What the Candidates are Running

An anonymous reader writes " Linux Journal has an article about what the presidential candidates are running their web sites on. It also has some reference to the Republican vs. Democrat uptimes. "

Comments

Isn't it obvious...

[ylikone]

that the republicans are going to be running Windows? They wouldn't go near the socialist Linux OS!

Vote Linux, vote democrat!

Re:Isn't it obvious...

[mOdQuArK!]

why are so many techies and scientists Democrat?

Well, my impression is that a lot of techies and scientists like to apply logic & rationality to solving problems for the greater good, so they might be naturally inclined toward a political party which is supposedly "populist", or for the people. (Whether or not the Democratic leadership is honestly working for the general populace would probably be a good argument that their public relations people should pay close attention to.)

Also, as professionals whose standard of living is directly related to how hard they work, they probably feel a little closer to the "working-class" folks than someone who either inherited a lot of money or who got a lot of money through luck in business or some similar situation.

Of course, professionals like techies & scientists don't make the best followers - they're _trained_ to question things, debate, analyze things, etc. You can't really tell people like that what to do, and expect them to do it - you have to _persuade_ them that your viewpoint is the correct one, and that takes time & effort.

Flamebait on: By contrast, a lot of high-profile "conservatives" like to apply faith and demagoguery(sp?) to making themselves and people like themselves richer and more powerful. I doubt this is representative of members of the Republican Party as a whole, since I know a lot of self-professed Republicans who seem to be decent people, but for some reason they seem to be led around by the nose by those same conservative "leaders". Maybe that's why there's such an emphasis on "faith" - it makes it a lot easier for those conservative leaders when their followers have been conditioned to turn off their brains & blindly follow orders.

Netcraft confirms it!

[Limburgher]

George W. Bush is dying!

Seriously though, if the leader of the free world runs IIS, I'm scared. . .

Re:Netcraft confirms it!

[Jonny Ringo]

If the leader of the free world knows what IIS is I'm dumbfounded.

Re:Netcraft confirms it!

[lucabrasi999]

If the leader of the free world knows what IIS is I'm dumbfounded

If the leader of the free world knows the name of the President of Kazakhstan....Hold on

If the leader of the free world was able to receive a "B" average Grade in college......Wait

if the leader for the free world could correctly pronounce the word NUCLEAR....Oh, never mind

Re:Netcraft confirms it!

[Golias]

Carter never pronounced nuclear right either, and he was a "NUCULAR" engineer in the Navy. It must be a southern accent thing.

Re:Netcraft confirms it!

[markfive]

Merriam-Webster Dictionary lists both pronunciations of nuclear as correct. Where are you getting your information from? Or are you just assuming you are correct? Typical slasdot reader...

Main Entry: nuclear Pronunciation: 'nu-klE-&r, 'nyu-, /-ky&-l&r Function: adjective Date: 1846 1 : of, relating to, or constituting a nucleus 2 a : of or relating to the atomic nucleus b : used in or produced by a nuclear reaction (as fission) c (1) : being a weapon whose destructive power derives from an uncontrolled nuclear reaction (2) : of, produced by, or involving nuclear weapons (3) : armed with nuclear weapons d : of, relating to, or powered by nuclear energy usage Though disapproved of by many, pronunciations ending in \-ky&-l&r\ have been found in widespread use among educated speakers including scientists, lawyers, professors, congressmen, U.S. cabinet members, and at least one U.S. president and one vice president. While most common in the U.S., these pronunciations have also been heard from British and Canadian speakers.

Re:Netcraft confirms it!

[GreyWolf3000]

He actually grew up in Maine. It's a fake Texas accent.

Re:Netcraft confirms it!

[Minna Kirai]

I'm completely certain that the Leader of the Free World is can recognize IIS, although he personally prefers apache (or even khttpd).

Re:Netcraft confirms it!

[Crockerboy]

It must be a southern accent thing.

Uhh, you do know that dubya is from Conneticut, right?

Biased Reporting...

[Tsali]

What about the Green party? The Libertarians?

Where's my fair and balanced coverage?

Re:Biased Reporting...

[ConceptJunkie]

I think the Green Party uses Stonehenge for all their computing needs. Either that or abaci made from trees knocked down by storms.

(Apologies to Terry Pratchett.)

Re:Biased Reporting...

[lunenburg]

One interesting thing is the Libertarian Party is the only semi-mainstream media or political entity I've seen that signs (at least some) of its press releases with PGP.

Yes..

[Pave Low]

let's discuss the most trivial things like 'boxer or briefs', 'macs or pcs' or 'what powers your website' , instead of some real substance that might really affect you or your vote.

Re:Yes..

[lucabrasi999]

Who uses underwear?

AS/400

Gilligan on a bicycle

Does anyone...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone really think the candidates know, or even care? 'Course they don't. They say "go make a web site" to some design/hosting company and that's that.

Re:Does anyone...?

[NMerriam]

Although it could possibly say something about their supporters, the people who volunteer time, bandwidth and equipment to a candidate.

For example, corporations donating services are probably more likely to provide a commercial OS/Server than a group of IT grunts who want to volunteer services but don't see a point in buying commercial licenses.

Ah well, at least the Republican party of Virginia

[tcopeland]

...is running Apache/Unix:

[tom@hal tom]$ telnet www.rpv.org 80
Trying 205.147.245.156...
Connected to www.rpv.org.
Escape character is '^]'.
get / http/1.0

HTTP/1.1 501 Method Not Implemented
Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2003 17:23:16 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.28 (Unix)
Allow: GET, HEAD, OPTIONS, TRACE
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<TITLE>501 Method Not Implemented</TITLE>
</HEAD><BODY>
<H1>Meth od Not Implemented</H1>
get to /index.shtml not supported.<P>
Invalid method in request get / http/1.0<P>
<HR>
<ADDRESS>Apache/1.3.28 Server at www.vagop.com Port 80</ADDRESS>
</BODY></HTML>
Connecti on closed by foreign host.
[tom@hal tom]$

Typical

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

The fact that this is reported is proof that democracy is very flawed in some of the basic assumptions. Not to single out geeks (and I admit, I looked at the article with some interest I suppose) but people just don't know how to select who to vote for. The mainstream picks their candidate based on likability and how attractive they are and whether they wear the right colored suit or seem smug. You can have a great set of policies that are very sound but wear the wrong tie and you'll lose a few million people. Candidates need to start standing on policy, not the junk that gets reported (OS, favorite food, hair color, etc.)

Any significance? Nope.

[sczimme]

From the article:

Is there any significance to what Web server/platform combinations 2004 presidential candidates are using?

I'm glad this was posted to 'The Lighter Side'. However, that probably won't stop people from drawing ironclad conclusions from the data.

Hint: political candidates' performance is not linked to the performance of their webservers.

"Up next: inferring a person's religion based on his choice of toothpaste."

:-)

Dean

[blackmonday]

There was an interesting piece on NPR the other day about Howard Dean and how he's actually a technophone - doesn't like computers much. Ironic because his online fund raising is stellar. They said the most tech-savvy candidate is Lieberman, who can't do without his BlackBerry. Apparently Al Gore introduced Lieb to all the gadgets that let him keep in touch with people.

AtAT

[Ster]

From As the Apple Turns:

In fact, the only candidate who stated for the record that he actually uses a Mac was Al Sharpton. And even though we usually pride ourselves on voting entirely by the candidates' computing platform preferences without letting our judgment be colored by anything relatively unimportant like "political issues," "competency," or "history of violent criminal acts," there's a deal-breaker that prevents us from ever possibly considering Sharpton for President. We speak, of course, of the hair. 'Nuff said.

-Ster

So What???

[Sergeant Beavis]

Not one of these candidates knows WTF Apache is, let alone IIS.

Sys Admins and Webmasters make those decisions and I'm betting the ones running the Democrat candidate websites have to worry about where they spend money. Thus they us OSS software.

Of course they are also running the better webserver :) but that is beside the point.

Re:So What???

[Hard_Code]

Howard Dean is savvy enough to have Lawrence Lessig on his 'net advisory council.

'Nuff Said.

Who the fuck cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Third of the people on Slashdot are not Americans, another third are H1Bs and L1s located in America but cannot vote, and the last third of the readership are actual US citizens, but forgot to register to vote, since new Gnome came out that day.

Meanwhile...

[Otter]

Well, whatever they're running I hope it holds up better than whatever Linux Journal has...

While waiting for the article to crawl out from under the Slashdotting, here's an aside I thought was interesting: a recent article talking about Howard Dean's succesful use of the Internet for fundraising noted that perhaps the first candidate to use that method successfully was -- that Judge Roy Whatever in Alabama with the 10 Commandments statue in his courtroom.

Not someone I would have picked as a high-tech visionary, although he obviously is pretty shrewd about media manipulation.

Also This Month on the Newsstand...

[RobotRunAmok]

"GQ" is running an article on which designer ties each candidate is wearing, "Veneer Quarterly" has a sidebar on what color, and how many coats, of paint the candidates used on their houses, "Breakfast Meats Bi-Monthly" is leading with the in-depth feature "Bacon, Steak, or Sausage: The Candidates Decide," and the cover story of this month's "Limousine Owner's Gazette" tells us wa-a-a-y more than we need to know about the contenders' choice of Regular, Premium, or Ultra.

Gosh, with so much relevant information available to voters, it's easier than ever to make an informed decision!

I find it highly unlikely ...

[burgburgburg]

that W can even spell IIS, no less explain what it is. Look at how much trouble he had with WMD.

I can see Howard Dean's speech now...

[cyranoVR]

"I want people with Tux stickers on their cases, and I want people with Best Viewed Under IE 6.0 on their web pages. The Democratic party needs a big tent!"

Re:Any significance? Nope.

[missing000]

"Up next: inferring a person's religion based on his choice of toothpaste."

I don't like the implication of this statement. I'm an Atheist, but I still brush.

Nader

[bigkahunafish]

I'm not so sure about Nader wanting to use modern computers at all. Those new hardrives could be "Unsafe at Any Speed" He's probably running that Commodore 64 that was recently updated with ethernet capability :o)

Re:Any significance? Nope.

[tobe]

At least the Communists have a clear choice: Arm & Hammer, surely.

Curses!

[fizban]

The Linux Journal is slashdotted?!?! A LINUX site is SLASHDOTTED?!?!? Oh, the horror. The HORROR! We're doomed, I tell you. DOOMED!

Re:Any significance? Nope.

[taybin]

There's no conflict. Atheism is a religion just like the null string ("") is a string. :)

Re:Fixing the bias

[mik]

Greens: apache on linux
Libertarians: apache on freebsd
Communists: apache on linux
Socialists: apache on linux

Lest you want to draw unwarranted conclusions:
Halliburton: apache on linux
Tobacco.org: apache on freebsd
Whitehouse.gov: apache on linux

Oddly...
ATF: netscape on solaris
US Army: webstar on OSX
whitehouse.com: IIS on linux (so netcraft claims!!)

fun fun fun...

Spanking of downtime

[Burgundy Advocate]

Linux Journal: Apache on Linux
Uptime: Down faster than a drunken cheerleader on prom night

George W Bush: IIS on Windows 2000
Uptime: Still going!

HTH HAND!

Edwards, OpenSource, & Macs (From Campaign HQ)

[AaronMyers]

I'm the Dir. of Internet Operations for John Edwards' presidential campaign. It's worth noting that we run our campaign blog on Apache on FreeBSD -- and the blog is actually powered by Slashcode!

(If you cruise over to Larry Lessig's blogJohn Edwards is guest blogging on a variety of tech topics this week.)

We use a handful of open-source tools here at Campaign HQ. Why? Cost and reliability. The same reason you guys choose this stuff.

Oh... And our entire Web Team runs on Mac OS X. Contrary to one of the comments posted earlier, Senator Edwards made it clear during Tuesday's debate that he prefers his Mac.

I hope you folks have a chance to learn more about John Edwards.

I'll say this right now:

[lysium]

Geeks should not be discriminating on personal appearance. Especially on grooming!

Security

[generic]

If your uptime is 445 days... you need to patch your kernel.

Between Dole and the rest of the GOP...

[fmaxwell]

First we find out that Bob Dole uses Viagra. Now we learn that Republican party both use Microsoft Windows and IIS. So we have one Republican who has trouble getting it up and the rest have trouble keeping it up.