Presidential Technology

I admit that I haven't been following the 2004 presidential campaign very closely yet. But now that we're down to the last year of it, I promise I'll start.

Some of my inattention comes from the fact that there are so many Democrats with their hats in the ring. I know this is lazy, but deciding which of them to throw my good wishes behind would require doing a fair amount of research about them, and I'm not eager to do that. Especially since 2/3 of them will probably be declared non-contenders by the time I actually get to vote on any of them anyway.

Which is where the recent "debates" among the Democrats come in. There have been some off-beat questions asked of the candidates, which seem like people trying to take some intuitive shortcuts around the issues, and make a subjective opinion of who they "like". I don't approve of it... but I understand it.

Bill Clinton made headlines when he was asked the "briefs or boxers" question back in the day. This time around the Dems were asked "PC or Mac". The most common answer was "PC". Carol Mosley-Braun uses a PC, but said her son loves his Mac. Joe Lieberman apparently was turned on to wireless tech by his former running-mate, and doesn't use a desktop or laptop. Only Al Sharpton - the one candidate among them whom I've ruled out altogether - spoke up with the more P.C. answer of "Mac". "Think Different" is a nice ad slogan, but not a great litmus test for a presidential candidate, because "different" isn't necessarily "better". So I can't use this as a basis for deciding which of them I'd most like to party with. Incidentally, it's not a bad showing for Apple; statistically this was better than the market share they've managed to hold onto in the face of the Microsoft juggernaut.

The Linux Journal has conducted a survey of their own, which hints at some philosophical differences among the candiates. Gentle digital probing of the various candidates' web sites reveals what operating system and web server software they're using.

The President, not surprisingly, runs his campaign site with Microsoft's Internet Information Server on Windows 2000. So does the Republican National Committee. Despite Mr. Bill's moderate social agenda, the GOP is fond of him as a fellow plutocrat, and they approve of his empire. Democrats Dick Gephart and John Edwards are using the same IIS software. This is in character with Gephardt's status as a well-funded Washington insider.

An interesting wrinkle in Edwards' case is that the probes indicated that his IIS software is secured from internet attacks by a firewall running on the Netware operating system (probably Novell's Border Manager), which suggests that his IT staff are at least aware of the vulnerability of their software, and know enough to turn to reputable independent vendors for solutions.

The other Democratic candidates and the Democratic National Committee are all running their sites with the free, open-source Apache web server. Half of them are running it on Linux, most of the rest are using its cousin FreeBSD. Only the iconclastic Sharpton is using a commercial version of Unix (Sun's Solaris). Running for president takes a lot of money, so most of these operations are presumably looking to get the most bang for those bucks, either by setting up shop using well-tested freely-available software, or renting space from hosting providers who've made that cost-effective choice for them.

LinuxJournal.com didn't bother to check any other parties, but the Green Party are Apache and Linux users. No great surprise there, since the ideals of internationalism and sharing, and a general distrust of corporations that originally launched the "free software" movement, are very consistent with the Greens' progressive ideals. For them to be running Microsoft software would be seen as both a betrayal of their principles and a waste of donated funds. Not be mention just not being as smart as the Greens tend to be.

But I'm a little surprised at the Libertarians, whose party site is also Apache/Linux, as is candidate Michael Badnarik's. Candidate Gary Nolan uses the old Netscape server on Solaris. On one hand, I can see that they'd appreciate the liberty aspect of free software (known in international circles as "libre" software), but they've been among the most strident opponents of the anti-trust suits against Microsoft as an example of the regulations that get in the way of free enterprise. Not that this means they're obligated to buy Microsoft themselves, of course; a free market means they can use something else if it suits them. Nolan's even entitled to keep using a discontinued product line like Netcape's server.

Leave it to the eccentric Natural Law Party to stump the probes. They're using a web hosting service for their party site which either masks the true identity of the web server software they're using, or is a proprietary package they've developed themselves (which is unlikely). The operating system is SGI's IRIX, a commercial version of Unix.

The Reform Party site reports as another Apache/Linux combo. Which really isn't all that interesting, because so gosh darn many sites are. And it's hard to compare to the party's political philosophy because it has none. Which could also be said of their design sense... what a sad, amateurish web site.