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Jun
23rd

Is the next President of the United States running Linux?

Posted in Politics, Technology
by User ImageDouglas Karr at 10:05 pm

Earlier today I read a post about Ron Paul’s website. Interestingly, his site is less of a typical candidate site and more of a mashup of other sources of information about him. What a fantastic idea and it shows additional transparency. That got me even more curious, what was the site developed on?

According to Netcraft, Ron Paul’s site was previously run on Microsoft IIS but as of June 5th it’s now on Apache!

So that got me wondering… what are the other candidates’ sites running? Does this provide some insight into their overall candidacy?

Site Operating System and Server by Candidate

  • Joe Biden (Democrat) - Linux, Zope by Interlix
  • Hillary Clinton (Democrat) - Windows Server 2003, Microsoft-IIS/6.0 by Paul Holcomb
  • Christopher Dodd (Democrat) - FreeBSD, Apache by pair Networks
  • John Edwards (Democrat) - Linux, Apache by Plus Three
  • Mike Gravel (Democrat) - Linux, Apache by Voxel Dot Net, Inc.
  • Dennis Kucinich (Democrat) - Linux, Apache by New Age Consulting
  • Barack Obama (Democrat) - FreeBSD, Apache by pair Networks
  • Bill Richardson (Democrat) - Linux, Zope by Interlix
  • Wesley Clark (Democrat) - Linux, Apache by Voxel Dot Net, Inc.
  • Al Gore (Democrat) - Linux, Apache by Rackspace
  • Sam Brownback (Republican) - Windows Server 2003, Microsoft-IIS/6.0 by RackForce Hosting, Inc.
  • Jim Gilmore (Republican) - Linux, Apache by 1&1 Internet, Inc.
  • Rudy Giuliani (Republican) - Linux, Apache by RackSpace
  • Mike Huckabee (Republican) - Windows Server 2003, Microsoft-IIS/6.0 by LNH Inc.
  • Duncun Hunter (Republican) - Windows Server 2003, Microsoft-IIS/6.0 by Individual
  • John McCain (Republican) - Windows Server 2003, Microsoft-IIS/6.0 by Smartech Corporation
  • Ron Paul (Republican) - Linux, Apache by Rackspace
  • Mitt Romney (Republican) - Linux, Apache by Rackspace
  • Tom Tancredo (Republican) - Windows Server 2003, Microsoft-IIS/6.0 by Interland
  • Fred Thompson (Republican) - Windows Server 2003, Microsoft-IIS/6.0 by LNH Inc.
  • Tommy Thompson (Republican) - Windows Server 2003, Microsoft-IIS/6.0 by Time Warner Telecom, Inc.
  • Chuck Hagel (Republican) - Windows Server 2003, Microsoft-IIS/6.0 by Individual
  • Newt Gingrich (Republican) - Windows Server 2003, Microsoft-IIS/6.0 by Smartech Corporation

Here’s the overall breakdown, pretty interesting results:

All Candidates
Democrats
Republicans

It’s fascinating to me that the Dems are predominantly Open Source… except for Hillary Clinton and the Republicans are predominantly Microsoft with the exception of Ron Paul, Jim Gilmore, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney.

I predict Linux will win the election.

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64 Comments »

Comment by no imageDouglas Karr (SezWho)
2007-06-23 22:13:49

You can Digg this post here.
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Comment by no imageck (SezWho)
2007-06-23 22:46:34

I predict you’re wrong. I see one of three people winning, Clinton, Fred Thompson, or Gingrich. The Obama stuff just can’t stand in the backwoods of many states, ‘ole JR isn’t going to vote for him.

So that leaves the three I listed, all Windows folks. What I find funny is that the two Republican guys I listed haven’t even declared yet.

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Comment by no imageDouglas Karr (SezWho)
2007-06-23 23:28:26

I hope you’re wrong on 2 of those 4 predictions, ck. I don’t want to tell you which 2, though! I like being independent and complaining about all of them equally.

;)

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Comment by no imageAdam Teece (SezWho)
2007-06-23 23:16:55

I hope they come up with a simple chart detailing all of the candidates and what their stances on each of the major issues are. It is a bit of a pain going through to each website and reading everything. I like a few of the candidates, but each one has a stance on one or two of the issues that I really don’t like.
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Comment by no imageDouglas Karr (SezWho)
2007-06-23 23:26:51

Adam,

I’m not sure it would ever be the goal of any political candidate to make it easier to find their stance.

:)

Doug

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Comment by no imageAdam Teece (SezWho)
2007-06-23 23:56:15

I know the candidates would never do it, but it might make a useful Wikipedia page.
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Comment by no imageDouglas Karr (SezWho)
2007-06-24 09:04:03

Adam,

That’s a fantastic idea. I can’t imagine all the attention a page like that would get. Wikivote!

I noticed the Wikipedia pages for the Candidates right now are changing non-stop. There is a collective article on the 2008 elections there, too. There are links to each of their Wikipedia pages as well as their official campaign sites.

Doug

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Comment by no imageJoshJ (SezWho)
2007-06-27 22:58:05

http://www.ontheissues.org has a voting history and policy stance of every candidate in the running for the 2008 election, as well as every Senator and Representative.
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Comment by no imageCJ (SezWho)
2007-07-02 10:23:32

There’s also this site to see whom you most closely align with: http://www.selectsmart.com/president/2008.html
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Comment by no imageMatt B. (SezWho)
2007-06-24 01:33:29

Very interesting. I wonder how much attention their campaigns paid to the actual platform on which their site operates.

It would be very interesting to see if candidates have received political donations from companies such as Microsoft, Red Hat, etc.

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Comment by no imageDouglas Karr (SezWho)
2007-06-24 08:48:58

I wonder the same thing, Matt. Especially since many of the candidates switched platforms - I’m curious what the driver was to make the switch.
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Comment by no imageNatron (SezWho)
2007-06-25 14:04:36

Yet another reason to vote Democrat!
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Comment by no imageJack Book (SezWho)
2007-06-25 22:42:57

wow.. digged!
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Pingback by Democratic Convention Party Political Local Advertising Presidential Campaigns » Blog Archive » Midday open thread
2007-06-26 16:50:52

[...] Linux or Microsoft win the upcoming presidential election? This survey of web hosts for the presidential campaigns has one interesting finding — [...]
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Trackback by Geeky Ramblings
2007-06-27 06:51:01

Candidates by Server?…

Have you ever wondered if Open Source software could be a factor in the success or failure of a political candidate?
Douglas Karr has an interesting political analysis on his blog … Which candidates are running which servers.
Here’s a qu…

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Pingback by BEERORKID A bunch of useless crap » prez canidates websites and the OS they run on
2007-06-27 10:57:43

[...] reps use microsoft and the libs use linux. [...]
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Trackback by EPKPhoto's Tidbits
2007-06-27 18:32:47

Interesting perspective on the 2008 presidential election…

I always find it interesting when someone reveals that a certain organization is running Windows, Linux, or whatever on their web server. That kind of information is quite easy to find out just by looking at the headers a server sends back to your web…

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Comment by no imagePlanet Malaysia (SezWho)
2007-06-27 19:29:42

The candidate don’t care what is Windows, Linux or FreeBSD :P
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Comment by no imagepfarrell (SezWho)
2007-06-27 20:12:54

Given McCain’s support for Steve Ballmer it’s not much of a shock he’s running Windows.

Also, if you’re going to include Al Gore and Fred Thompson, then how can you forget Al Sharpton - Windows 2000, NeoSpire Inc

Perhaps he should upgrade :)

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Pingback by Drinking from the Firehose! | The Marketing Technology Blog
2007-06-27 20:21:38

[...] directly, you may have noticed that it wasn’t very responsive. The analysis that I did on what servers the Presidential Candidates were running took off on Slashdot and Reddit. It was even the lead story on Slashdot for most of the [...]
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Pingback by Greg Bender dot Com » Linux in 2008
2007-06-27 23:16:04

[...] Interesting breakdown of presidential candidates websites, and if they run Windows or Linux.  The disparity between Democrats and Republicans is greater than I expected. [...]
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Comment by no imageKahlil (SezWho)
2007-06-28 00:12:45

Forget the democrats! Greens want open-source voting software!
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Comment by no imageShahryar Ghazi (SezWho)
2007-06-28 07:31:32

interesting observation… thanks for sharing this with us
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Pingback by Fortune’s Pawn » Open Source Politics — Part Deux
2007-06-28 10:12:38

[...] Via /. this Marketing Blog posting from Douglas Karr on the Presidential candidates (declared and not) and what their websites are running on. So that got me wondering… what are the other candidates’ sites running? Does this provide some insight into their overall candidacy?Is the next President of the United States running Linux? | The Marketing Technology Blog [...]
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Comment by no imageColin Baker (SezWho)
2007-06-28 11:56:12

23 is a tiny, meaningless sample size, and it’s silly to draw any conclusions from this. Now if you include, say, all of the US Senators and Congressmen, that could be interesting.
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Comment by no imageKyle (SezWho)
2007-06-28 12:15:19

In the last election the owner of XMission (a local isp) ran for senate. He’s been a long time supporter of Linux. We have a hotly contested mayoral election in Salt Lake City this year. He asked each candidate to answer a survey that he then posted on his blog. One of the questions pointed out that each candidate had endorsed buying local. He then asked where their website was hosted. It was interesting to read some of the candidates trying to dodge the question. Soon they’ll hopefully come to realize that these things can really matter.
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Pingback by Sitez » links for 2007-06-28
2007-06-28 12:21:57

[...] Is the next President of the United States running Linux? [...]
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Pingback by Papa Mike’s Blog » Blog Archive » Presidential Operating Systems
2007-06-28 13:15:49

[...] An analysis of the operating systems and servers used on the presidential candidates’ web sites: Is the next President of the United States running Linux? [...]
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Trackback by TechTalk
2007-06-28 13:49:29

Web Servers of the 2008 Presidential Candidates…

OK, this is a very funny angle. Douglas Karr blogs Is the next President of the United States running Linux?. Read the whole piece, with pie charts.
Here’s a summary:
Site Operating System and Server by Candidate

Joe Biden (Democrat) - Linux,…

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Pingback by Jengates Blog » Blog Archive » links for 2007-06-28
2007-06-28 18:26:16

[...] Is the next President of the United States running Linux? | The Marketing Technology Blog Operating Systems and hosting companies running the sites of the presidential candidates. (tags: rackspace) [...]
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Pingback by Linux to the White House in 2008? Linux Migration, Server Virtualization, SAAM TECHNOLOGY - Minneapolis, MN | Blog Archive
2007-06-28 19:29:48

[...] question over the weekend. He didn’t come up with a definitive answer, but he does predict that Linux will win the 2008 presidential [...]
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Pingback by The next President and Linux « The Copper Scroll
2007-06-28 21:01:56

[...] The next President and Linux I just stumbled upon this rather interesting blog. [...]
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Comment by no imageDaniel (SezWho)
2007-06-29 02:07:51

Hillary is not MS-only, http://connect.hillaryclinton.com/ runs on Java.
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Pingback by BagOfNothing.com » Computer Nerd Political Talk
2007-06-29 07:33:49

[...] Link [...]
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Comment by no imageLol (SezWho)
2007-06-29 10:33:39

ROFL, the most stupid comparison ever! Very funny, keep going!:) At least I hope it was a joke ….
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Comment by no imagePhillistine (SezWho)
2007-06-29 19:36:30

Dude,

What are you trying to do ?

I hope you realize you have symbolically painted a target on yourself by doing this.

I found the article rather amusing and actually interesting since you have put an entirely new twist to the election debate.

As mentioned by the previous poster, I hope it was more done in jest ….

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Comment by no imageMike Schinkel (SezWho)
2008-07-16 22:53:27

Quick! Get this man a sense of humor!
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Comment by no imageDouglas Karr (SezWho)
2008-07-17 10:14:10

Seriously! I guess I’ve derailed all of American politics by revealing this information. :)
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Pingback by debgpi - A Rational Girl in Irrational Times » Is the next President of the United States running Linux?
2007-07-01 12:48:29

[...] the next President of the United States running Linux? By Debbie Very likely. This entry is filed under Computers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS [...]
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Pingback by Presidential Operating Systems | News for Greens
2007-07-04 23:39:21

[...] An analysis of the operating systems and servers used on the presidential candidates’ web sites: Is the next President of the United States running Linux? [...]
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Pingback by GNU/Linux wins in 2008 (or, Hillary does Windows) « Larry the Open Source Guy
2007-07-05 03:51:02

[...] draws to a close in the U.S., I happened upon a blog item by Douglas Karr with the headline “Is the next President of the United States running Linux?” Karr’s blog item, of course, outlines the major party candidates and what their campaigns are [...]
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Pingback by Keeping_an_"Open"_Mind
2007-07-05 15:50:31

[...] read a post by Dana Blankenhorn at ZDnet talking about Douglas Karr of the Marketing Tech Blog and his survey of website of presidential candidates to determine what software they are running.  He found that a good portion of the software running these websites, about 48% , were running [...]
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Pingback by LifeParticles.com » Linux in '08
2007-07-06 07:16:14

[...] Is the next President of the United States running Linux? The Democrats love open source and the Republicans love Microsoft. Related Posts: [...]
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Pingback by Period Three Blog » Fascinating? Really?
2007-07-06 07:55:44

[...] struggling to find the point of this article by Douglas Karr, titled Is the next President of the United States running Linux? According to Netcraft, Ron Paul’s site was previously run on Microsoft IIS but as of June 5th [...]
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Pingback by Weekend Ramblings | In the Flow
2007-07-07 18:27:50

[...] Karr has done some analysis and found that a majority of the Democratic candidates’ sites are running on Linux, while a [...]
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Comment by no imageCopie (SezWho)
2007-09-03 22:44:16

Could some one please help me.
I am looking for an email address for the US Presidential Candidates to enable me to send them a Blessing from God certificate from the website http://www.godsblessingsforyou.com
I am confident that candidates who receive a Blessing from God will find that it provides a great boost to their confidence.

A supporter

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Pingback by Linux Vs Windows « Eleições Americanas de 2008
2007-09-12 19:28:37

[...] Vs Windows Douglas Karr, um jornalista americano, analisou as plataformas de software dos sites dos candidatos presidenciais, e encontrou diferenças entre os [...]
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Pingback by Interesting Political/Technological Thoughts | Diary of a Madman
2007-09-24 22:09:21

[...] ran across this article entitled, “Is the next President of the United States Running Linux?” when I was researching for my next composition essay. My next composition essay will be [...]
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Comment by no imageListener (SezWho)
2007-10-29 00:16:50

I don’t know about USA but in Russia I think Linux will be national operating system because of free.
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Comment by no imageLucas (SezWho)
2007-12-10 07:24:07

I don’t know about USA but in Russia I think Linux will be national operating system because of free.

I can agree with following opinion !! It is free and very well protected !

Regards
Lucas

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Comment by no imageT.Amoth (SezWho)
2007-12-14 11:50:19

Don’t forget 1 of the 1st things the Bush administration did after getting into office was to essentially railroad through a settlement of the anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft. Last I heard Mass. was still suing MS, but the other states settled… Funny how we don’t seem to have heard anything for a long time…
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Comment by no imageMake An Informed Vote (SezWho)
2007-12-22 12:53:58

That makes for some useful information, though I hope nobody bases their vote simply on the OS of a candidate’s server.
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Comment by no imageMovie Girl (SezWho)
2007-12-27 09:30:59

I think Linux is the OS of the future. But it’s still a little bit hard in use. I’ll surely move to Linux when it become as easy in use as Windows do.
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Comment by no imageListener (SezWho)
2007-12-27 10:51:57

Movie Girl, Linux already have good user interface and it is very easy to use it.
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Pingback by 2007 Statistics: The Marketing Technology Blog | The Marketing Technology Blog
2007-12-31 21:07:12

[...] Presidential Candidates by Operating System: 17,508 Pageviews [...]
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Comment by no imageOmi Azad (SezWho)
2008-01-26 12:29:32

Very nice article. People must vote for Linux users. :)
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