Antispam - empowering employees

Fri Jul 18 22:22:02 PDT 2003

On Tue, Jul 15, 2003 at 12:46:47PM -0400, Chuck Yerkes wrote:
> Quoting Alvin Oga (alvin at Mail.Linux-Consulting.com):
> I'll try to respond in complete sentences and make presumptions
> on meaning where you don't bother with pronouns, verbs and what not.

 This is one of Alvin's more widely known traits.

> PCs replaced desktop mainframe use in a large way because the USER
> was able to get work done without dealing with the computational
> priesthood.

> Windows, in a large part, has replaced Unix because people feel
> that it's approachable and, in a large way, someone with not so
> much knowledge of computers can put up a Windows Server and install
> a couple packages and have Exchange for cheap.  They think it
> scales; they think it's cheap; they think it's secure.  They are
> wrong on all counts.  But I have yet to see a friendly, say, IMAP
> server, even if they get Unix up, targetted at sites with < 5000 users.
> That's fewer that 2% of the businesses out there.

 I'm not sure that MS Windows ever "replaced" UNIX.  MS operating
 systems (from PC-DOS through a latest MS Windows 2003) became the 
 marketshare leader primarily by opening up new markets (or conversely 
 by riding on the coat tails of the new markets created by microcomputers 
 in general and PC compatibles in particular).

 Micros were the revolution.  They had to run *something* and MS-DOS
 was the thing they came with and was the cheapest.  (The prices on 
 CPM/86 and the UCSD p-system were pretty high comparatively).  Later,
 they still had to run *something* and *everyone else* was running 
 MS-DOS.  Later still, the *still* had to run (and ship) with
 *something* and MS lawyers and sales people ran roughshod over every
 hardware informing them that they *would* include MS-Windows 3.x with
 every machine (the thinly veiled threat was: or else your copies of 
 MS-DOS will be lost in the warehouse behind all those unshipped bundles
 that include MS Windows).

 Now it's interesting that Linux (and other free and open source systems) 
 are becoming the empowering force.  Sure UNIX and Linux are a little 
 quirky and hard to learn.  No, the latest GUI gadgets aren't all that
 good had hiding the underlying complexities.  Yes, Mac OS X is STILL
 far more approachable --- and now it's UNIX, too :)

 But ultimately people are going to be driven to Linux because it's
 free.  They don't have to have any (outside) permission or license to
 use it; they don't have to file a purchasing order, they don't have to
 wade through vendor BS.  For the jobs that it's good at you can just
 borrow or burn a CD --- pop it in a drive and go.

 What's really starting to drive it internationally and at the low
 consumer end (the Walmart channel) are the recent increases in pricing
 from Microsoft.  They are either digging their own graves or planning
 on milking the cashcow dry for the next 5 years or so.

 (For the other jobs --- oh well; maybe eventually :) OpenOffice.org is
 a bloated pig who's only saving grace is that it sorta handles most of
 the MS Office proprietary data formats some of the time.  However the
 Abiword, Gnumeric, Evolution, Dia combination isn't too horrible; now
 if we can just get a decent groupware/scheduling client/server package
 that is NOT just a website with a browser interface ...).

--
Jim Dennis 