[ale] IBM is buying Redhat!

[Greg Clifton]

I think James T. nailed it. Having spent 20+ years selling hardware,
largely to the government, and having a brother working at CENTCOM
monitoring security issues, I can verify that the question isn't so much
whether any given flavor of Linux CAN be equally or perhaps more secure
than others, but that REHL has the required security certification that few
others can afford to match. Folks in government and big business are very
risk averse and will only specify/buy the "certified" solution whether it
is more secure than others or not. If you think differently, Samba, you
evidently haven't had much experience with government purchasing agents. In
my experience they neither know nor care if there is a better or sometimes
cheaper solution, they have a list of specifications and they are going to
buy to those specifications ONLY, and 24x7x4 support is often part of those
specifications, (along with a list of similar clients you have done
business with before to even get your bid considered).

Whatever impact on the future of Linux, I see this as a "back to the
future" event or maybe a throwback to the 80's might be more accurate, to
wit, the good 'ole days are here again when "Nobody ever got fired for
buying IBM."

"Nothing new under the sun..."

On Mon, Oct 29, 2018 at 11:45 AM Leam Hall via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:

>
>
> On Mon, Oct 29, 2018 at 11:42 AM Alex Carver via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:
>
>> I've got a DOD desktop machine managed by an IT contractor. The software
>> gets updated on 3-6 month intervals depending on the testing complexity
>> while the hardware is cycled out every three years.  Not every DOD
>> contract is so rigid that they don't upgrade or hold on tooth and nail.
>>
>>
> Sounds about right. Servers can get OS patches from the vendor on monthly
> updates while applications are at the whim of the vendor.
>
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