Slashdot Mirror
Interview: Query Queen Elizabeth II's Webmaster
I e-mailed Mick and requested the inteview, really on a whim, the day we ran this story. To my surprise, unlike U.S. government officials and politicians who typically dither for weeks or months before answering their e-mail if they bother to answer it at all, Mick replied almost immediately with a message that said, in part, "Happy to oblige, if only to put the record straight on a few points. I can see from today's edition that there is a great deal of misunderstanding out there."
We're always happy to set things straight. And getting "the word" directly from the man himself is always better than getting it second-hand from The Sunday Times. So here we are, happily welcoming Mick Morgan to Slashdot.
Mick is a genial fellow, but please don't forget that he is also a highly-placed, trusted government official. He has laid down several necessary interview ground rules. He says, "I will not be drawn on specifics of system security (generalities I will answer at my sole discretion). Nor will I comment on UK Government policies on web usage, architectures etc. But since the questions are likely to be technical rather than policy oriented there should not be a problem."
The usual Slashdot interview rules apply: one question per post; moderators choose the most intriguing ones; editors make the final "cut" Tuesday afternoon; Mick's answers appear Friday.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
So, is it Red Hat Linux by royal appointment?
--
Xenu loves you!
I think you're confusing Linux with Red Hat. In fact, Red Hat has no special "official" status: it is simply one Linux distribution amongst many, although a perfectly good one.
--
Xenu loves you!
AFAIK, .nsf file extensions are used by Lotus Domino. Maybe that's what they were using before, and that was a stale link?
--
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page
--
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page
Would you mind giving us a rundown on the hardware you're using, as well as how many/what kinds of hits you get, and how well the machine(s) stand up to it?
--Chouser
--Chouser
"To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods." -LL
What is your background? Are you a techie, an admin person, or an other? Do you use Linux personally? If so, did you come from a Unix, Windows or other background?
And a related question: What is the primary system around your department?
Paranoia isn't an infectious condition, it's a way of life
What sort of technology are you running other than Linux/Apache for dynamic content and content management?
.nsf is used which I hadn't seen before (which interestingly gave me a 404 style error when I clicked on it :)). I'm guessing that tells me you're using ftp for content management...
For example, are you running mod_perl, php, or some other solution (plain CGI perhaps?). I noted that something ending in
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Assuming the British Government, and Her Majesty, aware that their public image on the Internet is being presented via software that is non-traditional and non-commercial, what do they think of it all?
Given the infamous traditionalist attitude of the Civil Service (Sir Humphrey Appleby is alive, well and encrypting everything into English), I can see the possibility of some "concerns" being expressed by people who know just enough to be dangerous.
On the other hand, the Civil Service, et al, hire experts to worry about technical issues, so that senior officials don't have to, which would imply that nobody not involved in the decision would know or even care if the web server used Linux or HP Sauce.
On the third hand (a consequence of drinking large quantities of Typhoo :), given the press' love of so-called "cyper-terrorism" escapades, it wouldn't be unsurprising of Her Majesty, or the Rt Hon Tony to march down to the server room, give the senior manager a clip round the lughole, and tell them to shift from Microsoft by yesterday or be fed to the royal corgis.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Does the Queen read Slashdot?
Share bicycle touring info worldwide: http://wheretocycle.com
Actually, no. Data General's DG/UX has had a B2 rating for many years. In fact, I'm fairly sure it beat OSF1 / Digital Unix / True64 / whatever they're calling it today, and was they first B2 rated Unix.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
What kind of redundancy do you build into the server system for such a large and important site,
ie. round-robin style servers or large, beefy superboxes, etc...
Check my Go-related blog for beginners: DGD
I understand security plays an important role in your decision - and I'll understand if you turn down this part of the question - I'm just curious as to why you picked linux specifically instead of, say, NetBSD?
--
If you could add or change three things about Linux to make your job easier or more enjoyable, what would they be?
--
QDMerge 0.4!
how to invest, a novice's guide
It was to be 'leet, of course.
How can people thin you're cool if you say you are running OpenBSD, when no one's heard of OpenBSD. Now, everyone's heard about Linux, that's cool.
-Brent--
How many people are working on the Royal web site, and the other Government sites?
Is your development done internally, or do you outsource much of the work?
Was Linux difficult to introduce, or were your developers and management amenable to the idea?
Hoorj!
I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on Linux vs. Solaris, not just in terms of price, but overall performance, reliability, maintainability, and ease of use. As a developer, I'm seeing Linux considered as an alternative to Solaris in many places, but there's little factual (or even anecdotal) information comparing the two.
----------
In a real emergency, we would have all fled in terror, and you would not have been notified.
Previous /. posts suggest Linux is being used widely through the United Kingdom's civil service. How widely? Are some folks running servers (old legacy boxes or new applications) on Solaris, BSD, NT, or some other OS?
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
Do you get many cracker/script kiddie attacks on the various web sites you run?
----- Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM' - Alan Cox.
I've got what's probably a fairly odd question here;
:)
how does the royal family handle connectivity? Granted, they have a leased line for those webservers, to an upstream provider. But is it multi-homed? Is it redundant? Are they using Linux as a routing table broadcaster?
Just my curiosity at it again
-RISCy Business | Rabid unix guy, networking guru
your company here.
shelby != ford
Thanks!
While I would also like to know how you handle fault-tolerance, switching (hub/router?), and other techie things, there is one question I really would like to ask:
Have any members of the Royal Family shown interest in coding, and if so, is it possible they may contribute code to one of the Linux (or other Open Access) distros?
Will in Seattle
I notice, for example, that the Scottish Parliament's web site, and my local Council's Web site, do not yet conform. Without wishing to point fingers at specific organisations, is it your intention to cajole all sites within .gov.uk to conform to these standards? Is it appropriate for members of the public to draw administrators of these sites attention to these standards?
Oh, and, by the way, keep up the good work!
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
I am glad the Royal Family has the common sense to employ someone competent enough to choose linux for their website. I understand your work is more facing the public than managing their PCs. I hope you also have some influence on how they perceive the internet, with any luck Buckingham palace has a dedicated 24x7 leased line, and not a dial in to freeserve :-)
:-)
Many decisions today by our aging leadership are being made without a great deal of understanding of the scope or actual uses of the internet. Many children can explain how the internet works and what it is good for better than their parents. It causes the techno-savy crowd to complain when old fashioned laws are mis-applied to modern problems. Tony Blair just had his first contact with the web the other day.
Now that the royal family has had good access to the internet for a while, what do you feel is the competency level of the royal family, as regards to understanding the internet and its capabilities?
I hope that is not too sensitive a question, otherwise I will have to fall back on my second choice about load balancing, spanning multiple ISP connections with BGP4, and caching
the AntiCypher
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
What other choices, e.g. FreeBSD, did you consider? Were there non-open-source candidates, or was open-source-ness itself a critical feature?
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
*choke*
There is Linux advocacy, and there is misinformation. I admire your enthusiasm, but I think it is better if we work with truth and leave the misinformation to the other side.
Point by point...
1. Most scalable? If you mean range (smallest to largest machine), then this is certainly true. Linux doesn't scale as high as Solaris, Irix or Unicos though.
2. Hard to compare, because all the contendors approach the reliability of the hardware. I think Linux behaves less gracefully under swap exhaustion that some unices? And failover and journalling are only just coming on line? Hot swap is still under development?
3. Are you implying x86 is the most scalable, reliable architecture available? Alpha servers are still way ahead on fp power. The IBM power3 is pretty hot too. SGI have outstanding SMP aritechtures. PCs suffer in reliability, partly due to the huge range of components available and partly due to low cost parts. But Linux will run on the other architectures too.
4. Only Digital unix has acheived B2 certification. IIRC without ACLs, Linux can't even match NT3.5's C2.
5. Maybe. It still does not have the track record of BSD, although this may be partly inertia.
My call would be that BSD or Solaris would be good conservative choices, since they are well proven on big servers. Linux is perhaps the more future-proof option given the flood of development.
Seeing as this is a very high profile use of Linux did anyone from Microsoft contact you ?
Vidi, vici, veni. (I saw, I conquered, I came)
To what extent is the Royal Family involved with the site (e.g. content creation)
www.eFax.com are spammers
Hi Mick,
:-) and tell us what you are thinking of the french idea ?
We have learnt recently that 3 french senators proposed a law to require the use of open source software. AFAIK it's the first time officials are doing such a thing in the world. You have decided to use OSS in your daily work, can you give us the reasons of your choice (seems obvious
Seems like a simple question, but why Linux? It seems like all the other high powered sites are using BSD of one variant or another.
thanks!
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
What made you choose linux as opposed to *bsd? From what I've seen of each, bsd would be better to run for security reasons, as I would assume that the server would be under pretty much non-stop cracking attempts, DoS attacks, etc..
How much of a time-drain does it put on you, having to stay ahead of all the latest security advisories ? Does the constant security responsibility make it quite a stressful day job ?
Are your customers becoming increasingly clued-up and demanding, as their experience and expectations develop ?