EDS: Linux is Insecure, Unscalable 1112
daria42 writes "Large enterprises should not use Linux because it is not secure enough, has scalability problems and could fork into many different flavours, according to the Agility Alliance, which includes IT heavyweights EDS, Oracle, Cisco, Microsoft, Sun, Dell and EMC."
I wonder why? (Score:1, Interesting)
EDS are scum (Score:3, Interesting)
Naturally EDS has financial interests in saying such things. They're a company that makes millions off of companies by pushing proprietary software.
It's no suprise that Netcraft [netcraft.com] shows them as being hosted on IRIX, Solaris and now Windows; they just don't know anything else. Stodgy suits making backdoor deals with Microsoft to push MS product into companies they consult to.
If your company uses EDS, be aware that your best interests are not on their radar.
"Those who can, do; those who can't work at EDS."
Kinda like every other OS out there. (Score:1, Interesting)
Interesting list of companies (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps the key is the company most conspicuous by its absense: IBM, who competes with all of them.
Have you ever read something... (Score:5, Interesting)
That article was the worst.
This is just more proof that EDS ain't worth a poop.
"From a corporate perspective, we are not confident where Linux is right now today. A large enterprise needs to be sure because it relates to securifying [sic] the environment. We see some of the same things occurring that did to Unix -- it could splinter into many different types of languages. We are quite cautious about Linux and its deployment," said Rasmussen.
What?
Hmmmm.. (Score:5, Interesting)
EDS: Linux is Insecure, Unscalable
Google and Their Server Farm
Google is small, they always get hacked and their search engine doesn't scale. QED.
Re:Interesting crowd (Score:3, Interesting)
And who made the quote that Solaris 10 can do anything anyone else can do and better? That's right, a representative from Sun.
Re:What a bunch... (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:EDS are scum (Score:4, Interesting)
Ahem...
Firstly, speaking as a former EDS employee, I'm going to tell you to BITE ME.
Secondly, I'm going to remind you that just because the Corporation sucks, that doesn't mean that all the employees are incompetent.
Many, if not most, sucky-ass companies are the product sucky-ass management.
And on that note I'm going to invite former CEO Dick Brown to BITE ME as well.
Re:This is the same EDS that gets sued (Score:2, Interesting)
Late, over budget (but what's a couple of billion between friends?) and ultimately unusable.
A few months back they managed to take out the UK's entire social security system for several days. The employees had to go back to pen and paper. Millions of people were left without essential payments.
How did this happen you ask? They accidently pushed an upgrade to about 90,000 production systems instead of the test system.
Would anyone like to guess which OS was involved?
Anybody? Anybody? Bueller? Bueller?
Re:Why is forking a problem? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think there are three factors coming into play, here:
They can make forking sound bad,
Forking actually can be bad for application developers,
Appeal to Hobbesian bias.
First and foremost, forking is an issue that not many people understand, and is therefore subject to demonization in the press. Since the objective of the authors of these FUD pieces is to make people want to not use Linux, they will pick on whatever aspect they can make sound bad. In this article, they never talk about why forking is bad, but they certainly talk about it as if it were a bad thing. And anyone who is paying attention to Linux has to admit that yes, forking is not only likely, but ongoing. This is seen as confirmation of the supposed problem.
That aside, forking does make life a little more difficult for developers of applications which would like to target multiple Linux distributions. Files are located in different places, init scripts are organized differently, different libraries or modules are installed (or not installed), and when some of the same libraries are installed, they are often different versions. Especially for shrink-wrapped software companies, which are accustomed to the relatively monolithic specifications of Windows (despite its own forking) or MacOS or even Solaris systems, these can make targetting the Linux market more difficult.
Also, I think we can blame Thomas Hobbes [answers.com] for infecting the world with his "centralized good, anarchy bad, mmmkay?" meme. Especially among the more highly educated, Hobbesian philosophy is accepted in America and outright embraced in England and other countries whose educational systems have been heavily influenced by England. Even those who have never had formal schooling in Hobbesian philosophy get exposed to Hobbesian bias, (e.g., when a news reporter talks about the "anarchy" in countries where there is social upheaval and widespread random violence, the listener is left with the impression that that is what anarchy (literally, "without center") means, which is right in line with the Hobbesian notion that anarchy inevitably causes social upheavel and violence). So to thinkers of Hobbesian bent, two Linuxes is necessarily, axiomatically, worse than one Linux, because it creates two "centers" for Linux. All things good come from having one strong center, according to Hobbes.
Anyway, just my two cents.
-- TTK, Anarcho-capitalist with biases of his own
Re:What a bunch... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's true, but it's nowhere near how bad it is in Linux. If your only standard for comparison is the way Windows looks, desktop Linux is never going to improve. And regardless, the vast majority of Windows apps DO look the same and use native widgets, have buttons in the same place, have the same menu items, use the same keyboard shortcuts, and can copy-paste damn near anything between each other. The Linux offerings don't come close, because they won't standardize.
Re:Interesting crowd (Score:2, Interesting)
Cisco MDS 9000 Fiber Switches use linux.. (Score:2, Interesting)
The company that I work for, is currently moving everything they can over to smaller faster machines running linux instead of the larger more expensive and slower Sun equipment.
Recent Linux problems... (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, granted maybe the choice of RedHat as the distro was flawed (the customer requires it). Maybe there is some problem with using that particular version of Electric Fence with that particular version of gdb, after using that particular version of gcc to build the software, and a problem with that particular version of the kernel. But I'm sorry, Operating Systems 101 says "user programs must not crash the kernel." And as a software developer, I should not have to worry about it happening. I never had that kind of problem with Solaris, SunOS, HP/UX, AIX, or even A/UX, and certainly never with VAX/VMS. Why do I have the problem with user programs crashing the kernel in Linux, MacOS X, and Windows?
If Linux is going to be the "secure, reliable" standard in the future, it's going to have to stop being prone to these kinds of problems. The applications that support Linux are going to have to be built with more discipline, and rigidly and thoroughly tested. Why would a utility like "up2date" need to be "patched" since it's been around so long? Why are there "security holes" in ssh? Why is it a requirement to sign on to an endless daily stream of patches to be applied to so many critical parts of an operating system?
At any rate, the bloom is off the Linux rose for me, I've been touting it as a valid alternative for Windows, and I will continue to do so, but with caveats and with less enthusiasm. I also fully expect to be moderated "Troll" or "Flamebait" which bothers me not in the least.
Big Deal! (Score:3, Interesting)
What I know is that the next Google or Amazon is at least as likely to start in a garage as it is in the chilled and cavernous server rooms of a large corporation. All the arguments, right or wrong about TCO and scalability don't cut it with a guy who has almost $2500 in his budget for "servers"...gimme linux NOW and ask me next year if I need Cadillac Computing Configurations...scalability is the LAST problem you solve. Cost of entry is the FIRST problem.
BTW, haven't these guys at Agility Aliance noticed how much press Google gets for its massively scaled production systems? How much work did EDS do for google?
Re:What a bunch... (Score:3, Interesting)
Before the fork there was very little new stuff being added to X, and now we have cool stuff like translucency, etc.
(BTW anyone know when KDE 3.4 (which takes advantage of translucency and dropshadows) will be released? I thought it was scheduled for today.)
Linux and scalability (Score:5, Interesting)
I run linux on SMP boxes ( more than 8 processors a machine) and their are some problems. Usually with network device drivers or some watchdog card. But otherwise it works. The most important thing is to learn how to get the job done.
I have not used Solaris 10 thus I don't know what the new features are. The closed UNIX systems "seem" more robust because they sell the hardware with the software and ( example AIX with IBM POWER boxes ) and they have some major, major, major testing.
Now the article says using Linux on mainframes is concering, well it sure is. Because why pay for a iSeries OS/400 license when Linux runs on the box rock solid. Linux on iSeries is amazing, it is a piece of art in itself.
This was nothing but some technical jargon by soem companies that have outdated security procedures and they don't even have any facts. This is not news this is gossip.
Also another thing Linux is a far more versatile system than people acknowledge it to be.
Re:What a bunch... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmm...actually, out of all of the groups.companies listed up there...I'd almost have to say EDS This stupid &$*#(# NMCI system they have burdened the Navy with cannot be described any nicer than as a royal 'clusterfuck'...horrible network connectivity...using windows, no good apps for admins to connect and admin to their machines...so slow, and restrictive. I mean, sure, it might be ok for a secretary to use just to do some word docs and powerpoint presentations, but, for people that need to code or so serious admin work...TOTALLY useless.
And that is ONLY the functionality issues...they way they fuck the govt. out of money by what they charge is outrageous...not to mention the red tape involved just to get a simple request fulfilled.
Re:What a bunch... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Hmmmm.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Thanks.
Re:Is that the same EDS... (Score:3, Interesting)
How surprising (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What a bunch... (Score:1, Interesting)
Bull. You're just trolling, and I think you know it.
Oh, pish posh. I run two different distros (Debian at work and Mandrake at home). Both have start-menu-based software installation programs that make downloading and installing software nearly trivial. I don't think MS Windows could possibly make it easier, but in any case you have left out the "go to the store and fork over $29.95" portion of software installation (not to mention the spam-the-desktop or anti-user "security" parts you still see in MS Windows). Linux is a joy to work with.
Oh, come on! I've always done this by hand (and, yes, I do RTFM), but I tried my start menu. I clicked on "System Tools" then "Users and Groups" and ended up with a simple "Add User" button staring me in the face. Of course, I had a user set up automatically when I installed, but that shouldn't stop a good slander, should it?
Whatever. If people want to use Linux, it's there, and it's really easy. No real RTFM-ing required anymore. Anyone who can't figure out how to do simple things in Linux probably has no real business administering a machine connected to the internet, especially an MS Windows box. But I guess that's the "easy" way...
Re:Hmmmm.. (Score:2, Interesting)
True, but to continue the metaphor, the company that is saying florescent lights aren't scalable happens to produce huge stadium lights for use within buildings: One bright light at the top, with lots of windows/fiber optic to distribute it.
Sun's machines and OS, for example, are scalable because you can get a monster server with dozens of cpus. For some application designs, that's exactly what you need, though there is a ceiling that you hit.
Linux is catching up with that kind of scalability, but it's not nearly as mature. However, Google has taken advantage of Linux's other kind of scalability, which allows thousands of separate compute nodes. Again, this is only good for some application designs, but web services (as a general category) work very well in such a system. You can't scale horizontally like this with Sun, because of the hardware/software cost of each compute node.
Re:What a bunch... (Score:4, Interesting)
1) you're right
2) you're wasting your time posting it here
All of the responses here are "it's good for me" but that doesn't count for a whole lot when someone is writing a report on whether or not it's useable for a corporation.
Particularly in the space of something like Gnome vs. KDE it's absolutely mind boggling that there is no re-merging or picking of the "best" one. The big vendors need to get together and just choose one (a la XOrg/XF86)
That is definitely one example of where incompatibilities generated by choice become detremental to widespread adoption. /opt serve for?
Another example is the lack of standardization for the directory structure. While this is better (in general) there's still no telling where some stuff goes. Like what does
Installation procedures should be at LEAST similar.
In short, too many things change from distribution to distribution, and too many incompatibilities for "Linux" to be widely adopted. What MAY happen is for a single distribution to be adopted specifically. Like a company going with "GTK on Redhat" or "KDE on Suse".
Until there is some standardization between them though, there's no reason to switch. I use it at home, but I'd never recommend it for anything where I work (except for servers and controllers)
How can EDS speak for its suppliers? (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact if I were EDS I would be worried. In order to maintain 20% growth Microsoft will eventually have to move heavily into consulting (copying IBMs old form).
My guess is by speaking about Linux he immediately gets better press coverage.
Re:What a bunch... (Score:3, Interesting)
Really I think MySQL and Oracle are in two different classes. If you are running a blog or a new site or some other smaller less than criticle database, Oracle is really too much. However if you measure the ammount of data you have in Terrabytes instead of Gigabytes then Oracle may be the solution for you instead.
Right now I work for a company that develops a software package that interfaces with Oracle and I hate it. However Oracle seems to be really pushing Java and Linux so it struck me as odd that they are on that panel. Maybe just the odd man out and kindof had to go along. I really like the new stuff in Oracle's JBuilder however setting up their Application Server is a pain. They also have a whole section on using Open Source utilities with Oracle. I think they've realized that open source is here to stay and they need to adapt or die.
Re:What a bunch... Now tell me about Windoze again (Score:3, Interesting)
What I am not going to have to do is to do a total re-install. Do the 4 hours of connecting to M$ to get up to rev. Attempt to move over her software by moving the old boot disk over the new one and hacking at a low level in the registry. The alternative to to re-install everything from install disks that she probably has long since lost.
Contrast that with moving a disk between two macs and or two linux machines. Unless I have done a gen on a kernel that is pretty weird. Its a piece of cake.
If you hate to edit conf files, why do you put up with the registry? Its a single path fault that is a resting place for the vermin and problems of the world. I will take the odd conf file any time.
Re:What a bunch... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What a bunch... (Score:1, Interesting)