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GNU/Linux Clears Gov't Procurement Hurdles
Sam Hiser writes "Tom Adelstein makes some sound if subtle points about where GNU/Linux really is in the government space -- not far enough. With OpenOffice.org and Mozilla (Firefox) now popular harbingers of file format freedom and browser security on Windows, he says, there is hope that public mindshare is catching up with reality; and that the 'Microsoft Two-Step: Shrug & Reboot' will soon be a thing of the past.
Adelstein, in his column today in Linux Journal, discusses the significant advances made by GNU/Linux and its achievement of Common Criteria certification for government and enterprise use in a world where Microsoft still dominates in mindshare and governmental purchase orders."
Just curious, how came we don't have stories about people using Linux and switching to windows?
I don't want to troll but the question simlpy begs itself. Considering the majority of people here are still hooked up on windows, it's surprising that moved-to-linux stories are quite popular.
I mean, if the damn thing is already too superior, why aren't everyone switching now?
But please don't give me the 'switching cost' argument. It's simply not valid. You run a bussness, you plan estimates in YEARS ahead. Switching cost is less than licencing cost for any long term business planning. Plus the ability to (f)ix your own tools is the most powerfull leverage you can have.
Government can't switch to Linux or even free software, people say. Well, such has done München (Munich you say) here in my country. I am professional involved with some of people who are with the project involved, and it is as they are accorded going "smooth move, exlax" as you Americans say.
Read journal when you are not understand
... but what about GNU/Linux's use in the military? For example, a member of the Los Angelas LUG resigned over the use of Linux in the military.
Do we really want the government using open source? We really dont want to limit it, because that would be a limit on the freedom, but do we want it being used for evil? Perplexing!
Let me get this straight... The people who are responsible for wars, enforce laws against victimless "crimes", suffocate the economy with regulations, tax just about everything that moves and just in general make nuisances and parasites of themselves... are now using a more robust, secure and all around technologically superior operating system more and more frequently? Why is this a good thing? Shouldn't we be trying to make *them* use Windows?
-- I could tell right away that she was impressed with my HUGE Slashdot Karma.
I havent had an unintentional reboot since I started using Win XP. This is zealotry at its best. I personally wish that people would quit with the "Windows must die for Linux to succeed" crap. I like them both and they both have their purposes. I dont care how great Linux gets, I WILL NOT QUIT USING WINDOWS, tney are tools to be used sometimes in conjunction together sometimes by themselves. Windows will never die, Believe it oir not there are a lot of people that like Windows. The two major Operating Systems I see for the future are going to be Linux and Windows. Windows is here to stay, get used to it.
A lot of funding is going to the DOD for defense so people in those organizations have a lot of money to work with. I have a summer internship at a base and they bought me a $4400 setup for Pro/E work. Saving a little money isn't a high priority. Also, pro/e needs windows.
I think linux will become popular with foreign governments before it becomes popular in the US. Like I've always thought, linux can be harder to setup, but it works better once you have it set up. IT departments probably wouldn't like it because it takes their job away by not having to wipe windows' ass every 15 minutes and requires them to learn something new.
When have you had to restart in Linux? I can probably count on my hand the number of times I've had to restart due to it being necessary.... one... during install... "Now its time to boot into your new Debian system".
Windows? "Thanks for installing ProgramX, please reboot your computer to use it"
If you're restarting a lot in Linux, you're doing something VERY wrong.
It's important to realize that the government and government workers have more important things to do and to be working on than dealing with computer problems. Now, Linux doesn't have all that many problems if set up correctly and everything else. The unfortunate part is that most folks who work in government aren't going to want to have to learn Linux. That's just my guess, after all. I could be wrong.
With Windows, if something goes wrong, a "shrug and reboot" will take place. If something's still wrong, a work order or whatever else will be put in, and the problem will be fixed. Now, here's the kicker: when things have to get fixed, does the government want to have to pay for a bunch of people who are like the character Nick Burns from SNL?
Perhaps government offices feel like Microsoft and associated tech support teams are more friendly and cooperative. I think it would be nice if the government switched over to Linux. It would avoid some security issues like when Republican staffers "broke into" Democratic bulletin boards and published internal memoranda.
Oh well, what do I know? I'm more about government than technology anyway, but I don't have a problem with switching over to Linux. Maybe the powers that be do.
I have to agree, it totally isn't Windows' fault that it decided my soundcard should share ISA resources with some USB interfaces, causing spectacular blue screens and frustration!
Wake me when there is something like a Windows live disc that detects everything on startup and works fine. There's something funky when a one time boot up OS like Knoppix does a better job than Windows XP...
-- Reality is for people who lack imagination.
I spend about 10% of my time in them vs. Windows, and I 'shrug and reboot' more times in Linux.
This is your conditioned behaviour due to your familiarity with microsoft products. By your own admission you are a linux newbie, so when you see something you don't understand, it's easy to fall back on the old habits. I can't remember the last time I've booted a linux box, other than for hardware maintenance or a new kernel. My expee using friends boast about how they've gone a whole month without rebooting, and I show them my 450 day uptime, just to put things into perspective.
Much as microsoft has improved their stability, and taken some baby steps towards being a wee bit more linux-like in that regard, they still have a long way to go. I spent some time with expeee in the past week, upgrading several relatives from ie and outlook to mozilla/firefox, and I have to say, I found expee to be the same old windows I left years ago.
Oh, it was cuter, microsoft has put a lot of effort into making it cute - and it doesn't seem to crash quite as much as win95/98/nt (thanks no doubt to the generous helpings of bsd unix code they've helped themselves to - gee, you don't have to reboot now just to change IP address) but after a few days of expee, I still felt like I'd been forced to work while squeezed into one of those tiny kindergartner desks. blech, give me my SuSE 9.1 desktop anyday.
We were formed about two months ago, and our charter was to figure out the rollout of the following :
1) Samba, to better manage file and print servers... We currently use Windows products, and really dissatisfied.
2) Apache. We currently use windows, and are REALLY dissatisfied
3) Linux Cluster for doing distributed computations (there is no windows alternative, and many of us learned these techniques in graduate school and are appalled they aren't available to us)
The institutional constipation on changing these things is utterly appalling... Here is an example:
Prior to this groups formation I tried to get permission to use R to replace S, as most of the people who use it, do so infrequently, and dont' really justify the cost... I was told, by boilerplate, "freeware is written by 'hackers' and is riddled with security holes..." when I CCd a letter to the then director of R, asking for advice, I was read the riot act by the people who make such decisions...
Actually I've been using Linux off and on for 5+ years, and it's always been to incredibly frustrating to switch completely. I keep hearing about these alleged superiorities to Windows, and they never pan out. In fact, in my experience, it's been the polar opposite. I shrug and reboot when the whole thing kernel panics, not just when one single program stops responding.
Yours is much more polite than others, but why do people insist on attacking me any time I post about my real experiences with Linux? Disclaimer, I'm not a complete newb, I've used many distros, I didn't sabotage any config files, I didn't use cheap hardware, I use things with OPEN SOURCE DRIVERS FROM THE VENDOR AND THEY STILL DON'T USUALLY WORK.
Perhaps the Linux community would do a better job of shutting people like me up by fixing the REAL issues instead of making wild assumptions and blaming me for clicking 'install' and then shortly after having issues. Did I click install wrong? Am I suppose to be flipping off my XP CD while I click it? Do I have to chant "Windows sucks" while I install Linux?
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
I hate to be the one to have to break it to you... But if a bad guy has physical access to your box to boot it from a live CD, it doesn't matter if you have Windows, Linux, Solaris, AIX, FreeDOS or KonTiki on the darned hard disk.
-- I could tell right away that she was impressed with my HUGE Slashdot Karma.
It's very strange. I have had very rarerly kernel panics, sometimes when I haven't properly set up my /etc/fstab for my numerous servers or workstations I support, NEVER had a kernel panic due of hardware misfunction or damage (thanks god!), I never had problems with drivers provided by vendor, etc. etc.
In opposite, I have to plug off box from INTERNET while installing Windows XP and install updates OFF-LINE, otherwise it will be full of viruses in matter of minutes.
Yes, there ARE lot of thing to improve, BUT please, install is NOT what most people will do anyway - they just their box to work.
Linux has improved very much last few years and if you don't see it, well, maybe then Linux is simply not for you.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
Perhaps the Linux community would do a better job of shutting people like me up by fixing the REAL issues
Perhaps the "REAL" issue is, Microsoft has found a sweet spot in your wallet -- and then you're working your way backwards from there into an oppinion.
I work with Windows boxen nearly every day of the week. We install Linux servers in every office we can, centralizing file shares, centralizing databases (including Act! and Access). We then add a little sauce, like IM and web-based CM and Calendar, etc., etc.
We never service our clients' Linux boxen. Never. However, we bill thousands of dollars a week for Windows "help". In other words, I could easily say that Microsoft has been good to us -- indirectly. But I have to ask myself: What's best for our clients? Not Microsoft Windows. Also, what's best for our own business?
In the office, we run 100% Linux -- have for 6 years. In all that time, we've never had to reboot a system except to upgrade the kernel or move a box from one room to another. We do all invoicing, payroll, taxes, inventory control and all "desktop" functions using Linux.
You Windows-dependent businesses really don't know how smooth operations can be with Linux. Virii? Ha! Pop-ups? Haven't seen one of those in over two years! Reboots for every application installation? Never. Networking? Rock solid. Application crashes? Occasionally, but never does the OS go down with.
Does one need a "Systems Administrator" for Linux? What an irrelevant question! It's irrelevant given the number of hours our clients have us in the office *just* rebooting their systems. If we were to find a client which could switch to Linux, I'm certain we'd spend perhaps a little more time doing initial setup and then never hear from them again until they needed hardware upgrades.
So the reason for the above rant? Our clients aren't made of money. They can't afford to keep calling us back because each time they buy a new Windows-based laptop, we have to do our "magic" to get the thing immune to virii, etc. Unfortunately, computing has become a social thing. The reality is, JohnTheFisherman will never change his/her mind until such a time that Linux affects his/her wallet, directly. So my clients have to live with the social status quo, to keep compatible with other businesses.
How sad.
... and here's why. Simple economics. It costs huge sums to pay all those MS folk to keep developing Windows.
IBM has figured out that the OS is a commodity... and a proprietary OS is a just a tool to lock in application producers/providers... so they are actively driving the value out of the OS market.
Microsoft will NOT be able to survive as the dominant OS if it has to pay hundreds and hundreds of developers to do what Linux developers do more or less for free.
Even Apple, which has cut costs by using BSD at the core, still has huge built in costs. But they are smart... they are using their OS budget to develop a competitive advantage at the interface level.
As Linux becomes the numerically dominant OS worldwide it will draw a growing number of application writers.... snowball effect... just as "everyone" writes for Windows now, there will come a day when people can't afford not to write for Linux and Windows... and not too long after that, a day when people will look at the shrinking Windows market share and say, as they do of Apple now... hey maybe will get around to writing for that someday...
MS can't... simply can't.... compete on cost at the basic OS level. They will therefore compete politicaly, legally, and every other way.
Now... you like Windows because it runs your apps? Hey, I like it for the same reason. I run XP and SuSE.
SuSE is definitely more of a pain in the butt... no Dreamweaver.... no Photoshop CS... although I could go back to Photoshop 7 with codeweaver.... I'm still trying to figure out how to install programs from source.... it's a pain in the butt every time. But look at IBMs strategy and you will see why Window's share will be about the size of Apples's market share in 10 years.
None of the programs I run in SuSE ever give me trouble... but I don't run Dreamweaver which is the main thing that is always locking up in XP. Neither ever locks up fully... although I have had XP grow unstable and funky, leading me to reboot... and of course I reboot for some installs. No big... I'm so square I turn off my computer every night. But all in all XP is still easier to use... and DOOMED.
Linux and open source sucks the profit out of the OS. MS will NOT be able to afford to compete with the cost of linux development. They are selling something that used to require a paid army, and now needs only an unpaid army to develop and improve.
As a result Windows will die.... unless they simply purchase the governments and court systems of the world outright, or with the help of their corporate partners, and outlaw free software and, not to get too overheated about it, freedom of thought and communication itself.
These arguments get old after a while.
Reasons why linux isn't ready for the desktop:
Installing Software:
In Windows: Double click exe file
In Linux: Unpack source code, run configure, run make, run make install and pray that you have the right versions of various libs. Yeah, debian may have apt and redhat may have rpm, but the setup files that run on windows are universal, and install to ANY version of windows.
Changing settings for software:
Windows: Open convienent settings dialog, press apply or simply press ok to close the dialog when done, changes are applied.
Linux: Edit cryptic config files, restart app
Installing Drivers:
Windows: Double click the setup file, worse case scenario, open device manager and do things that way or right click on the inf file and hit install.
Linux: compile the driver, possibly recompile the linux kernel due to a missing dependency. use insmod to install the driver. Edit several config files to get the driver to load. Even IF you get this far driver may not work because the kernel is 0.00.000001th of a revision off.
You can argue it's the software developer's fault, but forcing a user to compile EVERYTHING they use is a waste of time and no user will ever use an operating environment that promotes such primitive behavior.
Flame me all you want, i'm one of over a billion windows users, i also use linux, it has it's places (Servers) but it's NOT ready for the desktop, no matter what you may say/think.
The day you can install and run apps with the click of an icon on ANY distro, the day you can edit ALL aspects of your system via a nice GUI, will be the day that linux stands a chance.
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