Red Hat Opens Lobbying Office Near DC

wiredog writes "From Government Computer News comes this story about Red Hat's new lobbying office near Washington DC, and mentions that RHEL 4 will have Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 4 certification."

Comments

I was hoping they'd be in DC

[Anonymous Coward]

In Foggy Bottom, so that we could call them Fog Hat.

Woo hoo!

[grub]

Now Red Hat can play DC like the big boys!
Bob Young: Thanks for meeting me for lunch, Congressman.
Congressman: My pleasure.
Bob Young: [passing envelope under table] Have you thought about the silly bills the proprietary software people want passed?
Congressman: [counting cash] Yes, and frankly Mr. Young, I think Open Sauce is the only way to go!
Bob Young: Source. Open Source.
Congressman: Gotcha.

Re:Woo hoo!

[discordja]

I've lived and worked in DC for a while now (for a non prof lobbying group to boot) and can tell you it's a much different beast than it's made out to be...tho still a beast.

Most congressmen don't interact with the lobby groups directly. An office will have gobs of LAs (Legistlative Assistants) and they will in turn do most of the contacting and oft times a lot of the deal brokering on some issues.

Most lobbying is nothing more than smart manouvering. You get their staffers drunk, pump em for information, then go to their constituents and whip em into a frenzy when you find the dirt.

Lobbying..

[danheskett]

Lobbiny is bad! Corrupt corruption! Evil money is influicing politics.

This is wrong. Where is the department of justice? Lobbying is not even taintamount to bribery, it is bribery!

What? Ohh... sorry.. thought this was an article about Microsoft, SCO, or Sun... my bad.

Go RedHat!

Welcome To The Big League

[ackthpt]

RHEL 4 will have Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 4 certification.

While Microsoft will have nothing of the sort, unless they've lied through their teeth, yet the US Government still will used hundreds of thousands of instances of Windows on PC's throughout countless bureaus.

RedHat will lobby, "Look, we have a totally transparent operating sytem, if it is in any way compromised it will likely be fixed in less than 24 hours and we can work with you to handle logistical details of patching all necessary computers. In the long run we're cheaper, reliable and immediately accountable." To which, a government all to used to chutzpah and hubris over the past few years will reply, "We don't like transparency, haven't you learned anything by now? Clearly our Great Benefactor in Redmond is a better patron and we totally believe him when he tells us that insurgents are behind exploiting security holes."

It's a nice start

[chris09876]

I really can't think of any bad that can come from this. Hopefully it will improve the visibility of Linux for people who make decisions. In certain cases, people might not even know that linux is an option. Hopefully this new division can help fix that.

The article does make a good point with the Exchange servers though. It's been mentioned here before..., but Linux does need some better connectivity with Exchange to help sell some of the people who already have large systems already set up be more comfortable with the idea of Linux.