On Wed, 2004-02-11 at 21:39, Aaron Matteson wrote: > Vincent became daring and sent these 1.5K bytes, > > > > That's the wrong attitude. He's making (some) valid points and appears > > to care about the quality and adoption of Linux. I agree this isn't a > > Fedora specific thread but It's still one that has to do with a lot of > > users on this list. Personally I'd like to see a Full discussion on this > > topic somewhere with people who know what they are talking about. Saying > > we have Gimp and they have to pay for photoshop like a few people > > mentioned is the kinda bias opinions we mock when M$ puts out a TCO > > report. Weather you want to admit it or not Linux lags behind windows in > > many areas and pretending they do not exist is not a solution. > > Exactly. OK, great. I suggest you go and discuss this with companies that have actually migrated from windows to linux and write us a report. Try for example: Ernie Ball Burlington Coat Factory FitnessWorld Canada Extramadura Schools in Spain To name a few, and please include the future cost of product lock in, try to imagine 5 to 10 years down the road. This would be a great help to everyone who is reading this thread. Keep a few of these things in mind while you write: Open Source software improves greatly over time but doesn't need to "sell" us on new features. Marketing for the sake of buying a product doesn't exist. I can kickstart install and customize an entire building worth of Linux machines, say three labs of 20 each, in about 1 hour. Completely configured and ready to login. Oh and they also receive automated updates from our own repository. The thin clients in the other labs are even easier. Include such things as: OpenOffice The GIMP Inkscape vector drawing program Firefox Glabels Dia Diagram editor Project Manager Complete development system including, perl,python,ruby,java,C,C++,C#,lisp,forth,bash,php,fortran High quality SQL server. Fax server Scanner server Web server Mail server Firewall File and Print server Robust tape backup software (caution about windows registry) Remember to get roving profiles setup properly. Might also be nice on the windows side to include the ability to run Linux applications, just as Linux includes the ability to run many windows applications. Granted not all applications are used on every desktop but they are required for many organizations. One last requirement would be non proprietary file formats. Thanks. -- George Farris farrisg@xxxxxxxxxx Malaspina University-College - Cowichan Campus
