Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

Dev.SN ♥ developers

posted by mattie_p on Wednesday February 19 2014, @01:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the no-really-do-it dept.

By now, you have had the chance to read the updates of both NCommander and Barrabas. Nonetheless, you may still be wondering quite a few things about the site and its staff. Here is your chance to ask us anything. These questions can be general in nature, in which case the staff will select a spokesperson to answer it, or it may be specific to an individual. If the question is for an individual, please ensure you identify that person specifically enough.

We will select the best questions from the thread and provide answers to the community. These questions may not be the highest rated, although we will probably use those first.

In keeping with tradition, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post.

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2014, @01:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2014, @01:33PM (#2641)

    Why haven't you published it? (Reposting below so that you know what I'm talking about).

    Linux Security, Red Hat and Systemd Conspiracy Theory

    Former cypherpunk shares his conspiratorial view on Linux security: [wordpress.com]

    Since then, more has happened to reveal the true story here, the depth of which surprised even me. The GTK development story and the systemd debate on Debian revealed much corporate pressure being brought to bear in Linux. [...] Some really startling facts about Red Hat came to light. For me the biggest was the fact that the US military is Red Hat's largest customer:

    "When we rolled into Baghdad, we did it using open source," General Justice continued. "It may come as a surprise to many of you, but the U.S. Army is 'the' single largest install base for Red Hat Linux. I'm their largest customer." (2008 [linux.com])

    This is pretty much what I had figured. I'm not exactly new to this, and I figured that in some way the military-industrial/corporate/intelligence complex was in control of Red Hat and Linux. [...] But I didn't expect it to be stated so plainly. Any fool should realize that "biggest customer" doesn't mean tallest or widest, it means the most money. IOW, most of Red Hat's money comes from the military - they have first say in its development. And the connection between the military and spying agencies, etc. should be obvious.

    Next, a reader posted this FOSDEM: NSA Operation ORCHESTRA Annual Status Report [fosdem.org]. Well worth watching in its entirety (including the Q&A at the end), to me this turned out to be a road-map detailing how Red Hat is operating on Linux!

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   -1  
       Offtopic=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Offtopic' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   -1  
  • (Score: 1) by ivan on Wednesday February 19 2014, @02:51PM

    by ivan (893) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @02:51PM (#2731)

    Interesting... How is this comment offtopic?

    • (Score: 1) by hybristic on Wednesday February 19 2014, @05:09PM

      by hybristic (10) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @05:09PM (#2863)

      I would imagine this is modded off topic because there is a method to submit stories, and this is not the proper method. Next, the reason why this probably wasn't posted was because its a conspiracy theory, it even says so in the summary.

      Why would someone be shocked that the military is the largest customer of RHEL? I mean the US puts insane amounts of money into it's military. When you need to network the complex networks that the military has, it's not shocking they would choose a *nix. Then you look at what Linux Distro has the most support and you arrive at RHEL. I should mention I didn't read any of what was posted in this guys submission, but on the surface I am simply not shocked by this revelation.

    • (Score: 1) by etherscythe on Wednesday February 19 2014, @06:59PM

      by etherscythe (937) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @06:59PM (#2947)

      It reads like tin-foil nuttery at first glance, but there's actually a legit question there under all the detail. Mods probably didn't read closely enough. This may be a downside to such prolific mod points - modders spend them without checking because they don't have to guard them as carefully.

      • (Score: 1) by c0lo on Wednesday February 19 2014, @08:13PM

        by c0lo (156) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @08:13PM (#2991)

        It reads like tin-foil nuttery at first glance, but there's actually a legit question there under all the detail.

        Well, maybe that's the problem. I mean, if not careful enough, it's easy to trigger the TLTR reaction (too long to read. Get it and TLDR is moot).
        Suggestion: if there is a question, with the risk of triggering Betteridge's law, maybe it's a good idea to raise it above those details... help me decide if this could be important/interesting enough to me to give to it my full attention.

        (anyway, regarding the submission that's very subject of the thread: I must admit that it's long enough to trigger the TLDR for me)

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2014, @03:27PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2014, @03:27PM (#2753)

    My dear, Linux is a kernel.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2014, @03:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2014, @03:52PM (#2780)

      My dear, Linux is a kernel.

      So the parent didn't write GNU/Linux and it is a great way for you to divert the discussion from an important point that he made?

    • (Score: 1) by unitron on Wednesday February 19 2014, @11:40PM

      by unitron (70) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @11:40PM (#3134) Journal

      I guess I'm the only one to have gotten that joke.

      --
      something something Slashcott something something Beta something something