Saturday, August 13, 2011
Vatican Library Uses Linux and UNIX
The Vatican Library's Website revealed that The Information Technology Center (C.E.D.) of the Vatican Library uses Red Hat. C.E.D.’s networks “are protected internally by two first-level firewalls in a Linux Red Hat environment”. But that’s not all. It is also revealed that of the 27 servers the IT Center uses, 19 are in a SUSE and Red Hat environment. The rest are running in a UNIX AIX environment and in a Microsoft environment (virtualized on Linux systems with VMware).
It all began in 1985 wherein the system “uses a Geac 8000/F system with about ten terminals in serial connection at 9,600 bps. The birth of the URBS network, five years later, brought about a substantial upgrade of the system, and the number of terminals was increased to about fifty, of which fifteen have a baseband connection to the relevant remote access points at 9,600 bps.
As a Catholic Linux enthusiast and an ex-seminarian, it’s a good thing that the Vatican sees the Free and Open Source Movement as beneficial to the Catholic Church. Open source is better than a closed source which is costly. According to Fr. Stephen Cuyos, MSC (A Filipino Priest who blogs about Linux and Free/Open Source Software), “The philosophy of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is based on cooperation, common good and mutual benefit, and is in many ways consistent with the Catholic Church’s preferential option for the poor.”
It should also be noted that Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds totally rock!
About the Contributor:
Shipcode is an InfoSec enthusiast from Cebu. During his high school days he was just an ordinary script kiddie. He loves to search for web exploits and other issues concerning network / wireless security.
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