On Sun, 2005-03-20 at 05:02 -0600, Jeff Vian wrote: > On Sat, 2005-03-19 at 22:12 -0700, Craig White wrote: > > On Sat, 2005-03-19 at 22:06 -0600, Brian Fahrlander wrote: > > > > > Yeah, and I was more than happy to let it die, thinking it either > > > got the message across, or no one was going to. But I still maintain > > > that if you want to stop viruses in your workplace, you don't make > > > everyone walk around in rubber suits....you kick Microsoft to the curb. > > --- > > I know that you don't believe this but I can tell you for sure - that > > viruses & spyware are of absolutely no consequence on any network of > > Windows desktop computers that I maintain but that is not achieved > > without cost or effort. No rubber suits though. > > > > your kick Microsoft to the curb reference pretty much assumes an > > inability to manage a network of Windows computers with no regard to the > > users needs. > > > > I am no fan of Microsoft but I am neither a fan of Apple, Adobe, Intuit > > etc. either. > > > > I think that Linux as a desktop is still a bit short of what you can get > > on the desktop on other 'proprietary' OS's and as long as businesses are > > willing to pay for the licenses and there is no mitigating factor for > > wholesale change to something that is perceptibly less usable to them, > > they won't go for it. > > > You miss one very important point with this vitriol. $$$$$$ > > I have been M$ free for several years, and I can do almost anything on > Linux that you can do on Windows at 0 cost. The office suite -- OS -- > CD burning -- antivirus -- pop-up blocker -- firewall -- graphics editor > -- web server -- database -- mail server and others all cost a windows > user _several_ hundreds of dollars. All are available with most Linux > distributions for free. > > For the home user or small business cost is often a major factor in what > is purchased. The other major deciding factor is perception - both value > and utility. > > BTW, I do not think of 'desktop computing' as a business workstation > but rather as home users. In the workstation (business) market Linux > seems to be taking market share from Windows at an increasing pace. > > You also seem to overlook the current state and the rapidly improving > user friendliness and utility for the Linux distributions that _is_ > starting to make it more acceptable across the board. > > It will be interesting to see where the status balances out. ---- I don't think I'm overlooking the money. Money is not simply about out of pocket expenses though - there is of course the notion of TCO (total cost of ownership). I have used Linux 95% for probably about 5 years now. My own personal computing needs are relatively simple...email, web browsing, word processing, spreadsheet comprise 90% of my activity. I still have music software (Pro Tools) on my Mac I still do desktop publishing on my Mac (thought I'm playing with Scribus) I still have a WinXP system and use it as part of my testing lab. The improvements in the Linux desktop have been greatly appreciated but oowriter still isn't quite up to MS Word, oocalc is nowhere near MS Excel and I have been satisfied with Evolution 2.0.2 since I changed IMAP servers from uw-imap to cyrus-imapd. Of course Scribus is nowhere near Quark Express or Adobe In Design, nothing on Linux has a feature set similar to Dreamweaver, and a free equivalent to Filemaker Pro - fahgettaboutit. I do use Bluefish even though I own GoLive. The limitations that you or I are willing to accept in order to use free software is not necessarily going to be acceptable to a business. That said, I am currently working with a non-profit company to put Linux on all of the users desktops but the general consensus is that Linux on the desktop is 'good enough' which is not the type of conclusion that will drive many businesses into adoption for their desktops. I have migrated a number of businesses from WinNT4 Domain Controllers to RHEL (or clone) - samba/BIND/DHCP/OpenLDAP/Apache/Sendmail (lately more Postfix)/uw-imap (lately cyrus)/ and I can tell you that the businesses 'short term' cost is higher since it takes me longer to set all this up, migrate the Windows Domain SAM etc. than it would to install Windows 2003 Server. Licensing and TCO issues make it practical for them to bear the initially higher conversion costs. Your comment about being 'MS Free' strikes me as rather anti-Microsoft motivated. I see Macintosh users that won't give up Microsoft Office despite their virulent anti-Microsoft charges. I've seen people on this list like Gene who claims never to have owned a Windows computer - but uses samba for networking at his house. I have seen people that claim to be 'Microsoft Free' but save their documents in 'doc' format, 'xls' format. Install mplayer and view Windows Media Player content via the w32 codecs. I think that many people have the perception of being MS Free only because they ignore the reality - that they probably aren't. Which really gets to the nub of the underlying point that I was trying to make with Brian. Linux is NOT the Microsoft alternative - it has to live in a technological world that is dominated by Microsoft. Linux is Free / Open Source Software which has a decidedly different design/production/distribution model than that which the computing industry has commonly employed - closed source/proprietary software. While there may be some people driven to use Linux because it is not Microsoft and there may be some people driven to use Linux because they don't have to open their wallet to acquire it, the core reason for it's development and growth is because of the open source model itself. Lastly - since you referred to 'my vitriol' I will point out that you nitpicked a statement that I made - that when considered in the context that I made it - was absolutely irrefutable and even when considered out of the context in which it was made - was arguable only with a misrepresentation of facts such as you did. Let's see how you react when someone does something like that to you. Craig
