Slashdot Mirror
Air Force Orders Up A Custom Windows Monoculture
Soulfader writes "It seems that the Air Force has not learned from the Navy's folly in single-source mammoth contracts and their attendant problems, and is now working on something similar with Dell and Microsoft. Particularly interesting is the article's assertion that the Air Force is 'fed up' with Microsoft OS problems--but not enough to switch to something else. Instead, they're going to be getting a custom 'solution' of Windows products specially configured for their use. Is this the ever-hoped-for 'good' version of Windows, or more along the line of the sucks-in-new-and-interesting-ways version of Highlander II?"
I've had to put my 6 year old on her own machine because her kiddy games makes Windows unstable, but my wife and myself both run tons of "mainstream" software, ranging from Doom to UT to banking software to Eclipse to video editing software.
My machine doesn't lock up and it doesn't crash and neither does hers.
If the Navy gets a cut of Windows with all the games cut out and they remove the ability for the field user to install the junk apps, they might have something very useful (in a work environment... not for home users)
Agile Artisans
Hey, contractors.... I have a job that needs to be done.
I also have $1,000,000,000 to throw at the problem. Any contractors that have the ability to accept and be responsible for receiving a pre-payment, please step forward.
Sorry, only top tier contractors will be accepted.
Oh, Sorry again. Because of a new requirement added by Congress, only the largest company in this industry will be allowed to submit a bid. And only one bid will be accepted. We don't have time to evaluate other solutions.
I'm glad Microsoft are getting the full value of their PAC contributions, I'd hate to think our government was dishonest
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
...Suck, and it's brought to you by the new Halliburton That Doesn't Screw America.
Thanks for playing.
It's worth noting that massive amount of Air Force computing needs are not "critical shit". There are an awful lot of desktop machines running basic office apps to fill in reports in triplicate, make requisititons, do accounting, and all the other "needs" of any bureaucratic system.
That such problems can't be readily addressed by a nice locked down desktop distro (anything from Novell desktop 9 to Sun's Java Desktop) using OpenOffice and the like, well that's certainly up for debate. When the claim to be fed up with MS it is a little odd that they didn't even bother to evaluate the competition.
For all those out there who will say "But Linux isn't good enough on the desktop", or "OpenOffice is no replacement for MS Office", I would point out that both Linux and OpenOffice can be perfectly serviceable in some situations; Why didn't the Air Force at least evaluate these products to see if their situation was one in which they would work?
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
First of all, it's highly doubtful they are starting with no desktop computing infrastructure. If they have any inhouse applicaitons that run on Windows, that pretty much puts the ball in Microsoft's court.
Second, I imagine that such decisionmaking processes take years to complete. If they started in 2001, those fairly recent Linux desktop distros were not available. Face it, Desktop Linux faces a long long haul among large shops, and hasn't proven shit yet.
Finally, the AirForce is doing exactly what 99% of corporate America has done -- standardize on Windows desktops. I'm always puzzled why slashdot feels that government should lead the way with speculative IT projects. It makes more sense to save the taxpayer's money and stick with the known factor.
Head over the the NSA and read some of their papers about SELinux, and what it was intended for. It was not intended to be the ultimate secure OS. If you read between the lines, its mre like a bunch of NSA people got so pissed off with the current complete lack of security in commercially available OSs, so grabbed Linux and hacked in Mandatory Access Controls without any real difficulty and turned it back to the community as a demonstration to say "See, it isn't so damn hard to make things a lot more secure".
I wouldn't make any bets as to whether the NSA themselves make a lot of use of SELinux. They won't really tell you what they use. They do certainly know alot about writing secure OS code though, considering how fast they managed to put SELinux together.
Random fact: The NSA web site has never been hacked or defaced. The CIA, FBI, the White House etc. have all been hacked, even if it is rarely and briefly. The NSA... never. You can't tell me it's for lack of trying.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
The cost of software isn't the only factor - management and maintenance of the software costs way more than initial aquisition cost.
Linux, quite simply, blows in a managed environment.
Active Directory Group Policies, WMI, systems management server (inventory, software distribution, remote control), Operating System Deployment Feature Pack, MOM for the servers... management tools.
Oh, and they all work together, with relative ease.
I'm by no means an MS aplogist, but the Linux crowd has a long way to go before I can take them seriously enough to deploy on the 2500 desktops I am responsible for - and the 20K desktops that are in our entire enterprise.
Linux works great on the server - we have 'em all over. But it would be more practical for us to switch to Mac OSX than Linux on the desktop. And that ain't gonna happen either as we have really good pricing (as does the Air Force and Navy) via our enterprise agreements. All that stuff I quoted above - bundled in as part of our EA - the whole package. It really does work well together and makes managing my 2500 desktops quite nice.
Set up in a managed enterprise environment, windows is a stable and capable performer with lower cost of integration than any other platform out there. Might change someday, but not today.
So, when the armchair slashdot quarterbacks out there are really responsible for 2500 desktops and have their job hinging on their ability to carry out the organizations core mission instead of half baked IT experiments, then I'll be listening. Show me the tools, show me they work and I'll consider it - I enjoy the hell out of tweaking our MS sales rep - I would love nothing more than to have a real stick to hit him with instead of a bunch of trash talking on an "advocacy" web site...
I think this post is borderline trolling, but I can't be sure. In case it isn't, I wanted to pipe in with some counter-points.u mnists-item.pl?id=215. It is anecdotal, but unsurprisingly, the FBI doesn't seem to publish an official document detailing which OS's they operate and in what numbers.
One, the FBI does use Mac OS X. The article referenced by the GP is at http://www.securityfocus.com/cgi-bin/sfonline/col
Two, it doesn't matter how many el-cheapo Intel boxes you can get at Fry's from the bargain bin: what matters is how many can an institutional buyer like the Air Force get. Yeah, I think they can get a pretty good price on Macintoshes by agreeing to buy truckloads of them.
Three, the initial cost is far from the largest factor in the lifetime cost of a PC to the military. Focusing on purchase cost of a commodity good is really a case of diminishing returns. TCO is the place you want to focus.
Four, to get that large a price-differential on initial cost, you must be comparing bargain bin boxes with a Mac, or a 'typical' Dell box with the absolute highest-end Mac workstation possible. If you go apples-to-apples, feature-to-feature, you find that the price differntial between a Mac suitable for general purpose computing (iMac) and an Intel-based box from a major vendor like Dell or HP to be very small, under %10, plus/minus %15. Yeah, sometimes the Mac is cheaper.
Five, that security dig at the end of your post really sets the troll-tone for the whole message. Market share isn't installed base, please go do some research on that point. It is one of the most commonly misconstrued pieces of data that appears in technical columns. Security isn't synonymous with a lack of viruses, either, it goes well beyond that.
Lastly, cost, security and viruses are all tangential to the main question: which platform is going to actually perform with the necessary functionality, with the necessary uptime and meeting all other requirements? It may not be Mac OS X, but I really doubt its going to be Windows.
You know, I'm reading your message again, and now I'm sure: IHBT. You aren't advocating anything in your post and don't have any references to back up anything you do say. You assure us that Max (sic) would have their fair share of viruses if they had a larger market share, by which I must assume you mean installed base, but without any evidence to support the assurance. Has there been even a proof-of-concept virus for OS X? Not root kits, and not some kind of honor system virus ('Please email this shell script to all your friends and ask them to run it as root. Thank you!'), but an actual auto-execute and auto-propogate virus?
No.
Could it happen? You betcha, but the fact that it hasn't after this many years tells me that it is far from easy.
I'll assure you of this: so long as Windows is so easy to target with viruses that kids in VB classes do it for class projects, there won't be a virus issue on Mac OS X or Linux. Why would there be, when there is such a susceptible population of machines available? Even when Windows installed base drops to 30%, it will still have the majority of viruses. Why? Because its just too damn easy.
Stick that in your troll-pipe and smoke it.
If I had some ham, I'd make a ham sandwich, if I had some bread
I have had some experience with military procurement. It is scary and has nothing to do with logic. The people who do the purchasing are not in the military. They are career civilians. The military officers who oversee them only spend a few years in that capacity before moving on to other posts. They have no real opportunity to institute reforms even they are the ones affected by the purchases. The civilian purchasers develop (I believe) unethical reletionships certain prefered vendors. I've also seen a tendency for government emplyees to avoid taking responsibility for anything. I assume that this has something to do with the way blame is passed around. Furthermore (and possibly due to responsibility avoidance) the military generates a huge amount of rules that must be followed to the letter. This is done mindlessly. If at some point there was an incident involving a Delrin part, then Delrin might be banned from all future milspec parts. The amount of money that an item costs means nothing compared to the need to satisfy paperwork. And speaking of paperwork I doubt that and Linux distributor can hold a candle to Microsoft when it comes to filling out the endless reams of paperwork required to contract with the military. It's just insane. And you have to know all of the bizzare customs they have. So, in short, don't expect military procurement to make any sort of sense until such time as the entire system is overhauled.