[Novalug] FOSE - thoughts continued

James Ewing Cottrell 3rd JECottrell3@Comcast.NET
Fri Oct 24 16:26:52 EDT 2008


FYI, FOSE originally stood for Federal Office Systems Expo. Maybe we 
should recoin FOSS as Free Open Source Executables :)

I agree with Jay...247# of commentary there.

A stark contrast to the previous poster's Rose Colored Glasses view.

The problem with the Feds is that Everything Is Being Commoditized and 
Locked Down.

Various Federal installations used to be like the Great Plains where 
Computer Scientists roamed like Cowboys, using the best and most 
interesting stuff (roughly, PDP-11 UNIX, BSD on Vaxen, Suns, and now 
Linux). For those that knew, it was all about the Technology. Free 
software helped with things a lot.

These days it's all about Auditing and Compliance with Standards, some 
good, some bad. The Executives and Managers are still thinking Windows; 
the DOC just recently announced it will mandate Outlook as their 
standard Mail Client. With no POP or IMAP. The Bush administration has 
been content to let M$ take over. They are simply Pro Business.

Hopefully, that will change if/when Obama gets in, although he will have 
bigger fish to fry.

I just got done working at the Census Bureau, and had to fight to get a 
Linux workstation. The guy I was working for had worked there for 20 
years and was so disgusted with how things were going he retired early.

The Census moved (most) all their servers o a data center, and had 
government staff manage them, but an A76 Audit resulted in them 
outsourcing everything to HP in a very restrictive model.

There are still pockets of Open Range here and there, but things are 
nowhere near as much Fun (read: like a University) as they used to be.

JIM

P.S. No one really understands SELinux. Maybe NSA uses it extensively; 
maybe other people turn it on, but I doubt many people tweak it much.

Pete Nuwayser wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 11:05 AM, Roger W. Broseus <RogerB@bronord.com> wrote:
>> . . . whoops: I accidentlly hit the "enter" key and sent an incomplete
>> message (fetilizer!).
>>
>> . . . A VERY GOOD QUESTION was asked at Saturday's NOVALUG meeting: what
>> are the needs of "the government." A corrolary for me would be: what
>> solutions have been successful. And I think about this with a LINUX bias.
>>
>> This is where people like Pete might weigh-in.
> 
> At about 247 lbs, last time I checked.  :-)
> 
>> My memory tells me about Linux being heavily used in technical /
>> programing / scientific applications as well as in very secure places,
>> e.g., SE linux - NSA and NIST. I don't know but guess there's some servers
>> out there too.
> 
> Lots of infrastructure.  Real examples (without naming agencies):
> * remote office infrastructure support:  Xen dom0 with domUs running
> DNS, DHCP, LDAP, CUPS and proxy.  This is running on an enterprise
> distro, not community-supported.
> * multi-node dom0 running processor-intensive applications like SAS on
> clustered file systems
> * Oracle RAC
> 
> Go to the Red Hat Government Users and Developers Conference tomorrow
> at the Reagan Building.  The Xen architect from NOAA will be speaking
> in the afternoon.  Good mix of server and workstation workloads there.
>  Wish I could go but billable consulting time comes first ;-)
> 
> I think Novell might also have an event in Bethesda coming up.
> 
>> I believe that the fed gov is a reflection of society (remember: it's of,
>> by, and for "the people"). So, the same "barriers" exist there as
>> elsewhere for "desktop" applications, combined with governmental inertial:
>> when a solution is found that works, the saying goes, don't fix it unless
>> it's broken [added thought: even if it is broken]. Change comes slowly.
>> Gov procurement systems are stuck in ruts and users are too.
> 
> Change comes slowly from a desktop perspective, but there have been
> UNIX-to-Linux server migrations happening all over town for years and
> the hardware guys are still making a lot of $$$ from commodity hw and
> blades.  Server admin and architecture is where the money is.
> 
>> Then there is the reality of what really works in Linux-based systems? Can
>> one synch one's black berry or Palm-bases PDA/smart phone to email
>> applications and the like? Can documents and presentations easily shared?
>> It's hard to overcome the inertia caused by "save as" e.g. an MS Word
>> document.
> 
> First:  Many agencies are locking against external USB storage devices
> and PDAs.  Where I work, you aren't even allowed to mount a CD-ROM.
> This is on Windows-based endpoints.
> 
> Second: Blackberry has a near-lock on the Fed market, and those all
> sync over the air, anyway.
> 
> Third: I had a cabinet-level customer tell me over a year ago that
> their desktop hw vendor of choice would give them any OS they wanted
> for $70/seat, so why should they dump windows for /any/ end-user
> segment?
> 
> While there /is/ a lot of VDI buzz around town, VMware owns that
> business in a huge way and will continue to do so for Windows-based
> shops.  However, it is precisely in the VDI space where a Linux
> desktop can make headway, because you've removed the usual barriers to
> entry.
> 
> I'm trying to get up to speed on:
> * VMware VDI / VMware View
> * Red Hat's acquisition of Qumranet aka "Red Hat Israel" for a VDI
> solution based on FLOSS;
> * Novell's joint announcement with Wyse;
> * Trusted Computer Systems' endpoint offerings
> 
>> So, who is likely to be influenced by TUX / NOVALUG / volunteers? Firstly,
>> not many gov workers for the work environment. They must be inter-operable
>> and there's a big barrier there. If it's the scientific / server types,
>> maybe we are speaking to the choir? I believ we are still in the revival
>> tent stage. Reach out and touch those who are most likely to be accepting:
>> small groups that are flexible: small gov agencies? Non-profits (what are
>> they doing at FedOSE?). Educational institutions. This is a tough nut to
>> crack.
> 
> In addition, every year we have to deliver a value prop to the people
> donating space and electricity on why we should be there, and I think
> the answers to both questions have a lot in common.  To that end, I
> think the vendor-neutral story will always need to be told.  I think
> we need to keep talking about open standards.  By now, I think anybody
> who has worked the FOSE booth in the last ten years knows how to do
> those things.
> 
> Ideas for 2009:
> * more conversations about infrastructure and middleware, less about desktop
> * more conversations about what the EU /is/ doing with FLOSS and open
> standards in government, less about what the US is /not/ doing
> * more questions about what the attendees are trying to do
> 
> I haven't been to FOSE in a couple of years so I'm not sure whether
> any of these things have been happening.
> 
> Pete
> 
>> Formal Presentation: Thinking outside of the box: "LINUX Solutions That
>> Work Government." A speach in a hall just like the "big guys," given by
>> someone who experiences / knows where Linux solutions have been used
>> sucessfully and where there is potential for them. It might be a big
>> hurdle to overcome - to get space in a meeting room. $$ might be involved.
>> Ideally, this would not be a presentation by a for-profit / vendor but
>> given by a passionate Linux professional.
>>
>> Last year's problems: we ran out of distros to give away. Ubuntu has been
>> a real hit. Electricity: the power was dropped so no demo after the
>> batteries died.
>>
>> That's my few thoughts / $ 0.02 worth.
>>
>> /Roger
>> --
>> Roger Broseus
>>   RogerB@bronord.com
>>   www.bronord.com
>>
>>
>>
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>>
> 
> 
> 
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