Re: US DoD? "We don't use that German ****!"?

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Am Montag, 18. August 2003 23:33 schrieb Timothy R. Butler:
>    Interesting, but not all true. First, and most importantly, SuSE isn't
> "because SuSE is quite scrupulous in observing the Gnu General Public
> License (GPL)," at least in its own code. The YaST License fails the
> criterion of both the Free Software Foundation and OSI. In other words, its
> a non-Free license... indeed, it is somewhere between Microsoft Shared
> Source (tm) and Free Software in nature, but definately leans on the MSS
> side of things.

ACK. Yast license is not nice. But it is not really worse than any proprietary 
license .

>    The second point, I would say, is that preferably I think a military
> should use its own country's resources. Being dependent on any other

Generally true, but..

> country is silly if the country's own products would suffice (or an
> international non-centrally located product such as Debian). I mean, if the
> DoD buys from Red Hat, it creates more jobs for the people that pay for the
> DoD to exist. It also means that if we get in a war of words with Germany
> (very unfortunate, but possible) our IT infrastructure can't be hurt (good
> thing).

You're wrong here. The USA and Germany cannot in war. Both military and 
economical aspects make it impossible for both.

>    1.) RHN functionality makes updates easier to deploy, best I can tell,
> than YaST YOU.

I mean, I would use debian here. superior to both.

>    2.) Red Hat is speeding towards becoming a completely open development
> cycle, leading to transparency and even the ability for the DoD to directly
> influence areas of the distribution it finds weak. SuSE is uses an ultra
> closed development model similar to that of proprietary software.

Only on Yast, and even there you've got sources from everything.

>    3.) Red Hat, unlike what I noted about SuSE a moment ago, is GPL
> friendly, releasing everything as GPL.

ACK.

>    4.) Red Hat has a political lobby in Washington, which can help appease
> the politicians and keep them from bothering the DoD deployments. :-)

I won't comment on USA goverment structures now.

>    Ideal alternate solution: DoD pays to get the proper certifications for
> Debian GNU/Linux.

FULL ACK.
Especially because it has a text-mode installer ;)

Alex

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