Red Hat, Oracle to get Gov't Certification for Linux

Mark writes "As this news.com article states, 'Red Hat and Oracle plan to announce on Thursday that the companies have teamed to get Linux evaluated under the Common Criteria, a certification that could open doors for the broader use of open-source software by government agencies.' It looks like this will be an important step in getting Linux to be more widely adopted in governments around the world."

Comments

dupe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't we seen this about RH already?

RHAS again?

[lspd]

The companies plan to first push Red Hat Linux Advanced Server for a modest level of certification: Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 2.

Sheesh... How much pushing does RHAS need? Show me a TCO study where RHAS at $800/server/year beats any free Linux distro. Simply plugging in a $800/server/year cost into most of the TCO studies I've seen makes Windows look like a bargain.

Re:RHAS again?

[Herkum01]

The companies plan to first push Red Hat Linux Advanced Server for a modest level of certification: Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 2.

Sheesh... How much pushing does RHAS need?

Sometimes that all a company look's at is certification levels. I have a friend that runs a software development company. They cannot get any big jobs because they lack a software process certification. It does not say that they are great programmer's or effective, it just says, "Hey we went through this process and this is the type of service that we provide."

It is is the same thing with certain types of software. If you don't have the correct certification, certain agencies and businesses cannot even consider doing business with you. They would not go through these hoops if they don't not believe that they would get somewhere

Hypocritical?

[m00nun1t]

Isn't this the same thing we criticised when Microsoft was certified and said that if they made it through, it must be hopelessly inadequate certification process? Now the Linux is involved, it's suddenly a good thing?

A bit of MS bashing is fine, but this is taking it a bit far for me.

Re:Hypocritical?

[zmooc]

The quality of the test doesn't matter at all - if MS passed, it could have been better. But that doesn't make it any less interesting to have Linux pass the test to show those who really (have to) use such certifications in decision-making that Linux is an option.

People that have to make such decisions are also a lot safer by choosing certified products; if something goes terribly wrong, you can always say that the product you choose was has some "official" certification upon which you based your decision and you're pretty safe. If it goes wrong and you don't have any such paperwork to fall back on, you're definately in a much weaker position explaining why you didn't choose the "safer" product to someone that doesn't know the difference between product A and product B and only sees "product A is certified, product B isn't". It's just that maybe you and I know that Linux is often a better choice but an incredible lot of other people don't.

Re:Is Larry making a stand?

[speeding_cat]

"We are going to use Unix and Linux as the evaluation platforms for our products in the future, and not Windows, because the customer demand for Windows is not there," she said. "Frankly, there is a fair amount of disenchantment with Microsoft products because of security problems." ... said Mary-Ann Davidson, chief security officer for Oracle.

Wow. I knew Larry hated Bill and MS, but I sure wouldn't have expected this! Or is he just conceding the Windows server database market to Bill and trying to grow the Linux market on the low end + the UNIX market at the higher end?

Smart companies try to transform complementary products of other companies into commodity items. OS for Oracle nicely fits into this picture. Since they need it anyway, might as well be inexpensive Linux. Also, one more Linux system - one less Windows system that could run MSSQL instead of Oracle. The choice to support Linux is really no brainer for Larry the Nut.

Linux port should also be relatively cheap for Oracle, since it is very much like standard Unix and Oracle tends to use basic OS facilities anyway.

Re:Frankly...

[mentin]

How would certification for EAL Level 2 would position Linux above Microsoft? Windows 2000 is already certified for EAL Level 4 (supposed to be more secure).

And where are all those articles that were popular on /. when NT was certified, basically telling us that this Common Criteria is total crap? Is it not a crap anymore?

Re:Is Larry making a stand?

[Malcontent]

"Or is he just conceding the Windows server database market to Bill and trying to grow the Linux market on the low end + the UNIX market at the higher end?"

He seems to be saying that there is no windows database server market. I think that probably is pretty correct as far as Oracle is concerned. I don't know too many people who would run oracle on windows espcially for large operations where oracle really shines. If you need oracle and can pay for it there is ZERO reason to put it on windows.

Re:dupe? No. This is different.

[The_Dougster]

This seems to be another type of cert.

This is a good thing as the US DoD uses ADA95 for most everything AFAIK and the GNAT compiler works just dandy with Linux. This is what DoD needs, an inexpensive, yet totally robust system which they can put unleash the military programmers on.

A good example is BRL-Cad which is available for free download by US Citizens. This is a nice OpenGL capable solid modeler, somewhat clunky, but probably better than any other free CAD program available for Linux right now.

I'm a veteran of the US Military, and I think that Linux is a great choice for them, since they have the capability to provide cheap, effective, and efficient training about their computer systems to all the members of the armed forces. The US Military could easily train several million service personnel to be effective Linux programmers in a quite short period of time.

And of course, as a taxpaying citizen, I want my armed forces buying the best weaponry, not lining some 2-bit computer software vendor's pockets, especially when those vendors undermine the rights of the citizens by channeling that money back into lobbying for laws like the DMCA.

This is where RedHat shines. I use Debian myself, but Debian is too chaotic to apply for these certifications; however, RedHat could make a killing by supplying the US Government their software, and since Linux is Linux is Linux, this gives my government the state of the art software: it is secure, it is robust, it is inexpensive, and it is the best development environment in the world!