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Comment by JPKab | Hacker News Reader

This writer should do a little research and educate himself on the DoD software community a little bit. The DoD has been using Linux for years. Red Hat has HUGE contracts within the DoD, there is an entire cloud ecosystem stood up on Linux hosted by Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA).

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This is one of the more notable contributions the DoD has made to Linux: http://www.nsa.gov/research/selinux/

Part of the reason so many people use Red Hat specifically instead of Debian, say, is rules prohibiting the use of "freeware". But if you pay Red Hat for Linux, suddenly it isn't freeware anymore.

You're completely wrong on this. The software released under the GPL should not at all be assimilated to freeware and even Stallman encourages to sell GPL software. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html Companies pay Red Hat to get QA, support, liability and some level of interaction with the development community.

I know its not actually freeware, that's why I used scare quotes. The thing is though, that under the purchasing rules we used when I was working for the DOD all software acquired free of charge was categorized as "freeware" and we couldn't use it in deliverables. Hence the use of Red Hat, we couldn't actually make use of their support because it was going on classified machines but the mere fact that they took our money meant that we could get past certification.

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