Israeli Gov't Begins Testing Mandrake Linux

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Israeli Gov't Begins Testing Mandrake Linux

Posted by timothy on Tuesday December 16, 2003 @09:20PM from the right-to-left dept.

DJStealth writes "According to this article on Arutz 7/Israel National News, the Israeli Gov't is beginning to move away from Microsoft and is testing localized versions of Mandrake Linux in the Treasury dept. as the contract with MS expires this month. This all despite a recent defense ministry contact with MS."

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Poor quality gag. by Channard · 2003-12-16 21:38 · Score: 3, Funny

I really don't understand the need to mention Bush here.
Oh, come on - you can never have too much bush. Especially at Christmas. I mean holly of course - what did you think I meant?
1. Re:Poor quality gag. by mattjb0010 · 2003-12-16 22:27 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  I mean holly of course - what did you think I meant?
  
  I thought you meant Holly, not holly. ;)
We should add the drama back into the testing... by mesach · 2003-12-16 21:39 · Score: 0, Funny

We must move away from Microsoft or we're DOOMED...

--
moo.
Re:I don't support Zionists. by Channard · 2003-12-16 21:40 · Score: 4, Funny

What is the difference between a Zionist and a White Supremacist? Both believe that God has given them dominion over their land and right to kill anyone who resides on it that they don't like.
Really? You must have seen the director's cut of The Matrix films. I thought the Zionists were more into have huge great rave scenes and then running about in powerloaders.
Re:I don't support Zionists. by Channard · 2003-12-16 21:48 · Score: 1, Funny

Well I would vote for free bombs as in freely blowing up jews. Unfortunately blackpowder (which is required to make bombs) costs money. I haven't found a store which belives into free giving away blackpowder.
Perhaps if you tell them you're planning on taking it to a disused warehouse, and engaging in a dangerous experiment to clean up the gene pool which will, in all likelyhood, end your own existence, but harm no-one else, they might be willing to help.
Re:I don't support Zionists. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-16 21:49 · Score: 1, Funny

"Which is curious. What is the difference between a Zionist and a White Supremacist? Both believe that God has given them dominion over their land and right to kill anyone who resides on it that they don't like."

That's not a difference.
In other news... by davidstrauss · 2003-12-16 22:06 · Score: 5, Funny

Palestinian officials respond by rejecting Mandrake in favor of *BSD.
1. Re:In other news... by Thomas+Miconi · 2003-12-17 00:02 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Palestinian officials respond by rejecting Mandrake in favor of *BSD.
  
  About an hour later, the Hamas and the Islamic Djihad made a joint statement in which they condemned the Palestinian Autority's decision on the ground that *BSD was "wholly anti-Islamic". The Hamas spokesman commented that "people who put pictures of smiling devils all over their software should be stoned to death - twice !"
  
  Twenty minutes later, the Palestinian Authority cancelled the previous announcement and made public a million-dollar contract with a major French company specializing in the production and the commercialization of Abacuses. "In order to leverage our most abundant resources, the PA finance minister said, we will investigate the possibility to use vast quantities of stones and rubble to build abacuses. If massive Beowulf clusters of abacuses are feasible, we may eventually outpower the computational capacities of the occupying forces by several orders of magnitude !"
  
  Thomas Miconi
  BTW, Mandrake is French, isn't it ?
  BTW2, There was a story on The Onion some time ago. I only managed to find shortened versions of it, e.g. here. I just love the last paragraph. Long live the 'nion.
2. Re:In other news... by watzinaneihm · 2003-12-17 00:18 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Oh no they wont. They are planning to make it their official OS. Did you look at the mandrake logo? Its a crescent and a star. It surely has won support in the middle east (and surely in soviet russia). They even used it in their flags.
  
  --
  .ACMD setaloiv siht gnidaeR
3. Re:In other news... by ccp · 2003-12-17 05:13 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Palestinian officials respond by rejecting Mandrake in favor of *BSD.
  
  Well, when they discover VI vs. EMACS then they'll have a REAL war.
  
  Cheers,
Re:Free as in Free Jew ..... by Gilesx · 2003-12-16 22:20 · Score: 2, Funny

But you're only about 14 - that's far too young to be giving *anyone* a BJ, Jewish or not...

--
Sunday you're Thinking Different, Monday you're a huge tool, paying too much and waiting to think like everyone else.
Re:Is this a growing trend in business? by KoolDude · 2003-12-16 22:34 · Score: 5, Funny

Ask any economist, this is "the standard business model" today.

Nope. We're talking about Microsoft here. They *never* stick to the standards. :)

--
getSexySig(); /* returns sexy signature */
One more year... by horcy · 2003-12-16 23:06 · Score: 2, Funny

... and even Microsoft will see the light and switch to *nix

--
Check my site: http://pixel.pagina.nl
Re:One-way economy? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-16 23:09 · Score: 0, Funny

Compared with some of the other things Israel has done, this is minor. It's not as if they are killing MS sales reps or bombing Redmond (then claiming they though it was an Egyptian Horse Carrier)...
Hmmm, now there's an idea....
Re:What if MS goes for code review? by KoolDude · 2003-12-16 23:09 · Score: 3, Funny

Linux should market itself hard

That's why we have the Advanced Linux Marketing System included in 2.6. It elevates the Linux Marketing to an all new level without compromising TCO, IP, ROI, .NET, XML and all other buzz words.

--
getSexySig(); /* returns sexy signature */
Re:Good move. by Savage-Rabbit · 2003-12-16 23:19 · Score: 5, Funny

This is a wise move for Israel that I hope will be duplicated all over the world,

Which would really piss off the US intelligence community..... Which in turn is probably one of the Israeli's motives. I bet the CIA gets a small collective panic attack every time they lose track of what the Israelis are upto.

AAAHHHHHHHHH......There is nothing like a good conspiracy theory to start the day!!!!

--
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Re:Office 97 functionality by MoonFog · 2003-12-16 23:26 · Score: 5, Funny

What the hell more can a company add? Talking paperclips?

SHHH! They might hear you! ;)
What? A Month? by sirReal.83. · 2003-12-16 23:38 · Score: 3, Funny

They're only giving themselves a month to decide? It usually takes me a week to iron out the config on my own box after a fresh install. Squid this, adzapper that, make a GPG key, why won't iptables block Zope's port...
Re:Nope. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-17 00:20 · Score: 1, Funny

Actually that's the United States gov't being run out of a Tel Aviv office.

All your base are belong to us.
When Diplomacy Fails by ReadParse · 2003-12-17 01:28 · Score: 4, Funny

WASHINGTON, DC - Only minutes after Secretary of State Colin Powell this morning announced that computing talks with Israel had broken down, Communications Minister Reuven Rivlin held a press conference to declare that Israel intended to go ahead with this week's planned Mandrake Linux testing.

Minister Rivlin downplayed the computing tensions that might result along the Lebanese border. "Israel's computing sovereignty will not be challenged. If we want to move to BeOS, HP-UX, Solaris, PC-DOS... we cannot yield to world opinion when it comes to protecting our right to compute as God promised us we would be able to do."

Israel's testing of Mandrake Linux comes on the tails of a 7-month period of testing of FreeBSD by most of that countries Arab neighbors. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had instructed Minister Rivlin in recent weeks to begin preparations for Linux testing, despite President Bush's calls for restraint.

A Microsoft spokesman expressed sadness in a telephone conference call with the press this morning. "This is about more than a contract between the government of Israel and Microsoft," he said with a cracking voice. "It's about the stability of computing standards in the Middle East. I can't stop thinking about those kids." It is unclear at press time what in the world he was talking about.