Will Linux Win the Next Presidential Election?

i_like_spam writes "Douglas Karr has posted an interesting breakdown, complete with bar charts, of the operating systems and server software used by the websites for 23 declared and undeclared presidential candidates. The breakdown shows that there is nearly an equal split between Linux and Windows servers among the whole candidate pool. More interesting, all of the Democratic candidates except for Hillary favor Linux or FreeBSD. 69% of the Republican candidates, in contrast, prefer Windows. Is this preference for OSS or Microsoft a true reflection of differing political philosophies? And, more importantly, will Linux win the next election?"

Even More Shocking

[eldavojohn]

69% of the Republican candidates, in contrast, prefer Windows.

What's even more shocking is that the other 31% of the Republican candidates are running Ubuntu Christian Edition [blogspot.com] while it turns out in the end that the very core of their operating system is the same kernel that Ubuntu Satanic Edition [ubuntusatanic.org] runs on.

Makes you think, doesn't it?

And don't even get me started on Hillary, there's solid proof that her servers resolve to the IP address 66.66.66.66 and that good packets go in but only packets with the evil flag flipped to '1' come out.

I suppose that's politicians for you, though. 'Does not compute' with them, can't pretend we're living in a society where everyone feels equally represented without them.

Intelligent Design? Or Evolution?

[ringfinger]

Did Ubuntu Christian Edition come fully formed as a distro? Or did it evolve?

These stories of a Finnish student designing Linux must be garbage. We all know that Linux is too complex to have evolved over time to its current state. It could only have been created by an Intelligent 'designer'

Re:

[blhack]

You're "joke" is pretty flawed. Linux does not have the ability to replicate itself without human intervention; therefore, it does not have the ability to evolve.

Its possible that you meant that linux DOES very closely follow the evolution of humans. Linus created the original single celled organism (the shell he wrote to connect to his universities computers), then allowed it to evolve while keeping a close eye on it.

But i doubt it.

Re:

[Per Abrahamsen]

> You're "joke" is pretty flawed. Linux does not have the ability to replicate itself without human
> intervention; therefore, it does not have the ability to evolve.

You confuse the general concept of evolution with the biological concept of evolution. The former does not require self-replication.

And, although poorly stated, it is not really "just" a joke. One reason the "intelligent design" arguments are crap to me, is that my experience as a programmer tells me that the more complex a program is, t

Re:

[oliverthered]

Humans don't have the ability to replicate themselfs without a food source.

Everything depends upon something else to replicate.

Your point is?

Re:Intelligent Design? Or Evolution?

[Anonymous Coward]

"You're "joke" is pretty flawed. Linux does not have the ability to replicate itself without human intervention; therefore, it does not have the ability to evolve."

Last time I checked, I didn't have the ability to replicate myself without human intervention either :-) :-)

Re:

[JebusIsLord]

Yes, it does. Evolution just means change over time. Linux changes over time. Intelligent design runs counter to Natural Selection as a mechanism for evolution, not evolution itself.

Re:

[moderatorrater]

But Dude, like, don't you totally realize that, like, intelligent design can also, you know, mean, like, that an intelligent and benevolent being directed the course of evolution? Using that model, you could totally say that Linus is like that benevolent dude who guides the evolution...intelligently.

Re:Intelligent Design? Or Evolution?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

The basis of 'Intelligent Design' is that humans were essentially fully formed at their creation

No, that's not what ID says; you're thinking of young-earth creationism. ID'ers accept that evolution happened, but stipulate that certain complex structures could not have arisen through the processes of mutation and natural selection; the designer (by which, of course, they always mean God, even if they don't admit it) had to give things a little nudge in the right direction from time to time.

All creationism is bunk, but if you're going to criticize specific flavors of it, it's a good idea to know what you're criticizing; otherwise it weakens your argument and makes it easier to dismiss.

Re:

[DavidTC]

Exactly which parts couldn't have arisen, of course, are subject to change as soon as the old examples get explained.

It's the 'There's a unicorn hiding behind that tree' method of science, forcing real sciences to drag everyone over and explain that, no, yet again, there's no unicorn there, whereas the IDers then spy another likely tree and start exclaiming how there's a unicorn behind that one.

Re:

[TheMeuge]

Whenever I hear "Intelligent Design" and "theory" in the same question, I want to bash the speaker's brains in with a dictionary.

Intelligent Design IS NOT under any circumstances or interpretation, a scientific theory. It's a lets-do-the-god-thing-but-pretend-it's-something-e lse kind of a supposition (or should it be 'suppository').

Re:

[DavidTC]

All ID theory states is that statistically it's impossible for what is now have come to be without some intelligence guiding the process.

No scientific theory can ever state the likelihood of something that has only been observed once, especially something where not only are not all the factors known, but things we know are factors are unmeasurable for anywhere except here and maybe a few dozen surrounding stars. But more to the point, it doesn't matter a rat's ass if it's statistically unlikely, because,

Re:

[Copid]

Most people who argue the statistics route place the odds against Earth occurring as it is significantly higher than the number of subatomic particles (just e-, p+, n0, usually) in the known universe.

And all of those people are essentially pulling values and equations out of their asses. What's you point?

Re:Intelligent Design? Or Evolution?

[Mister Whirly]

Luckily, God designed me smarter than Creationists....

Re:

[sumdumass]

Wow, You better warn them of that. And why your at it, inform the that W is the number 6 in the Hebrew language. So when they goto websites, WWW. well you get the picture.

Re:Even More Shocking

[Dog-Cow]

There is no "W" in the Hebrew alphabet. The 6th letter, transliterated, would be "V".

Re:Even More Shocking

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget also: Ubuntu Satanic Edition uses the text editor of the beast, Vi Vi Vi.

Let there be Source...

[coren2000]

... and it was good.

Re:Parent was funny, not insightful! :(

[Khomar]

For starters, there is _NO_ ubuntu christian edition.

Actually, there is [christianubuntu.com]. It looks to basically be Ubuntu with some free Bible and other related software included. The link that the grandparent posted was a mock site.

Doubt it

[blhack]

Lets me honest, it is VERY unlikely that these candidates even KNOW what operating system their web server is running. Furthermore, i would doubt that most of them know what an operating system, or a web server even are.

Re:

[gEvil (beta)]

Very true. The candidates themselves don't know and don't care. However, some of their staffers and volunteers do know and do care. The numbers presented in the summary are somewhat indicative of the attitudes of the teams as a whole towards copyright and business.

Re:Doubt it

[blhack]

I have to disagree. While one could assume that all of the staff members on a political campaign share the values of the candidate they are supporting, it is also very likely that there were just some nerds who needed a job. It is also quite possible that the decision was not even made in house. The choice of op-sys could have fallen into the hands of nerds who run the hosting company where the site is hosted.

So how do you explain the results?

[benhocking]

Pure randomness? I'm sure someone here will be willing to calculate the odds against that for you, if you like...

Re:

[blhack]

Sure: lets see, we have two possible outcomes. Given a perfectly random system....hrm, carry the 5...divide by 9....the inverse of the quotient times number of pirates in existance....should be...

yep, about 50/50.

Perhaps your bias is showing?

[benhocking]

You're only commenting on the Republican side. I was referring to the discrepancy between the Democrats (1 out of X) and the Republicans (5 out of 9). As I implied elsewhere, I'm sure a Student's t-test [wikipedia.org] would show this to be quite statistically significant. (Unfortunately, I can't RTFA to figure out what "X" is, but I'm guessing it's also about 9.) Also, your implied assumption is a priori 50/50 odds, which seems like a hell of an assumption. (Comparing the two groups requires no such assumption.)

Re:Perhaps your bias is showing?

[BlackCobra43]

The lack of a sufficient population precludes a Student test; any sample would be meaningless.

Re:

[dreamchaser]

Thank you. I was about to post this. You should be +5 Insightful.

These numbers tell us exactly nothing. The sample group is WAY too small.

Unlikely, but not significant

[benhocking]

Referring to my other calculations, one could argue that the chances of this happening by chance are about 1 in 7. So, yes, as you say, not statistically significant. What is interesting is that Hillary (arguably the most conservative Democrat) is the one Democratic Windows user, and two of the four Republican Linux users are Ron Paul and John McCain. So, I do not believe it is "pure randomness", but that hypothesis cannot be ruled out. (I.e., you're absolutely correct in every sense.)

Re:

[Chandon Seldon]

The whole reason the Student test was developed was to work with small samples. You know... beer taste testing where you can't have the same tester drink a hundred beers at once.

Re:

[eln]

It probably has more to do with what the college students running the site prefer. Maybe there is a direct correlation between preferring Windows and a propensity to join the Young Republicans, who knows. Maybe the Democrats get their IT folks from colleges and small companies where people are used to spending little or nothing on server software, while the Republicans tend to favor getting their IT people from larger companies that are used to spending a lot of money on that sort of thing.

Either way, the

Sounds significant to me

[benhocking]

I don't plan on doing a students t-test or anything, but these results seem pretty significant to me. You're right that the candidates probably don't know what operating system their web server is running, so instead it speaks more to the kind of people they hire to run their web servers. One can easily make generalizations about both groups, so I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

Re:Doubt it

[sumdumass]

Well, A more accurate survey might be how they actually stand on issues like open document, looking at open source as possible solutions instead of just buying MS products. It seems to me that more of this has happened in the last 8 years then the 8 before. But then again, a lot of strides in open source and alternative software has come around in the last 8 years so it might just be a maturity thing too.

And this still doesn't touch the individual candidates position, it could very well be some staffer telling them to vote this way or what ever. But it would still be interesting to see what these candidates would say if confronted with the question of open source verses closed and what makes the best tool for the job.

Re:

[b0r1s]

Absolutely right. Virtually zero chance of any candidate knowing/caring about the hosting platform. At best, there's a 5% chance that someone in their campaign considered .NET v. PHP when hiring a web developer, and that decision pushed them towards their hosting platform of choice.

Re:

[Brandybuck]

Absolutely! I'll go further and state that their campaign committees don't have a clue either. The deciding factor is not what OS they like, but how they choose their hosting company.

Re:

[rifter]

I highly doubt someone running for President of the US (or any country for that matter) cares, or even knows what fucking OS his web site runs, or if it's done in ASP or PHP.

And that's precisely our problem. The people running this country have no clue when it comes to technology, which puts us in a bad situation when you consider that they are charged with regulating and stimulating the growth of this technology. Then consider the fact that our enemies use technology against us and that we are competing

Re:Doubt it - what they need to know

[ancientt]

My boss is head of the IT department and pretty computer savy; Not uber-geek but he knows what Linux is and has tried Ubuntu for a desktop. His boss knows what machines cost since she approves budgets for various departments but I seriously doubt she has ever sat at a Linux console, she probably sees it as a server OS. Her boss, and the last in our chain, has probably heard of Linux and knows it has to do with computers, maybe even servers. The fact is that only my boss needs to basically understand why we

It's generational -- with the staffers.

[Valdrax]

I was surprised that Obama and Clinton had actually started putting videos on youtube [...]

I'm not. This is because 90+% of all staffers in most political campaigns are either current students or recent college graduates. When I volunteered in the 2006 election for a gubernatorial candidate that had been in office in the legislature for 20 years, we had a pretty solid YouTube presence. This is because every single staffer was internet savvy. I was the only volunteer for the campaign that didn't have a Facebook or Myspace account as far as I'm aware.

Social networking was primarily tapped by Democrats in 2004 thanks to the Dean campaign, but 2006 and on has shown that both sides are about equally savvy in this respect.

As long as politicians are mired in old thinking and do not understand current technology we will continue to have problems with the way technology is regulated and how it is being incentivised (or not).

Side note: This will ALWAYS be a problem because politicians don't really start getting into senior positions to affect things until they're in their 40's or later. Most of the cutting edge of technology is driven by people in their 20's. This generation gap does not look like it's going to change any time in the future.

Re:Doubt it

[kbielefe]

First of all, we're only at a competitive disadvantage if the politicians and lawyers leading other countries are more tech savvy than ours. I highly doubt that is the case, but please provide counterexamples if you know any.

Second, while our leaders may not be tech savvy themselves, they are intelligent enough to at least know the right people to ask for help. If you want to learn a lot about a topic, read the expert testimony at a congressional hearing about it. For example, here is the guest list for a senate hearing a few months ago on net neutrality:

• Mr. Vinton Cerf
  Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist, Google
• Mr. Walter McCormick
  President and CEO, United States Telecom Association
• Mr. Jeffrey Citron
  Chairman and CEO, Vonage
• Mr. Kyle McSlarrow
  President and CEO, National Cable & Telecommunications Association
• Mr. Earl Comstock
  President and CEO, CompTel
• Mr. Kyle Dixon
  Senior Fellow and Director of the federal Institute for Regulatory Law & Economics, The Progress & Freedom Foundation
• Mr. Lawrence Lessig
  Professor of Law, Standford Law School
• Mr. J. Gregory Sidak
  Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
• Mr. Gary Bachula
  Vice President for External Affairs, Internet2

A pretty impressive list, if you ask me. It would be pretty difficult to walk away from a meeting with that group and not have all the information you need to make a good decision on net neutrality.

If it helps you feel better, you can go on believing that politicians make decisions you disagree with out of ignorance. The truth is, the vast majority of them are highly intelligent, highly educated, and just happen to either have a different point of view than you, or hold the same opinion but allow themselves to succumb to the corrupting influence of money and power.

Re:

[Blakey Rat]

The sample size is, what, 8? Prove it's a correlation and not coincidence with that sample size.

What About Independents, Libertarians, socialists

[ehaggis]

What do they use? We have more than two parties you know.

Re:What About Independents, Libertarians, socialis

[jellomizer]

Plan 9, Minuette, SkyOS

Interesting omission

[benhocking]

Interesting that in the short list you provided, you omitted the party [wikipedia.org] that some people credit for causing Gore to lose the 2000 election. (I'm not making that claim, I'm just pointing out the claim.)

Re:

[apathy maybe]

Quite interesting too that Florida was "won" by less then 500 votes and all the socialist candidates each received more then 500 votes...

To quote from http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=24734 [revleft.com]

While it is certain if Nader had not been running, that many of the people who voted for him would have voted for Gore, many others would have voted for one of the Socialist candidates (who all received more then 500 votes each in Florida [Source Stupid White Men, M. Moore. (HyperColins Publishers Inc.: USA, 20

Re:What About Independents, Libertarians, socialis

[Herkum01]

Trendy, but not too trendy. Popular, but not too popular. Definitely superior, yet always a minority.

Macs!

Re:What About Independents, Libertarians, socialis

[Short Circuit]

Well, according to Netcraft, the libertarians, communists and independent parties's sites are all running Linux. The American Green party is running FreeBSD.

Re:

[Red Flayer]

Well, according to Netcraft, the libertarians, communists and independent parties's sites are all running Linux. The American Green party is running FreeBSD.

So... Netcraft confirms American democracy* is dead?

*of the people, for the people, yada yada.

Re:

[georgewad]

At least they got this one right.

Re:What About Independents, Libertarians, socialis

[db32]

No we don't. We have Republicans and Democrats. Anyone from any other so called "party" is really just an enemy of one of the existing parties which would make them a member of the opposing party. Where the hell have you been? If you don't hate gay marriage, then you are a godless liberal Democrat. If you support the death penalty you are christian conservative Republican. All the people who don't agree with the whole party are flip-floppers or traitors to the other party.

You're kidding, right?

[jimbobborg]

Most, if not all, the candidates don't have a clue about what their website is running on, much less care about it. I really doubt that Hillary discussed Windows versus Linux versus BSD. Get real. It seems to me that most in Congress are technophobes, and have people do stuff for them.

Re:You're kidding, right?

[moderatorrater]

Agreed. This tells us absolutely nothing about the candidates themselves. However, what it can tell us is what their supporters believe. And the prediction that linus will win is easy, linux is used by the most candidates. One study I'd like to see is if political affiliation correlates to a particular OS for average users.

Not the party but the supporters

[jellomizer]

Not as much the Party Ideals that choose the Operating System, But the more active supporters who choose the OS.

Democrats generally have a younger following then the republicans. More younger people know how to use Linux and know enough about it to use it properly. So Democrats will typically use Linux.

Republicans tend to have an older following and they will use what they know. If they don't know then they will use what most people seem to use. So that will be windows.

Also Open Source People tend to bereave in a more socialistic view that is more compatible with the democrats views so Linux and OSS People will be more likely to support Democrats.

Hillary Clinton is a more of a moderate candidate so bulk of the Linux supporters (who are typically more liberal) will not be as much encouraged to help her, while the general moderate population will be more willing to support her, so they will use what they know and the general population knows windows.

Re:

[moore.dustin]

Give me a break, why are you reading into this so much. If you believe that garbage you need a reality check.

The campaign manager found a website project manager to construct and maintain the site. The campaign manager wanted x, y, and z to work like so. The web manager took those specs and choose an operating system, probably the only their company uses most, if not exclusively, and went that way.

If even one of these 23 sites had its OS designated by someone other than the project manager, based on n

Bush is moderate

[xzvf]

Some people believe Bush is the moderate (supporting Kennedy with no child left behind, his stance on immigration) and think Hillary is far left (socialized medicine). Personally, I think they are both politicians.

Re:

[Slur]

Politicians.... well yes, but not in the better sense of the word. Politics used to be about advocacy and effective expression. Now it means - and I guess you mean - packaging up your corporate supporters' agendas into something people can swallow without choking. Ah, but I do miss the concept of noblesse oblige [wikipedia.org]!

So, some people believe that everything Bush does is for an ulterior motive, and that by supporting "moderate" positions on the surface he is able to gain subtle advantages for the hard-line right-w

Re:

[Red Flayer]

OK, normally I'd not nitpick any kind of typo, etc (I make enough of them myself), but this one just struck me as odd:

Also Open Source People tend to bereave in a more socialistic view that is more compatible with the democrats views so Linux and OSS People will be more likely to support Democrats.

What does that mean, that Open Source People believe in redistribution of grief? That Closed Source People tend to mourn in a capitalist manner?

Here's one for Hillary

[ringfinger]

If Linux distro's were women... http://geeks-have-feelings-too.net/if-linux-distri butions-were-women/ [geeks-have...gs-too.net]

FlameBait: What, no Mac?

[ehaggis]

Sorry, I had to ask.

Weak

[whisper_jeff]

This is one of the weaker examples of "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." that I've seen in a while...

Unreal...

[darken9999]

Of all the things going on in the world and the country, if you actually care about this, you shouldn't be allowed to vote.

Given Diebold...

[Lord_Slepnir]

Given the pervalance of Diebold machines, I'd say just about anyone could win the next presidental election.

Seriously, people won't care about these crappy machines until either (1) some bat-shit-fucking insane neocon with a hard-on for starting WWIII is elected, or (2) Cowboy Neal is being sworn in.

Wait, one option already failed. Slashdotters, you know what you must do.

Re:Given Diebold...

[Farmer Tim]

Given the pervalance of Diebold machines, I'd say just about anyone could win the next presidental election.

That's exactly the kind of uncertainty that Diebold's backers hope to eliminate.

The candidates don't care

[moderatorrater]

Does anyone actually believe the candidates care about what they're running? If you look, almost all of them are using a hosting company which, to me, indicates that they just don't care what OS they're running. Like every other client in the world, they're just worried about having a web page up and running and they don't care if it's a kitten in a box typing out the html every time a request comes in. They just care if it works. While interesting, I can't for the life of me understand why people would think it's a political issue what OS their sites are running on.

Re:

[blhack]

they don't care if it's a kitten in a box typing out the html every time a request comes in.

but they don't have opposable thumbs! How will they hit the space bar?!?!?

I'm going to need to see an RFC.

Re:

[GodfatherofSoul]

This issue is a subtle indication of how the campaign organizations of each party really work. Just as if you were to *ahem* discover that local operatives in one party were using caging lists that the candidates themselves were unaware of. It all speaks to the broader campaigning philosophies.

What would Cthulhu use?

[ehaggis]

If Cthulhu [cthulhu.org]were running what OS would he prefer?

Re:

[Herkum01]

I don't know what OS he would use, but it would definitely be written in something Evil! [pacific.edu]

Re:

[Bastard of Subhumani]

Cthulhu needs no operating system.... he just plain wins the election

I think you're confusing him with Chuck Norris.

so let me get this straight...

[jense]

John McCain (for example) took time out of his preparation for upcoming primaries to chair an internal commitee on whether or not to use Windows or Linux servers. Furthermore, he took into consideration the political, secretive, subliminal implications of this choice and made a strategic move that would appease constituents. Or maybe he just asked an old buddy to coordinate his web site.

Re:

[ehaggis]

He probably asked his neighbor's 14 year old nephew to design his website. Or maybe he outsourced it.

Re:

[sumdumass]

Wasn't McCain the guy who used the templates and didn't give the credit were it said you needed to do on Myspace and even had the gull to pull the pictures from the template makers website which let him replace it with a joke image?

It probably was the 12 year old neighbor.

Good to know

[bahwi]

But it's the last thing I care about in this election. With the Iraqi war, the illusion of "terrorism", Big Government Republicans(let's get rid of state rights AND build new, extraneous federal agencies like TSA and DOHS). I could care less if they thought apple iie was the newest type of computer on the market and urging everyone to upgrade to that that is fine. OSS needs to win on a technically better standpoint not a political motivation. It also needs to win because of an Open Government standpoint too, not just because it is OSS.

Re:

[WilliamSChips]

What the OP means is that it's not as big a deal as people are making it out to be. The whole "car accidents kill more people" argument and such.

Re:Good to know

[Overzeetop]

Terrorism is real. It is being perpetrated by the leaders of most first world countries to scare the population into reducing freedoms and minimizing privacy rights at an alarming rate.

Oh, you meant the people who hate us and want to blow us up? Well, in the grand scheme of things (AIDS, cancer, automobile accidents, floods, tornadoes) I suppose there may be a small percentage of deaths attributed to such actions, and they also serve to scare portions of the population.

Yeah, there is terrorism out there, but mostly it's a smokescreen for larger, more expensive governmental oversight of the people who are unlikely to ever kill large numbers of people with the intent to scare a community or a nation.

Re:

[Lockejaw]

The idea that terrorism is a day-to-day threat to the average American is an illusion.

BTW, the holocaust beats terrorism by a few orders of magnitude.

Re:Good to know

[bahwi]

No, just the current concept of people attacking for the sake of frightening us is an illusion. There's reasons they came after us, but what is presented to the American people is an illusion. Ron Paul(a great Republican) said it best:

"If we think we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred, then we have a problem. They don't come here to attack us because we're rich and we're free, they come and attack us because we're over there."

9/11 wasn't ideological. It was an attack plain and simple. They don't have troops, they can't win a war, they can't get us out, these are the things that are their only recourse. We call it terrorism because "No one would want to attack us for the things we do" even though we've been meddling with their governments and lifestyles for over 50 years.

Giant douche runs Linux, Turd sandwich Windows.

[HornWumpus]

Used rubber runs BSD.

Vote Giant douche.

Re:

[aesiamun]

I think you implied that if you choose BSD over Linux or Windows you'll get laid. /me switches.

There really is a strong correlation!

[CaptainPatent]

Even the more moderate Republican candidates such as Ron Paul and Rudy Guliani are running Linux whereas most of the true right wingers are running windows and most of the true left wingers are running linux or BSD.

Perhaps this can be construed as a statement of American corporatism seeing as the fundamentals of a Republican viewpoint involve making sure there are plenty of jobs by making sure the corporations do well. This would mean that "buying American" is the way to go. The Democratic viewpoint however, encourages the little man to do well so saving money and being a savvy consumer on an individual level are preferred along with "giving the little guy a chance" so various flavors of linux and BSD come into play there.

Definitely an interesting find!

No and No

[Dynedain]

Is this preference for OSS or Microsoft a true reflection of differing political philosophies? And, more importantly, will Linux win the next election?

No and No.

If you honestly believe that a candidate's webserver reflects their political leanings, you're sadly delusional.

If you're planning your vote based on the candidates choice of webserver OS, then you're really missing the bigger issues.

There is not a single thing done on any of the candidate sites that are platform specific. And I doubt any of them developed their sites "in-house" (within the campaign staff). I would bet that every single one of them found a developer and/or hosting company to design and build their site. And they probably went with whatever that developer/hosting provider recommended for a hosting plan.

While looking at the differences makes for an interesting exercise in alleviating boredom, it says nothing about the overall race or candidate's positions and abilities.

And I say this as a web developer who works on both Windows and *NIX servers and usually recommends Apache on Linux or FreeBSD.

Re:

[TubeSteak]

I would bet that every single one of them found a developer and/or hosting company to design and build their site. And they probably went with whatever that developer/hosting provider recommended for a hosting plan

Okay, so you're saying it is an amazing coincidence the way the distribution shook itself out?

You may not be aware of this, but some hosting companies do have political 'affiliations'. Either because the owners are partisan, or because partisans happen to flock to that company for hosting.

Re:

[Alchemar]

I'm not so sure that it doesn't have an implication of their political leanings. While I don't think that any of the canidates are closely enough involved to even know what is running their web server, it had to be decided by someone. It gives a lot more insite into the beliefs of the people they surround them with than what they believe directly, but it has been my experience that most people surround themselves with people that have similar beliefs.

It makes sense that people that have a

Re:No and No

[Soko]

If you honestly believe that a candidate's webserver reflects their political leanings, you're sadly delusional.

Sadly delusional? Sadly??? Dude, I like my delusions, which is why they're still around.

/me goes to look for grandeur...

Soko

Yeesh

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Is this preference for OSS or Microsoft a true reflection of differing political philosophies? "

Um, no. Candidate says "Gimme a website". Contractor says "ok". He may say things about the color he wants or which font to use, but he certainly is not interested in which OS is being used. He won't even know the difference between PHP and ASP.

They are running tubes

[ehaggis]

They are running tubes on the internets Al Gore invented. Duh!

Who gives a crap? Just vote for the right person!

[WIAKywbfatw]

I really don't give a damn what servers are driving their websites. I give a damn about what their policies would be, and what hopes, ideals and dreams they intend to realise.

As a non-American, I don't get to vote for one of these people next year (heck, for that matter, neither do disenfranchised Americans) but that doesn't mean that this election doesn't effect me. In many ways (the "War on Terror", climate change, etc), those of us outside the US are just as effected by White House policy as Americans themselves.

So, I implore those of you that can vote to a) do so; b) encourage everybody you know to do so; and c) vote for the candidate that will do the most to repair the damage done in the last six years by the current incumbent.

Please, the last anybody needs is another head-in-the-sand US administration. We're not exactly at the last chance saloon just yet but four more years of politics ad absurdum isn't going to help make things better.

Re:Who gives a crap? Just vote for the right perso

[Waynelson]

The fact that slashdot seems to think this is newsworthy is absolutely absurd. As many others said the candidates probably don't know anything about what servers their respective campaigns are running. Furthermore, this looks like an attempt at political influence based on this 'information'. If as a voter you choose based on a small thing like server OS, you really don't deserve to vote IMO. Maybe instead we could see more useful information on the candidate's respective views on OSS policy and DRM issue

Re:Who gives a crap? Just vote for the right perso

[GodfatherofSoul]

Don't tell me about the importance of elections; we've seen the results of uninformed and apathetic voters over the last 6 years. Even some of the most die-hard dittoheads are abandoning ship (you'll hear a lot more people calling themselves "Libertarian" rather than "Conservative" nowadays). But, you're telling me that you don't find it interesting that there's such a disparity in Linux preference and that it doesn't belong on Slashdot?

Yeah, Ok, whatever.

[east coast]

Is this preference for OSS or Microsoft a true reflection of differing political philosophies?

Most of these guys (and gals) know nothing of what kind of software their web server or such is running. They're just like most others who pay to have these kinds of things put together: they hire out another party to have them take care of the details. Or do you mean to tell me that people here really think that Obama is busy working on his HTML skills between campaign stops?

Ron Paul & Linux

[AnyThingButWindows]

If Ron Paul wins, then Linux will too.

telnet www.ronpaul2008.com 80
Trying 74.205.85.10...
Connected to www.ronpaul2008.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
HEAD / HTTP/1.1

HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 17:17:44 GMT
Server: Apache/2.0.52 (Red Hat)
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1

Connection closed by foreign host.

Re:Ron Paul & Linux

[Khaed]

If Ron Paul wins I won't have to buy gas anymore because I'll simply catch a ride with a flying pig to work.

Seriously, Ron Paul is the right version of Kucinich. He stands about the same chance of winning the Republican nomination as Hillary does of winning a beauty pageant.

What an utterly...

[stubear]

...fucking stupid premise. If you base your vote on this, stop voting from now on, please.

More likely marketer's preferences...

[rdean400]

I don't think it's a political thing. It's more likely that they hire their PR/marketing firm and they choose where to host the site.

A better and actually relevant question

[trianglman]

Do the candidates know what software their web servers run or even care?

Re:

[OrangeTide]

and John Kerry ($750m), Herb Kohl($243m), Jay Rockefeller($200m), Jane Harman($172m), Dianne Feinstein($42m), Edward Kennedy($19m), Jeff Bingaman, Tom Harkin, Mark Dayton, Jon Corzine. Most years the few top richest democrats in congress dwarf the holdings of most republicans. It's nice and all to vote for people who are for just us regular folks, but it's kind of hard to believe someone can relate to you when they are have 1000x more money. I think the idea that republicans are rich fat cats is a myth, or

it's the Duopoly

[ChristTrekker]

True, that. (Thanks for the figures. I didn't have them handy.) We don't have a Democratic and a Republican party, we have a single Politician Party. One monster, two heads, that call each other names in order to distract us.

Re:Why?

[Brandybuck]

Republicans are rich and Democrats are not (except Hilliary)

Except Obama... and Edwards... and Gore... ...

Re:It *does* reflect thinking of the candidates

[RailGunner]

This is also mirrored in funding. Dems (especially this cycle) will tend to get lots of smaller donations, while Republicans will get larger and fewer donations. Check the news stories.

You should check the news stories, because you've got the donation patterns backwards. The GOP gets smaller, but more, donations, and the Democrats get larger and fewer donations from Hollywood and George Soros types.

Re:It *does* reflect thinking of the candidates

[esconsult1]

Dude, (or dudette), read this and weep:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/donordems.asp?cy cle=2008 [opensecrets.org]

For the under $200 donations, here's the breakdown:
Dems: 34,705
Reps: 27,710

From the graphs it looks like some other candidates get a larger portion of http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/geog.asp?id=N000 00286&cycle=2008

So please, don't trot out the usual suspects (Hollywood and George Soros) before doing some research.

Re:It *does* reflect thinking of the candidates

[RailGunner]

Link to article discussing the "soft-money" donations, and how the GOP is wiping the floor with the Dems. [findarticles.com]

Your OpenSecrets link is misleading and inaccurate, because politicians are not required to report the number of sub $200 donations. When you look at the $5 and $10 donations, etc, and do the math correctly, the GOP comes out way ahead of the Democrats right now.

Campaign Finance Reform helped the GOP, too. [newsmax.com] From that article: The Supreme Court's ruling on campaign finance gives the Republicans, who raise far more in small donations, a big advantage in next year's elections for the White House and Congress.

flamebait

[Billly Gates]

I have no idea how this was modded up and didn't bother to read the last half.

For those who read my comments and I am not a gnu zealot nor am I 100% pro linux but it has its uses as a server and IT professionals swear by unix. I like MS environments where its right for the job and nice as a clients.

But to say Linux is immature and years behind windows is flamebait to say the least. Still and I mean still Windows/IIS has not overtaken Unix! Now switching the tables how many years has the www been out? Apache