6677 Shepherd Oaks Street
Lakeland, FL 33811-3156
Tel +1 (863) 709-1151
steven@sanctuaryweb.org
June 12, 2003
Mr. Gordon M. Bethune
Chairman & CEO
CONTINENTAL AIRLINES, INC.
1600 Smith St
Houston, TX 77002
Mr. Bethune:
As the son-in-law of a 34-year Continental Airlines employee, I have had
several opportunities to enjoy the above-par service that your company is well-
known for. In addition to this, however, I am also a user of “open-source”
computer operating systems, including Linux, and am deeply disturbed by the
recently published comments of your Managing Director, Mr. Nathan Hanks.
In an article headlined “Microsoft Launches New Security Certification” and
published on TechWeb, June 3, 2003, a copy of which is enclosed for your
convenience, Mr. Hanks was quoted as stating the following concerning Linux
and other Open-Source users:
Nathan Hanks, managing director at Continental Airlines, said, “All the guys
hacking Windows are Linux guys.” Continental was hit hard by SQL Slammer
and “our CEO said we’d failed,” Hanks said. (¶10)
Having one vendor throat to choke is helpful in crisis situations, Hanks said.
An IT pro can’t go to the CEO and say that a server is down, “and hopefully
some guy in Amsterdam” will get to a fix when he gets back from the “dope
house,” he said. (¶14)
I have been a user of Linux for the past few years as a primary desktop
operating system because of its superior versatility and customization
capability, as well as its rock-solid stability—something that cannot be said
about Microsoft Windows, which I also use side-by-side with Linux. It is no
surprise that your company, as well as the one I work for, were hit hard by
such viruses as “SQL Slammer,” because, as stated toward the beginning of this
article, “A whopping 95 percent of hacking exploits occur after patches are
published . . . The infamous SQL Slammer worm, for example, weaked its havoc
shortly after a patch for it was made available” (¶3, emphasis mine). Had the
appropriate patches been applied as they were released, neither Continental
nor the company I work for would have sufferred the damages caused by “SQL
Slammer” or other viruses that exploit security holes in Microsoft’s operating
systems.
As an open-source software user, I find the comments of your managing
director, Mr. Hanks, to be ignorant, arrogant, and bigoted toward the open-
source community. Such comments further serve to paint a negative image toward
your company by the open-source community. I am a Linux user. I have neither
the technical expertise nor the skill to “hack” Windows, nor do I have the
desire to do so. Your employee’s comments serve to paint everyday Linux/open-
source users such as myself as criminals and hackers, which is patently false
and ignorant of the facts.
As a member of the open-source community, I strongly encourage you to instruct
Mr. Hanks as a representative of the company to issue an open, public apology
to the open-source/Linux community for his short-sighted remarks, or at a
minimum to distance your company from such ignorance. Already today I have
received several emails from fellow open-source community members who are now
thinking twice about flying with your airline because of Mr. Hanks’ remarks.
As word of this article spreads, it will not surprise me if the open-source
community sponsors a full boycott of your company and its services as it is
currently attempting to do with SCO over its frivolous lawsuit against IBM
over the Linux operating system.
I await your company’s response.
Respectfully submitted,
Steven W. Buehler
encl: 1
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Fri Aug 01 2014 - 16:34:00 EDT