What the Candidates are Running

An anonymous reader writes " Linux Journal has an article about what the presidential candidates are running their web sites on. It also has some reference to the Republican vs. Democrat uptimes. "

Yes..

[Pave Low]

let's discuss the most trivial things like 'boxer or briefs', 'macs or pcs' or 'what powers your website' , instead of some real substance that might really affect you or your vote.

Does anyone...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone really think the candidates know, or even care? 'Course they don't. They say "go make a web site" to some design/hosting company and that's that.

Typical

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

The fact that this is reported is proof that democracy is very flawed in some of the basic assumptions. Not to single out geeks (and I admit, I looked at the article with some interest I suppose) but people just don't know how to select who to vote for. The mainstream picks their candidate based on likability and how attractive they are and whether they wear the right colored suit or seem smug. You can have a great set of policies that are very sound but wear the wrong tie and you'll lose a few million people. Candidates need to start standing on policy, not the junk that gets reported (OS, favorite food, hair color, etc.)

significance, yes!

[ylikone]

A person may base his choice of toothpaste on his religion.

A goverment may deal with companies that reflect their economic values (ie/ republicans go for big company, microsoft, product).

useful information

[GirTheRobot]

Obviously the democrats have chosen a superior platform to host their *cough* platform. The Republicans have apparently adopted inferior technology in the name of capitalism (go big business!!!). That, or their web admins are horribly inept.

Either way, this report does not reflect well on the IT abilities of the RNC.

Re:Typical

[WhoDey]

Thank you for assuming that anyone reading that article is probably an idiot and would actually let it influence the way they vote. I'm sorry that I am not as smart as you and cannot just read the article because I find it interested and still vote on a candidate because of his policies.

Re:Does anyone...?

[NMerriam]

Although it could possibly say something about their supporters, the people who volunteer time, bandwidth and equipment to a candidate.

For example, corporations donating services are probably more likely to provide a commercial OS/Server than a group of IT grunts who want to volunteer services but don't see a point in buying commercial licenses.

This doesn't matter

[wonky73]

What possible conclusions can you possibly draw from this? Most of the candidates probably don't even know they have a website. Somebody in their campaign hires a firm to stick up a website and they do. This has nothing to do with the polititcs of the candidates.

Re:Netcraft confirms it!

[Golias]

Carter never pronounced nuclear right either, and he was a "NUCULAR" engineer in the Navy. It must be a southern accent thing.

Re:Dean

[Elbow Macaroni]

Yeah that's because he's smart enough to know who to hire!

That's who we need in office, someone who will hire people smarter than him to do a good job. That's what Clinton did and it worked.

Bush likes to hire people at his same intelligence level or just plain crazy.

Re:Also This Month on the Newsstand...

[fizban]

If the government dictated what style of clothes are legal to wear, you'd probably be very interested in that GQ issue...

Oh brother

[Geekenstein]

Yes, these candidates made a conscious decision on what OS to run their web sites on. Yes, they know what they are running. Yes, they all know they even have websites.

Quick, base your votes on this!

As to the "reporter" who thought this was a worthwhile test of a candidate, go back to the New York Times. :)

This is stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

99% of presidential candidates don't know anything about computers, other than that they're fancy typewriters and they can send and recieve e-mail. Do you think they even KNOW what OS their websites are running on? Anyone who actually applies this to their voting decision is a complete idiot.

Re:useful information

[Elbow Macaroni]

Bash! For the Patriot Act. Bash!Bash! For the politcal term "partial birth abortion" which is not even medical terminology and can be construed in many different ways. Bash!Bash!Bash! For holding people without charges in Guantanamo Bay. Bash!Bash!Bash!Bash! So sue me.

Re:Any significance? Nope.

[taybin]

There's no conflict. Atheism is a religion just like the null string ("") is a string. :)

Re:Green party

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come now. Every time some Democrat says that, it amazes me. If EVERY SINGLE Nader voter voted for Gore, do you know what would have happened? Gore would have won by even more.

In particular, in Florida, people think that the number of Nader voters could have put Gore "over the top". The problem is, when the votes were actually recounted, it was discovered that Gore was already over the top. He didn't need Nader voters to win Florida. He just needed the votes to get counted.

However, it certainly could not have hurt Gore to distinguish himself from Bush in some meaningful way. Remember, Bush hadn't even talked about his plans to invade Iraq. Gore went on record during the debates as supporting every US invasion of foreign countries in recent history (remember? anyone?) Hindsight is more than 20/20. Gore only looks good because Bush is the one that came to power.

Re:a 90 Day Average of 395 days...

[klaussm]

But if they have an uptime of almost 400 days and are running Linux, it also means that they are still vulnerable to the ptrace vulnerability [lwn.net].

Not very smart :-(

Re:Green party

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to be a troll, but I have to add to this.

More importantly, more Democrats voted for Bush than voted for Nader. Democrats have only themselves and the Supreme Court to blame.

If they want people to stop voting for Nader, they should adopt a liberal platform and stop accepting donations from corporations.

Re:So What???

[Hard_Code]

Howard Dean is savvy enough to have Lawrence Lessig on his 'net advisory council.

'Nuff Said.

Re:Who cares?!?

[evought]

1) We're geeks, looking at this is fun.

2) If/When they end up running the country, they will also be selecting staff. Something that reflects on their staff reflects on their ability to choose competent staff.

Re:Dennis Kucinich

[laird]

"For those of you who haven't paid attention to history, it was roughly two years between Reagan's big tax cuts and when tax receipts increased."

It was less than a year between Reagan's big tax cuts and Reagan's big tax increases. Those were the single largest tax increase in US history, incidentally, though the end result of a massive cut (that completely failed to generate new revenue) and the massive increase (to restore the revenue without which the government would have been wiped out) was still a small decrease from the previous taxes.

"people gave more money to charity before taxation became so fscking oppressive in this country." Right, but did total social spending go up or down? Quick answer -- up. When the government fund homeless shelters, etc., they're more consistent than private donors, though of course both are good.

Re:Netcraft confirms it!

[Xerithane]

I'm sure he studied that definition and that is exactly why the president pronounces it that way.

Or perhaps it's because he's from Texas. And go listen to a speech by Carter, who is well versed in "nucular" engineering.

Re:Dennis Kucinich

[Trolling4Dollars]

The problem with your suggestion about charity is that people are not naturally very charitable. Even less so these days and it has nothing to do with taxes and more to do with the selfishness our culture and capitalism encourage. Americans have become like freakin' Pokemon collectors when it comes to money. They try to get as much as they can for themselves. The end result is corruption in every facet of society that deals with large amounts of money (government, corporations, churches, etc...).

Good luck trying to get the average joe to contribute to things they believe in. Most people can't be bothered to do much because there isn't enough time in the day. As it is, for myself I make a contribution to a local charity to provide Thanksgiving dinners for the homeless. But, I can't be arsed to do much more than that because I've got other things to worry about. I'd much rather have the funds automatically deducted from my paycheck so I don't even have to think about it. I care about my fellow man, but I haven't the time or energy to do anything about it. I would love to give more to people who need it, but I don't care for the work related charities like United Way or religious organizations. I much prefer a system with no "god" connection that is impersonal and impartial. the closest thing going it government. Well... at least until G.W. Chimpboy stole the office.

Taxes aren't the perfect solution, but they've provided me with plenty of needed services over my lifetime so I have no interest in seeing them go away. The fools who proclaim that they don't want to pay taxes are typically more interested in their own personal gain. But as soon as some public service deteriorates or disappears because of the lack of funding, they cry out wondering why this happened. I'll tell you why morons, there's no money to pay for it because your being an arse and putting it all into your own personal till.

Re:Any significance? Nope.

[bamberg]

Of course it matters what the definition of the word actually is. You only claim that the OED is irrelevant because it disproves your point.

Your claim about Paul and Mohammad is somewhat bizarre. Both catholics and protestants call themselves "christians" but there are certainly a lot of problems in Ireland, where they seem to have noticed their theological differences. I can see no reason to assume things would be different in the Middle East.

This is actually a debate I have had many times with many different theists. The typical response at this point is to repeat "Atheism is a religion", perhaps adding "La-la-la-la-la I can't hear you." Argument by assertion is typical of theists, who desperately wish that atheism was a religion so they could try to meet it on equal ground. Theists would like to be able to claim that atheism is solely a matter of belief no more valid then their own religion when instead it is simply an open-minded lack of belief in the absence of evidence.

If you decide to respond, please do so with something other than argument by assertion.