Re: Microsoft wins Homeland Security Bid ( Reuters)

[northern snowfall <dbailey27 () ameritech net>]

> I'd rather my government hire the IT personnel themselves and do their 
> own <insert favorite OSS OS here> distro, with the help of the smart 
> guys from the NSA, etc... for security standards.  

Yeh, that's not a bad wish, I must admit. The major stumbling block
is when you've got an OS that few people understand. With a large
group like our newly conglomerated DHS, you've got a very substantial
user base and need an OS that has very wide support.

Even if you mod out an OS like Linux, you are still stuck with
the inability of support at a large scale, since other groups will
stray from supporting your distro as its codebase isn't as well
known and may be more advanced/abstract.

Don

http://www.7f.no-ip.com/~north_



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