[ale] IBM is buying Redhat!

[Simba]

On 10/29/18 8:35 AM, DJ-Pfulio via Ale wrote:
> On 10/29/18 7:33 AM, Simba via Ale wrote:
>> The DoD and any other government agencies should be using Debian.
> 
> DoD needs a throat to choke. They want 1 phone call to have someone
> on-site, working the issue.  This is a requirement for huge corporations
> as well.  They don't want to become experts in Linux. They want a
> solution that someone else manages.

Irrelevant. The go-to person would exist, in any scenario.

>> Support for the system does not have to be provided by the maintainers
>> of the software. Support could come from any trustworthy American
>> technology firm.
> 
> Who can support all the DoD locations?  Simba's Linux Shoppe?
> The only other serious option would be from Oracle.  SuSE isn't large
> enough.

Yes! Are you kidding? That's my profession, I could hope to be so lucky
as to land a contract like that. I'd be set for years.

I think maybe you don't understand how American capitalism works :)

>> Debian is the best choice because it is the most open and free, as well
>> as the most stable and mature, as well as offering full capabilities in
>> terms of applications and security. It's simply the best choice.
> 
> IYO. Many people would disagree.
> SELinux is a requirement for many DoD systems. How stable is that on
> Debian? I honestly don't know.

SELinux is overrated, Debian has something similar, and also SELinux can
be installed on Debian, however my experience with that is limited so I
can't speak on it.

>> To limit government systems to inferior operating systems because they
>> offer commercial support from the developers is very 1980s.
> 
> What?  It comes down to having an organization that can solve the issues
> for the client.  There are few other Linux support organizations with
> the expertise across the entire Linux stack to solve issues.

You won't change my mind on this. It's 2018, and technology moves fast.
Our government doesn't, which is a serious national weakness, and one
that could be easily fixed if the right people were making the decisions
instead of 60 year old powermongers who don't know how to use computers
and are in the pockets of software corporations like Microsoft.

When the government awards a contract to a Microsoft or a Redhat, that
says to me that the government is still living in the 1980s or 1990s and
the wrong people are making the decisions. They don't award contracts to
those corporations because they're the right choice, they do it because
they're ignorant and they suffer from the same issue as many consumers,
"I've heard of that brand". That is not competent decision making.

> Running a WP web server doesn't make someone an expert at kernel drivers
> or the opposite.
> In complex environments, understanding all the other complex moving
> parts and those interactions is non-trivial.  Tracking down some SAN
> connection and compatibility issues isn't something most organizations
> can handle.

I think you don't have any idea just how many companies exist that do
exactly those kinds of things. They're not all huge, in fact most of
them are probably tiny. That doesn't mean they couldn't scale up to meet
the needs of the contract. With capable leadership and a competent
workforce anything is possible. Those things exist in the market.

> Here's hoping that IBM doesn't do to Redhat like what Oracle did to Sun
> Microsystems.

Sun Who?

j/k ;)


Simba Lion - https://tailpuff.net
https://keybase.io/simbalion

"Why is a raven like a writing desk?"