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Interview: Query Queen Elizabeth II's Webmaster 162

Posted by Roblimo from the man-behind-the-online-throne dept.
Our interview guest this week is Mick Morgan, the man responsible for choosing Linux to run The British Monarchy's Web Site, the huge open.gov.uk Web site, and more than 80 other official U.K. sites. (continued below)

I e-mailed Mick and requested the inteview, really on a whim, the day we ran this story. To my surprise, unlike U.S. government officials and politicians who typically dither for weeks or months before answering their e-mail if they bother to answer it at all, Mick replied almost immediately with a message that said, in part, "Happy to oblige, if only to put the record straight on a few points. I can see from today's edition that there is a great deal of misunderstanding out there."

We're always happy to set things straight. And getting "the word" directly from the man himself is always better than getting it second-hand from The Sunday Times. So here we are, happily welcoming Mick Morgan to Slashdot.

Mick is a genial fellow, but please don't forget that he is also a highly-placed, trusted government official. He has laid down several necessary interview ground rules. He says, "I will not be drawn on specifics of system security (generalities I will answer at my sole discretion). Nor will I comment on UK Government policies on web usage, architectures etc. But since the questions are likely to be technical rather than policy oriented there should not be a problem."

The usual Slashdot interview rules apply: one question per post; moderators choose the most intriguing ones; editors make the final "cut" Tuesday afternoon; Mick's answers appear Friday.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Interview: Query Queen Elizabeth II's Webmaster More

Interview: Query Queen Elizabeth II's Webmaster

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  • A Question for Mike (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Since the offical line in the civil service is Microsoft only, how did you manage to fit Linux ?
  • In the UK, is Linux/Open-source software used only for web servers or is there more widespread adoption (internal servers/desktops, etc)?

  • Which distro? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What distribution of Linux do you use?

  • Why not BSD ? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Hi

    You say that you switched to Linux to replace Sun boxes because they were old.

    Wouldn't the change to one of BSD's been more natural since SunOS was based on BSD ?

  • Excellent question! Somebody moderate that up..
  • I would like a bit of basic detail about the site -- what kind of load does it handle on an average day, what sort of hardware is it running on, etc.

    ----

  • Did you use the Official distribution of Linux, or a download version?

  • Does the Queen surf on her own or is a servant moving the Royal mouse over common hyperlinks? :-)
  • So, is it Red Hat Linux by royal appointment?
    --
  • I think you're confusing Linux with Red Hat. In fact, Red Hat has no special "official" status: it is simply one Linux distribution amongst many, although a perfectly good one.
    --
  • AFAIK, .nsf file extensions are used by Lotus Domino. Maybe that's what they were using before, and that was a stale link?

    --
    Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page [slappy.org]
  • Does the Queen read Slashdot?

    :-/

    --
    Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page [slappy.org]

  • What challenges does public administration and government pose to computer operations, that are different from the challenges typically found in commercial or other non-governmental environments? Do you have specific requirements with respect to availability, performance, standards-compliancy, archiving for future access etc, that are perhaps less often heard from commercial users?

    How well do you think those challenges are met by the proprietary software model and by the open source model, respectively? Does either side have any particular advantage in your area, either today or in the foreseeable future?

  • Are there user groups (either formal or informal) established specifically for government users such as yourself, where you can trade ideas and experiences with your colleagues in, say, local governments, separate branches of the national govenment, or even foreign governments or public administration?

    In short, when you have a technical problem, where do you turn for help with the solution: to fellow government computing operations managers, to the GNU/Linux community, or to a paid consultant?

  • If I understand the original article correctly, you have 85 web sites going. How do you admin these in terms of reporting, monitoring, etc.?
  • Would you mind giving us a rundown on the hardware you're using, as well as how many/what kinds of hits you get, and how well the machine(s) stand up to it?

    --Chouser
  • [...]
    Linux blows Sun out of the water in terms of price/performance (which is obvious since Linux is free), [...]

    Don't forget to factor in the time required to set up a Linux erver compared to a Solaris server. To some extent it depends on your experience which is faster, but I'd wager that it's easier to get a really solid HA Solaris box up and serving pages than a Linux box. Support for RAID hardware, failover and so on is in the early stages, and requires a good deal of tinkering to get working right.

    As JWZ [jwz.org] says, Linux is only free if your time has no value. Well, I wouldn't gop that far, but I do see where he's coming from.


    --
    W.A.S.T.E.

  • Personal question... (Score:3)

    by Dicky ( 1327 ) <slash3@vmlinuz.org> on Monday November 01, 1999 @07:44AM (#1572359) Homepage
    What is your background? Are you a techie, an admin person, or an other? Do you use Linux personally? If so, did you come from a Unix, Windows or other background?

    And a related question: What is the primary system around your department?
  • Nor will I comment on UK Government policies on web usage, architectures etc.

    This is a shame as given BillG's recent highly publicised visits to the UK trying to push MSWare into schools this would be something we want to know about.

    However, If you were asked by say a commons fact finding commitee, as a government employee and expert in the field, about software in UK schools would you:

    a) Recommend general usage of open source software e.g. For client and Server?

    b) Recommend it for specialised areas e.g File server, Web Server, Internet Gateway?

    c) Not recommend it at all?
  • What sort of technology are you running other than Linux/Apache for dynamic content and content management?

    For example, are you running mod_perl, php, or some other solution (plain CGI perhaps?). I noted that something ending in .nsf is used which I hadn't seen before (which interestingly gave me a 404 style error when I clicked on it :)). I'm guessing that tells me you're using ftp for content management...

  • I have used *BSD clones since Jolitz' 386BSD 0.1, and the original Linux release, so I'm not blinkered by any particular viewpoint.

    1. Actually, it's not. Solaris is still more scalable than Linux, though how long that will continue to be true is debatable.
    2. Actually, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD are regarded as more stable than Linux. I've not heard about the stability of BeOS, QNX, ExoPC, eCos, or any of the other minor players, but there's no reason why any of them should be unstable.
    3. The most scalable hardware platform today is the same as it was 5-6 years ago, the Transputer. There is no upper limit to how far you can scale it, and most of the chipset is built in, so you only need to put a single piece of wire in to link two transputers together. No mega-expensive motherboards needed. Linux doesn't run on the transputer, and the only transputer driver made for it was released prior to Linux kernel 1.0.
    4. Sorry, but OpenBSD beats the socks off Linux for security. As much as I like Linux, it can't challange built-in IPSEC and line-by-line auditing for security. To get comparable security, you'd need to apply OpenWall, Trustee, iKernel and FreeSwan patches.
    5. Linux is =NOT= the be-all and end-all. That's as blinkard as arguing that Windows 2000 is usable. The *BSD clones and the minor OS' =all= have their place in the world. You pick the RIGHT tool for the RIGHT job. The best hammer in the world will NEVER make a useful spoon.
  • I have credibility in that department? :) When did that happen? :)

    Seriously, I don't pretend to be consistant. Even when I know better, I'll often ignore that, for one reason or another. (And usually not very good reasons, either. Though sometimes they are.)

    On the flip-side, I can't resist asking why, if Windows 2000 is usable, it's still in beta and many of it's extensions are listed as only just into alpha? :)

    Besides, it also depends on your definition of usable. I'd challange anyone to run Windows 2000 on my computer - a Cyrix MediaGX with 16 megs RAM. If it can't be run on my machine, then to me, it's not usable. I'm not even sure if the motherboard I'm using'll -support- enough RAM to run Windows 2000.

  • Some of these can be addressed with patches.
    • Journaling is now supported(ish) with Reiserfs.
    • Failover is supported(ish) with Heartbeat.
    • ACL's are supported by ACL and Trustees. Further security can be obtained via OpenWall and FreeSwan IPSec.

  • What's the official reaction... (Score:5)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@ y a hoo.com> on Monday November 01, 1999 @07:42AM (#1572365) Homepage Journal
    ...to these sites running Linux?

    Assuming the British Government, and Her Majesty, aware that their public image on the Internet is being presented via software that is non-traditional and non-commercial, what do they think of it all?

    Given the infamous traditionalist attitude of the Civil Service (Sir Humphrey Appleby is alive, well and encrypting everything into English), I can see the possibility of some "concerns" being expressed by people who know just enough to be dangerous.

    On the other hand, the Civil Service, et al, hire experts to worry about technical issues, so that senior officials don't have to, which would imply that nobody not involved in the decision would know or even care if the web server used Linux or HP Sauce.

    On the third hand (a consequence of drinking large quantities of Typhoo :), given the press' love of so-called "cyper-terrorism" escapades, it wouldn't be unsurprising of Her Majesty, or the Rt Hon Tony to march down to the server room, give the senior manager a clip round the lughole, and tell them to shift from Microsoft by yesterday or be fed to the royal corgis.

  • When you consider that all universities in the UK are public institutions, and combine this with the widespread use of linux in government (if open.gov.uk is anything to go by), the UK government must be one of the largest institutional linux and OSS users in the world. Presumably there is similar use of linux and OSS at the local government level.

    Is there any coordination of linux and OSS use across the public sector or has use developed in a haphazard way across the government and educational sectors?

    Would the public sector community benefit from some form of centralised co-ordination (distributions, patch repositories, support, listservs) or do you see the organic model as being more useful?

    Nick

  • Does the Queen read Slashdot?
  • It has been suggested recently (sorry, no URLs) that the UK government is to introduce a policy to allow low income families inexpensive computers in order to get more British people 'on the net'. Now as I understood it this would be a rental deal involving refurbished computers, ie second hand.

    Are you in a position to recomend that these computers get shipped with linux? The advantages of this I see are:

    1. Linux is free. As in no money, making it cheaper for these low income families.

    2. Linux is free. As in Nelson Mandela, meaning the source code is available. There were a lot of people in the early to mid eighties who started programming their spectrums and c64s etc in their bedrooms and went on to careers in the industry. With linux shipping with full source it once again promotes individuals to get down to programming. This can only do good for a nation's skill-base in a modern hi-tech world society.

    3. Linux runs on less powerful machines very nicely. So lower spec and therefore cheaper machines can be used. And for the techies there is nothing like being machine limited to make you write more efficient code.

    4. The powers that be can put together their own flavour of a distribution to give technophobes just what they want and no more. A word processor, email client and web browser is all that many people want, they don't even want to have to install it for themselves. This is certainly possible with several of the desktop environments available.

    Richard Forster
  • I understand enough about British Government to know your bosses won't be telling you to drop Linux. ( Even if they care ). But what about people from outside ? Has anyone said "Switch to our system and we will ___" or "drop Linux or we will ___". Has someone even asked nicely ?
  • One would think that working for the Royal Family in almost any capacity
    would be a high profile position. Is it possible that you could have any influence on the broader
    acceptance and use of Linux and other Open Source/Free Software in the U.K. and Europe in general?

    ----------------

    "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein
  • Only Digital unix has acheived B2 certification.

    Actually, no. Data General's DG/UX has had a B2 rating for many years. In fact, I'm fairly sure it beat OSF1 / Digital Unix / True64 / whatever they're calling it today, and was they first B2 rated Unix.

  • In the original coverage of the unveiling of the Queen's website there was many a mention of the choice being made to use linux instead of solaris which was pretty much the second choice and the standard there before linux. The info there was at best vague and showed no real compelling reason to pick linux over solaris or why solaris was even the second choice. A few recent surveys of solaris 7, linux and NT have given solaris 7 the edge on web service over both linux and NT. And solaris seems to be holding its own against linux and NT in the marketplace. Since the press rarely gets these things right some advice or opinion from a real person having experience in both linux and solaris as well as runnning a high load web server would go a long way.

    Could you spend some words explaining why linux is more compelling to you in this instance over solaris 7? Please delve into some technical depth.
  • I'd like to know what your title is. Is it something like 'webmaster to Her Highness The Queen'?

    -jh
  • Why not stick with Solaris? Was it price, performance on low end hard ware, ease of administration?
    Andrew Gardner
  • Being an American, I'm unclear with how products get those little seals that say "By appointment to Her Majesty" or something like that. Any chance of obtaining that status for Linux in general, for the distribution you use, or for Apache?

  • > The belief that OpenBSD or FreeBSD is more secure than Linux is total bullshit. Here's some anecdotal evidence about the level of security available from an out-of-the-box OpenBSD. http://www.daemonnews.org/199910/open bsd.html [daemonnews.org]

    I'm not a *BSD user but I think one can't ignore the auditing that has gone into the OS.

  • Would HM consider contacting her favourite web sites and allowing them to show a nice "By apointment" image?
  • what is you assesment of OSS(open source software) and its competion with commercial, closed source software?
  • What were the main benefits you expected to achieve from migrating to Linux and do you feel these have materialised?

  • Redundancy (Score:3)

    by Ryandav ( 5475 ) on Monday November 01, 1999 @07:30AM (#1572380) Homepage Journal
    What kind of redundancy do you build into the server system for such a large and important site,
    ie. round-robin style servers or large, beefy superboxes, etc...

  • My question is what prompted you to choose linux over another unix solution? While cost may have been a factor, I find it difficult to believe your government was that strapped for cash. =)

    I understand security plays an important role in your decision - and I'll understand if you turn down this part of the question - I'm just curious as to why you picked linux specifically instead of, say, NetBSD?



    --
  • Are you aware of any of the royal family who use linux, or maybe have some real hacking abilities?
  • Wich kind of metrics did you use to choose Linux as the "Crown" Web Server? Certainly, money is not a restriction when we speak of the British Crown.
  • Most of the posts so far have been involving the server side stuff. I'm wondering what kind of hardware / OS / connectivity / security goes into the royal residences. I'm assuming the royals all have computers in their studies / home offices, but i'm wondering what kind of systems they use, and what the connectivity and security going into the royal residences is. Something tells me they don't use AOL :) Something also hopes that they use imacs.

  • Changes (Score:4)

    by chromatic ( 9471 ) on Monday November 01, 1999 @07:29AM (#1572385) Homepage

    If you could add or change three things about Linux to make your job easier or more enjoyable, what would they be?

    --
    QDMerge [rmci.net] 0.4!
  • Linux is =NOT= the be-all and end-all. That's as blinkard as arguing that Windows 2000 is usable.

    Even it that was meant to be a joke, I think it undermines your credibility in the 'Practice what you Preach' department...



  • From my experience:
    Support for software RAID is almost irrelevant, as most serious platforms perform RAID in the SCSI controller.
    Support for harware RAID controllers seems very good under Linux today. The driver for the Compaq SMART series works very well (for me.)
    RedHat 6.0 installs *very* smoothly on multiprocessor, RAID compaq hardware.
    Debian was much more difficult, including patching the kernel and lilo, and re-comiling. These steps were well documented and mostly straightforward.
    Compaq hardware costs as much as Sun hardware (so I have heard) but you get more for the money. At the 20,000-30,000 US$ level you can get 2 to 4 processors, hardware RAID, hot swappable HDD's, rack mount, dual redundant power supplies, dual PCI busses etc.

    ...Just some thoughts on the matter.

  • Does Linux get the Royal Seal of Approval? (Score:3)

    by The Dodger ( 10689 ) on Monday November 01, 1999 @07:48AM (#1572388) Homepage

    Can coders whose contributions have been included in the Linux kernel now use the Royal Crest on their websites, with the legend "By Appointment to Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II, Developers of Open Source Operating Systems"?

    Seriously, though, how much of a concern is security - e.g. the fear that hacktivists might use the site to spread propeganda - and do you receive help from UNIRAS and the CESG?

    D.
    ..is for Dastardly!

  • Alongside the switch to Linux as a server os for the Royal web site, it has been reported that the Queen is in fact surfing the web.

    The obvious question - is this true or not?

    And if it is true, can you ask her to grant Slashdot an interview as well? :-)

    ------------------
  • i figured you would be better equipped than most to answer this...

    do they surf open.gov.ok and ever comment on your work? have you gotten to meet them and talk about this kind of stuff? what about members of parliament? are any of them super-techies? will i run into prince willim or harry on IRC?

  • Re:why not bsd? (Score:3)

    by bmetzler ( 12546 ) <bmetzlerNO@SPAMlive.com> on Monday November 01, 1999 @10:23AM (#1572391) Homepage Journal
    What made you choose linux as opposed to *bsd?

    It was to be 'leet, of course.

    How can people thin you're cool if you say you are running OpenBSD, when no one's heard of OpenBSD. Now, everyone's heard about Linux, that's cool.

    -Brent
    --
  • http://www.nds.coi.gov.uk/coi/coipress.nsf/9ddbc45 f95 8c5511802565f40075e4d6/93d402f4841af310802565a9005 a73a2?OpenDocument [coi.gov.uk]

    This is probably the link he was talking about. It is definitely a Lotus Domino link to Notes database. The .nsf is all Domino and the funky url stuff afterward is all Domino as well.

    It's broken
  • This link [ccta.gov.uk] obviously points to a working Notes database. Do you manage any Domino servers? If so, would you keep them as is, move them off Domino, or move them to Domino on Linux?
  • How many people are working on the Royal web site, and the other Government sites?
    Is your development done internally, or do you outsource much of the work?
    Was Linux difficult to introduce, or were your developers and management amenable to the idea?
  • Like Pokey! Does Her Majesty read POKEY THE PENGUIN [yellow5.com]? I bet she does! TEll her, we all say Thanks! They make more comics just for her!

    Hoorj!

  • Why does open.gov.uk carry advertising? What's the official policy, and how do you avoid it being seen as an endorsement of particular retailers?

    Do you think it's right that a government-run, public service website, paid for by the taxpayer, should carry ads (think BBC)?

    Gerv
  • After being gifted all the benefits and the same peace-of-mind enjoyed by so many of us relying on Linux, will you consider recommending Richard Stallman et al as a Knight of the British Empire?

    I cannnot think of a finer moment than watching steaming video of a naked sword reflecting the sallow yet awesome visage of Stallman from each shoulder.

    (There are so very few formal honors for the fewer intrepid and truly distinguished software engineers.)
  • Acknowledging privacy concerns, I am still interested in what sites she visits - that is, as a public figure what sites does she visit.

    Or.

    What are the sites that you like to visit?

    ciao,
    -rob
  • Who do you use for your Linux training and consulting?
    --
  • I mean seriously, so what? To my knowlege, there are a few other sites that ar powered by Linux, I think there really isn't any reason for getting all exited. It's not like this is the first time some well know company/organisation/whatever is deploying Linux as a server.

    Sorry about the trollish tone, but I just don't get it.

  • Comparison to Sun Solaris (Score:5)

    by Raul Acevedo ( 15878 ) <raul AT cantara DOT com> on Monday November 01, 1999 @07:55AM (#1572401) Homepage
    In the original S unday Times article [sunday-times.co.uk], you are quoted as saying:
    "... you can't beat them [Linux on Intel] in the bangs for your buck department. It blows Sun out of the water..."
    Could you elaborate on how Linux compares to Solaris? Did you mean that Linux blows Sun out of the water in terms of price/performance (which is obvious since Linux is free), or just in general for your particular needs?

    I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on Linux vs. Solaris, not just in terms of price, but overall performance, reliability, maintainability, and ease of use. As a developer, I'm seeing Linux considered as an alternative to Solaris in many places, but there's little factual (or even anecdotal) information comparing the two.
    ----------

  • What platforms are you running Linux on and why? x86, Alpha, PPC, mips, Sparc, ....

    Thanks, and keep up the good work.
    GRH
  • Previous /. posts suggest Linux is being used widely through the United Kingdom's civil service. How widely? Are some folks running servers (old legacy boxes or new applications) on Solaris, BSD, NT, or some other OS?

  • A general security question (ie. not specific) (Score:5)

    by anthonyclark ( 17109 ) on Monday November 01, 1999 @07:24AM (#1572404)
    Do you get many cracker/script kiddie attacks on the various web sites you run?
  • How much traffic does the Royal Server get on a daily basis?

    ("B./." that is... before Slashdot linked to it!)
    ---
    The statement below is true.
  • As I understand it, "By Appointment" is only available if a member of the royal family uses the product personally and for some period of time. Using it personally presumably wouldn't be applicable here.

    (Unfortunately my program analog [cam.ac.uk] is used on Her Majesty's site [royal.gov.uk], but fails the same test!)

  • It's Her Majesty, not Her Royal Highness, by the way. HRH is only for lesser royals.
  • Did you use Linux before you started to use it for this job?
  • Have you contributed to any free software projects, either at work or in your free time?
  • I assume that these sites get hit often and hit hard... What made you think that Linux could hold up to the pressure, and has it performed as you had hoped?
  • I'd like to know specifically why you choose run the site on linux. What features of linux did you find most appealing? What other platforms did you evaluate? What did you look for in your future OS? Low cost? Stability? Availability? What was most important in choosing a new os?

    Please give us your reasons for choosing linux over all those other OS'es.

    -henrik
  • Many of us in the IT field believe that Linux is the most effective and efficient OS for the organizations we work for. At the same time, we have a hard time selling it and changing the status quo.

    As someone who was "sold" on linux, can you tell us what specifically you liked and disliked--the major advantages and disadvantages you saw, as they related to your site. For example, did the lack of/meager support for the OS bother you?
  • Did you assign a disk quota for the Queen (and the rest of the royal family), or do you just let them fill your drives with crap (heh....Her Majesty with a 20 gig drive full of MP3s...hee hee!)
    -Andy Martin
  • Linux, and Open Software/Free Software in general, is often perceived to be everything from anarchic, Left, and communitarian to libertarian and meritocratic. Clearly, these categories are self-contradictory (I tend to believe that Free Software is the former rather than the latter), but it is almost never considered to be supportive of hierarchy, or conservative models of organization. There's no reason to believe that using the product of a Left-leaning community would threaten the Royal Family, but did this cause you any concern? Was there any resistance to your decision to use Linux on these grounds?

    David
  • I've got what's probably a fairly odd question here;

    how does the royal family handle connectivity? Granted, they have a leased line for those webservers, to an upstream provider. But is it multi-homed? Is it redundant? Are they using Linux as a routing table broadcaster?

    Just my curiosity at it again :)

    -RISCy Business | Rabid unix guy, networking guru
  • Do you plan on publishing your quirks and qualms to help others get to use and improve Linux? When (if) you do so, do you plan on giving some sort of guidelines indicating to whom you believe Linux to be a good solution? (With your reasons listed)

    Thanks!

  • >software that is non-traditional and non-commercial

    Given that the Queen has been using email for about 30 years, she's probably used to unix-like systems. certainly more traditional than windows.

    >it wouldn't be unsurprising of Her Majesty, or
    >the Rt Hon Tony to march down to the server
    >room, give the senior manager a clip round the
    >lughole, and tell them to shift from Microsoft
    >by yesterday or be fed to the royal corgis.

    -----

    from:
    to:
    subject: re: getting 0\/\/n3d by crackers

    Her Majesty requests the pleasure of your gibbing
    in the Royal Deathmatch. You get the blunt spoon, she gets the Purdy.

    suck my corgi,
    e2r
    -----

    dave
  • According to the Netcraft probe, you're running RedHat pretty much right out of the box. It appears to be the standard Apache with very few, if any, modifications (based on my quick perusal of your site.) I just put Apache 1.3.9 on a Solaris box here in the states...after about three hours of tinkering.

    I may be asking an off-topic question: "Was this a decision based on a strong desire to use Apache, or a strong desire to use Linux?"

    Also, did you toil with anything unusual to get the box online, or is this pretty much the same type of install that we can expect out here in Linux-Land. (No specifics, please.)

    I work on the fringe of a Windows NT environment and your input would make some great kindling for a us-vs.-them debate with the Micro-heads downstairs. People in other parts of our plant think the sun rises and sets over IIS/NT4.0. Your words of encouragement would mean a lot.

    Tim Smith, Webmaster,
    St. John's Health System,
    Springfield, MO

    #30 TLS
  • Never mind that there are some pretty bad Sparc bugs out there... The original UltraSparc has a nice bug that when run in 64 bit mode, it can be halted from any process on the system, unless you fiddle with the location of memory in address space.

    We have a Ultra at where I work that has problems with its L2 cache - crashes on us once a week or so with parity errors...

    The big advatage of free unix is that you can set up redundancy, due to the low cost of hardware - I would rather have 2 PIII machines running failover than one Sun.

    Different free Unix'es are better at different things - We run OpenBSD as firewalls, Linux as client machines, FreeBSD on uniprocessor servers, and Linux on multiprocessor ones. This works well - specialization is the key.

    I'm rambling here...
  • I see Linux as the most popular Open Source operating system right now. Did You chose Linux due to its current popularity, or due to it's usability and price.

    As well, are you taking advantage of Open Source by making alterations to the code of the Open Source programs you are using?

    Streiff
    Come see my website.
    http://come.to/streiff
  • It seems to me that BSD is a rather low profile operating system, but it would certainly be my choice over Linux. Was the decision to use Linux made to increase awareness about operating system alternatives or even to increase awareness to the open source community?
  • How long have you been using Linux? and Do you use it at home?
  • While I know that he's not British, and currently resides in the US, is there any chance that QEII might knight Linus for his work, especially considering the lack of direct recompense for his (and everyone else's) work?

    And, since it is provided freely, could Red Hat put By Appointment To Her Royal Majesty on their web page? This might be cool.
  • While I would also like to know how you handle fault-tolerance, switching (hub/router?), and other techie things, there is one question I really would like to ask:

    Have any members of the Royal Family shown interest in coding, and if so, is it possible they may contribute code to one of the Linux (or other Open Access) distros?

  • Okay, so this is the obvious question, but it has to be asked by someone (shades of first post here ...):

    What made you choose Linux over a standard so-called off-the-shelf solution like Solaris or NT? Or easy-ware like Macs? If you were already a convert to Open/Free software, did you consider the *BSDs?
    And have you had occasion to regret your decision? In terms of scalability, stability, price, TCO, or your favorite marketroid jargon term?

    That's all one question. Really! Just ignore the man behind the curtain :-)

  • Open Web Standards (Score:4)

    by Simon Brooke ( 45012 ) <stillyet@googlemail.com> on Monday November 01, 1999 @08:33AM (#1572427) Homepage Journal
    I've been very pleased lately to see Open.Gov's clear policy statement [open.gov.uk] on the use of open standards. I'm personally involved in working with some large UK companies on their own Web standards policies, and having this to point to has been extremely useful to me. How difficult was it to get buy in to these standards by all the people who 'own' different Government sites, and how difficult is it to enforce?

    I notice, for example, that the Scottish Parliament's web site [parliament.uk], and my local Council's Web site [dumgal.gov.uk], do not yet conform. Without wishing to point fingers at specific organisations, is it your intention to cajole all sites within .gov.uk to conform to these standards? Is it appropriate for members of the public to draw administrators of these sites attention to these standards?

    Oh, and, by the way, keep up the good work!

  • Does Her Magesity or any of the Royal Family use computers? Are any of them Web Surfers?


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  • What hardware are you running the server off of?


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  • How did you convince the English government to approve this switch? Any advice on how to convince one's manager?


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  • I am glad the Royal Family has the common sense to employ someone competent enough to choose linux for their website. I understand your work is more facing the public than managing their PCs. I hope you also have some influence on how they perceive the internet, with any luck Buckingham palace has a dedicated 24x7 leased line, and not a dial in to freeserve :-)

    Many decisions today by our aging leadership are being made without a great deal of understanding of the scope or actual uses of the internet. Many children can explain how the internet works and what it is good for better than their parents. It causes the techno-savy crowd to complain when old fashioned laws are mis-applied to modern problems. Tony Blair just had his first contact with the web the other day.

    Now that the royal family has had good access to the internet for a while, what do you feel is the competency level of the royal family, as regards to understanding the internet and its capabilities?

    I hope that is not too sensitive a question, otherwise I will have to fall back on my second choice about load balancing, spanning multiple ISP connections with BGP4, and caching :-)

    the AntiCypher

  • Other choices (Score:3)

    by Hard_Code ( 49548 ) on Monday November 01, 1999 @07:27AM (#1572432)
    What other choices, e.g. FreeBSD, did you consider? Were there non-open-source candidates, or was open-source-ness itself a critical feature?
  • Do you think it is easier for you to adopt Linux in such a high profile way in the UK as we are known for our support of the underdog and fairness so it is easier to go against established dogma / marketing hype as opposed to the US?
  • *choke*

    There is Linux advocacy, and there is misinformation. I admire your enthusiasm, but I think it is better if we work with truth and leave the misinformation to the other side.

    Point by point...

    1. Most scalable? If you mean range (smallest to largest machine), then this is certainly true. Linux doesn't scale as high as Solaris, Irix or Unicos though.

    2. Hard to compare, because all the contendors approach the reliability of the hardware. I think Linux behaves less gracefully under swap exhaustion that some unices? And failover and journalling are only just coming on line? Hot swap is still under development?

    3. Are you implying x86 is the most scalable, reliable architecture available? Alpha servers are still way ahead on fp power. The IBM power3 is pretty hot too. SGI have outstanding SMP aritechtures. PCs suffer in reliability, partly due to the huge range of components available and partly due to low cost parts. But Linux will run on the other architectures too.

    4. Only Digital unix has acheived B2 certification. IIRC without ACLs, Linux can't even match NT3.5's C2.

    5. Maybe. It still does not have the track record of BSD, although this may be partly inertia.

    My call would be that BSD or Solaris would be good conservative choices, since they are well proven on big servers. Linux is perhaps the more future-proof option given the flood of development.
  • Now that the british royal site has switched to linux, have you been contacted by webmasters/sysops from other royal houses about your experiences with linux?

    //rdj
  • Seeing as this is a very high profile use of Linux did anyone from Microsoft contact you ?

  • Royal involvment (Score:5)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Monday November 01, 1999 @07:34AM (#1572442) Homepage Journal
    To what extent is the Royal Family involved with the site (e.g. content creation)
  • Hi Mick,

    We have learnt recently that 3 french senators proposed a law [slashdot.org] to require the use of open source software. AFAIK it's the first time officials are doing such a thing in the world. You have decided to use OSS in your daily work, can you give us the reasons of your choice (seems obvious :-) and tell us what you are thinking of the french idea ?

  • Why Linux? (Score:5)

    by fprintf ( 82740 ) on Monday November 01, 1999 @07:20AM (#1572450) Journal
    Seems like a simple question, but why Linux? It seems like all the other high powered sites are using BSD of one variant or another.

    thanks!

  • why not bsd? (Score:3)

    by Lord Kestrel ( 91395 ) on Monday November 01, 1999 @07:22AM (#1572458)
    What made you choose linux as opposed to *bsd? From what I've seen of each, bsd would be better to run for security reasons, as I would assume that the server would be under pretty much non-stop cracking attempts, DoS attacks, etc..

  • These have to be some of the most high-profile web sites in the UK.

    How much of a time-drain does it put on you, having to stay ahead of all the latest security advisories ? Does the constant security responsibility make it quite a stressful day job ?

  • Online government started as simple "shovelware" uploading of releases and documents.

    Are your customers becoming increasingly clued-up and demanding, as their experience and expectations develop ?

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