Randal Schwartz in studio at TWiT

Randal Schwartz of FLOSS Weekly stopped by the TWiT Cottage today and will join the panel for Today's recording of TWiT.

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Randal Schwartz
[this is good]
That's me in the corner. That's me in the spot... light. Losing my sense-of-decency-and-respect-but-that-doesn't-scan. :)
Ken Fallon
Hi Randal/Leo,

On this episode of Twit, you mentioned that you don't run Linux on anything important. While you are of course free to run any OS you like (what's the point of free software if you can't chose not to use it) I was a bit concerned that the statement may give off the wrong impression. As I said in the email to you and Leo, Linux runs a lot of important stuff; 459 of the top 500 super computers, the New York Stock exchange, not to mention several servers at your work.

I would very much love to hear the logic behind the statement as I'm sure many of the FLOSS weekly users would as well.

Regards,

Ken.
Randal Schwartz
I don't run Linux on anything I can't monitor 24x7, simply because of the number of modern security attacks that seem to be launched against it. I'm sure there are people at the NYSE who are paid to watch those linux servers 24x7. I'm not paid to do that. :) I have a server, and it runs OpenBSD, because of OpenBSD's obsession with security, so I can ignore it for a few weeks at a time and know I probably won't have missed a security update.
Ken Fallon
Thanks Randal for the reply.

Your choice of BSD is very commendable and proves that you do run FLOSS on important stuff. I now feel that you giving the impression that you were dismissing Linux out of hand was not your intention. I'm only sorry that you didn't explain that on TWiT given it's wider audience.

While I firmly believe in peoples freedom to run any OS they like, It's good to know you are practising what you preach.
Randal Schwartz
[this is good]
In fact, in response to http://linuxfiend.net/blog/2008/06/23/disaportement, I've replied:

Linux is already a dominant force in the open source world. Any show I do on Linux or Linux-desktop-related things would be “preaching to the choir”, and has already been covered to death, in my opinion. After all, look at the number of Linux-specific podcasts!

My goal with FLOSS “Weekly” bookings is to bring to the forefront those things that are worthy, but don’t have quite as much overdone press on them. This is why I brought out Git and PostgreSQL, rather than Yet Another Show on SVN or MySQL. It’s an “underdog” show.

See, I had Beta when everyone else had VHS. I owned a Mac while everyone else had X86 machines. I still run OSX on my desktop. I run OpenBSD on my server, because I don’t want to have to worry about a security break while I’m out on a cruise. (You’ve got to admit, OpenBSD is more secure.) This is what I meant by that casual comment that is now getting quoted out of context: I can’t afford to run Linux on my server, because I can’t be a full-time sysadmin, and OpenBSD runs everything that I need for that particular server. OpenBSD would be a horrible desktop machine. For my desktop friends on their generic X86, I recommend Ubuntu Linux. Yes, Linux.

I didn’t always “follow the leader”, and I was rewarded for being willing to look at the details instead of following the crowd. FLOSS reflects *my* choices, because Leo says I can. (And yes, Leo and I discuss show philosophy off-camera a lot more than you might imagine.) And having done that, the feedback I’ve gotten from many people out there is “wow, didn’t realize what git/postgres/squeak was… thanks for these shows!” So I think I’m on the right track, for the most part.

This is not to say that Mark Shuttleworth and Linus Torvalds are not on my list of desired guests. I’ll take them if they come. But in the meanwhile, I’ll keep looking for the *rest* of FLOSS besides the parts that are already overcovered.

I’m not entirely surprised by the uprise because I didn’t bow down at the Linux altar on a given show. But I am a practical guy. I use *what works*. Not just whatever my friends are also using. That’s surprising for some people, but not to the people who matter to me.

I pasted that here just in case the "moderator" decides my comment deflects their rant a bit too much. :)

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