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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."
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.
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.
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...
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.