gates of heck - throw in Gale Norton by name.
DOI has cultivated a reputation for being total mongos for decades, and since Gale Norton came on board, all pretenses of their mandate to protect US natural and cultural resources have been pretty much dropped. Their handling of Native American and environmental issues have been atrocious (so much so that they were recently called to task by a federal judge for their incompetence) and their recently publicized network security problems are just icing.
I would post links, but why
In short, the DOI is largely derided as an incompetent bunch of bumbling boobs, hence my weak attempt at humor noting that installing a uniform MS environment would be an excellent diversion and scapegoat.
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
As a taxpayer, I don't like the idea of my tax dollars being used to get locked into some monopoly; and I'm not talking about MS' business monopoly here. For example: all the documents created in Office2K or whatever will not readable (faithfully) by any other software, including OpenOffice.
If USDOI wants to go with MS exclusively, then they should have a plan in place to be able to use replacement software in an emergency situation. In other words, make MS release the specs for the documents created using MSOffice before finalising this deal.
I urge all the readers to contact your local congressperson and state Senator about this. Here's a list of the senators in the Interior subcommittee (the department comes under Appropriations):
Senators Byrd, Leahy, Hollings, Reid, Dorgan, Feinstein, Murray, Inouye, Burns, Stevens, Cochran, Domenici, Bennett, Gregg, Campbell.
Of these, Sen Feinstein may be the one who can be most influenced by the geeks here.
If possible, write (deadtree letter) or FAX them; an email just doesn't cut it.
I personally beleive the Federal Government should be banned for ten years from buying any NEW products or services from any company which has been found guilty of being an illegal monopoly, when there are alternatives available from other companies.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
Please just make it stop!
"We've got problems at my work with people thinking that they are fully fledged programmers since they can record two macros and cut'n'paste the results into a super-macro"
That's a problem anywhere. When I was a junior sysadmin at a university Unix shop we'd have PhD candidates dropping fork bombs and other stupid Unix programmer tricks.
"Oh, what? Surely one can pull the TP-cable out of *nix boxes too. Even the 'central' one in the basement... Security can not be a reason to use M$ software."
Microsoft Security is pretty decent and granular in an all Windows 2000 / Active Directory environment. Try implementing group policy and acls in Linux or Solaris.... it can be done, but you do not know anyone who can.
IIS vulnerabilities do not count -- Apache has it's share of exploits and doesn't belong in an LDAP or NIS server. Similarly, you keep IIS where it belongs.
"Take a standard, implement it, expand it in your solution in order to make your app 'integrate' with others, but not the other way around. A good application should be able both to import and export data properly. (M$ Word RTFs crash my FrameMaker... portable format - not)."
No disagreement with you there.
"Again, you do not get less downtime by buying an expensive system with big flaws. They probably pay loads of $$$ to get a guaranteed time to support arrives and press the 'reset' button. *nix usually do not fail as ofter as Win*, thus no need to advertise that support will arrive in 2.3ms. The lack of service can be because it is not needed, not because it is an ingnored flaw."
That's really not true anymore -- busy Windows servers are nearly as reliable as Unix these days. The only real disadvantage of Windows (and Linux) vs. Commerical Unix are mass-deployment and backup tools. Comparing your Windows XP desktop computer's uptime to your Linux boxes' is not a valid comparison.
As far as your delusions about support go, you need to think a little. Our datacenter pays about $1.2M annually for 4-hour support contracts for Unix machines. (For our most important machines only) Similar contracts from Dell or Compaq for Intel hardware cost about 1/2 of a similar Unix contract.
"Since most advertised software is commersial, and they probably do not look for software them selves (just ask for it in a formal way and have companies make offers). Just use KDE as the German government intends to do. This does not only give a better quality of the software, but also save loads of license $$$."
If you have ever worked in a large IT shop with lots of custom applications, you will know that custom software sucks and costs about 5x an off-the-shelf solution. Plus, who has the budget for full-time developers to make software that is already on the market for 1/5 the cost??
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
All specialized applications are UNIX, and will be waived.
The major problem is with administrators. There arent enough qualified people here to run a multimode environment. They cant pay enough to get qualified Americans to work for them, and they cant contract out to H1Bs.
in short, I dont think this will have much of an effect.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
I contracted for the Texas Dept of Human Services, they, like most government shops, had a policy standardizing on MS products. What the higher ups quietly ignore is their critical WAN infrastructure is mostly linux. A small insular group of network guys set it up (the DNS server had a 9 month uptime and was still running a 2.0 kernel). Most of them were not experts, just guys who had setup Linux early and then kicked back and relaxed (not an ideal system from a security standpoint).
Email went down for three days while they blamed the Exchange box, I had explain MX records to them and prove that it was disk overload on their primary MX (sendmail +Redhat 5.2). They couldn't even remember who had the root password.
What I discovered was that government is still the last big company around. The place where no one ever gets fired, or laid off. Where the new technology approval board is run entirely by people whose only IT training is in Cobol and Unisys 2200. The few really smart people are full of great ideas, but they are rendered inert by the great mass of "lifers".
In Texas, most of the real IT work gets done by big name consulting firms, at extraordinary costs and questionable quality.
That's true if the machines aren't connected to the Internet, and if they're not heavily utilized workstations, etc.
In practice, a connected server needs to be rebooted more often than that, if only to apply the latest security patches.
Heavily utilized WinNT/2K/XP workstations need to be rebooted regularly to overcome kernel memory leaks and the like.
If you'd like to see this for yourself, try this test: load enough copies of IE that you run out of kernel memory or other resources. You'll know you've reached that point because it will silently refuse to open another window. Now close all the windows you've just opened. Carry on using the machine and see how long it is before you find that new applications can't be run, that menus don't drop down, etc. To get some sense of what's happening, monitor the numbers on the performance tab of the task manager while you're doing all this, particularly kernel memory - it goes up, but mostly doesn't come down. That might be fine if it was reusing the allocated memory, except that it doesn't - it ultimately cripples the machine.
The bottom line is that Win2K/XP is fine for light-duty use and applications not connected to the Internet. For serious computing, though, you need a real operating system.
1) Microsoft does really really bad things.
2) Microsoft gets called to task for doing really really bad things by the United States Government.
3) Microsoft is told sternly to stop being such a big meanie, given an affectionate pat on it's cute lil corporate head, and sent to think about how really really bad it had been. Monopolies will be monopolies, after all.
4) Microsoft promises it isn't really really bad anymore, Scout's Honor.
5) Significant portion of United States Government mandantes the use of Microsoft Software.
Does this mean I can go down to the local bar, beat the crap out of the proprietor, steal everything he owns, drive him out of business, and take over the place? Then when I get caught, I'll promise to be a good boy from now on, keep all my ill-gotten gains, and turn the place into a cop bar. Then I'll have enough money to hire some muscle and really move up in the world.
In all seriousness, however, Microsoft has made sincere strides toward policing its own actions (someone has to, right?). For example, from a recent press release:
"SEATTLE -- Microsoft Corporation is pleased to unveil, over the coming weeks, a series of strategic alliances designed to further the goals of our Trusted Computing Initiative.
Beginning next month, to ease customer transition to and acceptance of Licensing 6.0, all Microsoft End User License Agreements will be accompanied by a single-use packet of high-quality non-pretroleum-based personal lubricant. In line with our Software Choice Program, we have partnered with both AstroGlide and Wet* to provide this service to our Valued Customers.
In response to continuing customer concerns regarding the clarity of our various End User License Agreements, we have elected to move to a Unified EULA structure (patent pending) that we feel will more clearly outline the agreements attached to our Software Products. Beginning November 1, 2002, the following EULA will apply to all newly licensed Microsoft Products. Please note that present Microsoft Customers will still be able to benefit from the new EULA scheme, as we will be attaching it to all vital Software Security Updates and Hotfixes for previous Microsoft Products.
'[Product Name]
END-USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
IMPORTANT-READ CAREFULLY: This End-User
License Agreement ("EULA") is a legal agreement between you (either an individual or a single entity) and Microsoft Corporation for the Microsoft software product identified above,
which includes computer software and may include associated media, printed materials, "online" or electronic documentation, and Internet-based services ("Product"). An amendment or addendum to this EULA may accompany the Product.
YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS EULA BY INSTALLING, COPYING, OR OTHERWISE USING THE PRODUCT (THIS INCLUDES THE ACT OF PLACING THE PRODUCT MEDIA INTO YOUR CD/DVD-ROM DRIVE).
1) ALL YOUR COMPUTER ARE BELONG TO US!'
We hope that the new Unified Eula (patent pending) system will clear up any lingering customer concerns regarding our Product Licensing.
*This promotion applies to Wet Light only. Wet Platinum is currently unavailable. Offer good in the United States and Canada only, subject to availability."
Actually, the announcement is probably going to be blatantly ignored by all the DOI Bureaus/Empires. They are all their own little fiefdoms. I retired from the DOI Office of the Secretary IT network/web team team about 3 years ago. At that time, the DOI "Webmaster" did not know HTML, much less CGI or anything else; he used Front Page to build a little office home-page. It had animation bouncy things on it. He had no *nix nor any web experience of any kind when he was hired. ?? The Office of the Secretary Webmaster (my boss) needed to spend most of his day developing and maintaining a COBOL-based personnel administration application. He did not know any *nix nor did he care to learn it. (To be fair, he didn't have the time.) Each of the Bureaus headquartered in the DOI Headquarters building in DC had (has?) a seperate LAN/WAN system and seperate Internet access points. The DOI web site was funded by the Public Affairs office, which was/is not really sure what to do with the web. After working at GSA and FEMA, two orgs. with outstanding IT teams, the DOI lack of interest in IT, lack of qualified IT leadership, and the resulting mediocrity was very disappointing. However, the idea to "invest" in M$ is not very surprising. They had already begun to move that way, years ago. It's what the contractors use. It's what the contractors told them to use. Their lack of IT expertise means they must trust the contractors to provide their IT leadersthip. Apparently, they picked the wrong contractors and are just getting ate up. I could go on and on (and probably already have). Don't place too much emphasis on this "announcement". The Bureaus won't. It's just a way for that office to get its name in lights for a little while. Sad, but true.
pfS.
[Ironically, when the DOI web site was heavily attacked by the Chinese after we accidentally blew up their embassy in Bosnia, our Unix-based Apache web site, a left-over from a previous webmaster (bless his unix-loving butt), administered by a new-to-unix admin.(me), faired pretty well while the Park Service's M$ IIS4-based web site was hammered through an anonymous ftp account and was down for weeks. (Everything was secure but the gifs. I thought I had everything buttoned up, but for some reason, when I uploaded files to the server via Hummingbird, the gifs (& only the gifs) permissions were set to 'w' for everyone. So we had little Chinese flags all over DOI Home page for about 12 hours. Coulda been worse. Oddly, the Chinese sent tons of XXX-rated mail to the webmaster email address. Ow, ow. ]
.. and this whole thing is basically nonsense. As briancnorton said in his post, expect waivers to fly like snowflakes in a blizzard (if they even bother to try to enforce this at all.)
At the installation where I work, we've got dozens of legacy systems running on UNIX boxes as far as the eye can see. Some of these are processor-hungry image processing applications that run on high-end boxes from SGI and Sun. These systems are not going away anytime soon, regardless of what some tech-clueless bureaucrat at the top of the chain would like to think.
I'm posting this from an SGI O2, sitting on my desk next to a PC that dual boots Win2K and Linux. All of the developers in the cube farm outside my office door are doing UNIX development on Linux PCs. In the past couple of years, we have started to shun more expensive solutions in favor of software like Apache, PHP, PostgreSQL/MySQL. There are currently several efforts underway to port existing systems from proprietary UNIX (i.e., IRIX or Solaris) to Linux so that we can leverage inexpensive, commodity hardware platforms and get away from paying exorbitant maintenance fees.
We're moving pretty aggressively towards open standards and free software, and I would guess that this memo will have exactly zilch effect on that.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
The only real disadvantage of Windows (and Linux) vs. Commerical Unix are mass-deployment and backup tools.
Don't forget the Registry, DLL Hell, Office File Format Lock-In, EULA-of-the-Month Club, DRM, the Upgrade Treadmill, the GUI Frontal Lobotomy, BSA Audits, Drive Letters, IE Everywhere, Competitor Aquire and Crush, False Advertising, Not Engineered for Security, Automatic Updates, #1 Virus Host, Tax Evasion, 3rd World Corruption, Congress Payroll, Embrace and Extend, and the Microsoft "we got you where we want you" XPerience.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin