[Am-info] Presidential candidates run on open-source platforms

[Gene Gaines]

This is a forwarded message

Quoting from the "NW on Linux" enewsletter.
01/26/04
Today's focus:  Presidential candidates run on open-source 
platforms


By Phil Hochmuth

With primary season in full swing, we're getting a little 
political this week with an analysis of the platforms for each 
of the candidates running for the Democratic presidential 
nomination.

Open source is popular with a majority of the candidates; five 
out of the seven who are still in the race run either Linux or 
FreeBSD with a mix of Apache, OpenSSL or PHP on their Web sites. 
The following data on each candidate's site was gathered using 
Netcraft's Webserver Search tool, which can be found on the 'Net 
data collection company's Web site: <http://www.netcraft.com/> 

Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean has generated the most 
'Net-related buzz this campaign. He has raised the most money of 
all the Democratic candidates - it is estimated that half of the 
$14 million he raised in the fourth quarter of 2004 came from 
small online contributions on his 
<http://www.deanforamerica.com/> site. The Dean's cyber roots 
come from campaign manager Joe Trippi, who previously worked at 
Linux start-up Progeny - founded by Debian founder Ian Murdock - 
prior to joining the Dean campaign.

Dean and Sen. John Kerry ( <http://www.johnkerry.com/> ), who 
beat Dean in the Iowa Caucuses last week, both have the most 
extensive Web infrastructures based on Linux and Apache, 
according to Netcraft. Each candidate has 10 Web servers running 
Linux and Apache, along with OpenSSL, according. The Web serving 
firm Akamai hosts the Linux/Apache servers for both candidates.

Sen. Joe Lieberman has a mix of open source and proprietary 
software behind his <http://www.joe2004.com/> site. His campaign 
runs five Web servers, Netcraft says - three Free BSD servers 
running Apache, and two Windows 2000 servers also running Apache 
and the open source Tomcat application server.

Retired Gen. Wesley Clark and Rep. Dennis Kucinich both have 
smaller sites, compared to Dean, Kerry and Lieberman. Clark's 
<http://www.clark04.com/> site is powered by a single 
Linux/Apache server, according to Netcraft. Kucinich runs two 
Linux servers, along with open source modules PHP, OpenSSL and 
PERL.

Rounding out the candidates are Rep. John Edwards 
( <http://www.johnedwards2004.com/> ) and Rev. Al Sharpton
( <http://www.sharptonexplore2004.com/> ). Edwards is the only 
major Democratic candidate running his Web infrastructure on 
Novell, with two NetWare servers running Microsoft Internet 
Information Server (IIS). Edwards also has a Windows 2000 server 
running IIS. Sharpton has a single Windows 2000/IIS server 
running his site.

Incidentally, <http://www.georgewbush.com/> runs on nine Windows 
2000/IIS servers, and one Linux/Apache server, according to 
Netcraft.


To contact: Phil Hochmuth <mailto:phochmut@nww.com>.
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