[plug] [Fwd: Letter: What is this, the Gartner group again? (-:]

[Leon Brooks]

Sent back to WinMag in response to their article, feel encouraged to
read the article and send them your own response.

    http://www.winmag.com/help/2000/hot_or_hype/03.htm

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Letter: What is this, the Gartner group again? (-:
Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 10:11:08 +0800
From: Leon Brooks <leon at brooks.smileys.net>
Organization: Would be nice
To: jpowell at winmag.com

Please consider this for your Letters section:

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Dave Methvin's unsupported assertions in his hot-or-hype article on
Linux are just begging to be shot to pieces, so here are a few
incendiary rounds:

> They [business users] see the PC as a tool to get to e-mail, word
> processing, or the Internet. They (gasp!) don't see the fun in
> tweaking, nudging, and configuring an operating system.

They do indeed see the PC as a tool, which is why they hate having to
futz with Windows to get it working again, and why they hate having
Explorer freeze the machine in the middle of something important. That's
why 15% of my Linux installs in 1999 were user desktops (wordprocessing
etc, does not count my own home and friends' machines), and a further
25% were public web browser machines. Linux has 4% of the desktop
already, and growing fast.

> Linux is not a business tool

Funny, I do *all* of my business on Linux, my only dealing with Windows
is fixing it - again, and again, and again. Very wearing.

One "Business Tool" concept which has yet to make a real impact is the
resurgence of Thin Clients. To do Terminal Server tricks under Linux,
FreeBSD or any other Unix requires no tools or extra software. None.
Nada. Nit. Zero. Often not even any reconfiguration. And all of the
tools for piping this net traffic around securely are already to hand.

> Here's a dare: Take a modern PC with a force-feedback joystick,
> USB printer, DVD, 56K winmodem, and a keyboard with special-function
> buttons like volume controls. Show me how much of that you can get
> to work under Linux, even if you're a programmer.

Odd that you should select just that particular set of features, which
look to be chosen with the specific end of making Windows look good -
for I have indeed got those (bar the Microsoft force-feedback joystick,
surprise surprise) working under Linux.

I got "lucky" with the choice of software modem, a curse recently thrown
at Linux, but wouldn't specify one for a system even in a mad fit. I
counted it as a Good Thing that Linux had no WinModem support. Dave
should have chosen a WinPrinter as well, but it seems that even the
penny-hungry OEMs have decided that they're a Very Bad Idea. Special
function buttons are a breeze, and you can do a bucketload more with
them than you can under Windows; also, five-buttons-plus-wheel mice work
very nicely indeed under X.

I might also add that three of the machines I installed Linux on in 1999
would not ever work reliably under Windows, but are as happy as the
proverbial pigs in poo under Linux.

Final note here, after stating that Linux was not a serious business
proposition, Dave's selection of hardware to test was not one which a
business would make. They'd choose a real modem or ISDN, the printer
would be plugged directly into a server, and there would be no DVD or
joystick.

> There's no Office 97/2000, Outlook, Internet Explorer, Quicken,
> TurboTax, SimCity, or (gulp) America Online. 

Nor are there Melissa viruses, ActiveX trojans and the like.

There _are_ at least two SimCity clones, plus many great games not
available under Windows. An increasing number of game developers are
creating their masterworks under Linux or another open OS - where it is
much easier to get their game or application to actually work, due to
reliability, close adherence to standards, and free availability not
only of APIs but also of the code behind them - and porting to Windows
later. 

Dave evidently has no idea how much easier it makes debugging when
there's not high odds of each crash being caused by something in an
opaque, unreliable black box of an OS, and where extensive tools and
opportunities for testing things come with the OS.

If you really are addicted to platform-handicapped software, WINE runs a
steadily increasing number of Windows applications, or at last resort
VMWare can be used to crank up a copy of a legacy operating system (and
yes, there is a free/open clone of VMWare in the works).

In summary, Linux is being used as a business platform, including for
end-users, right now (as in today), and is being improved at least an
order of magnitude faster than any Windows product. There are no 65000+
_known_ bugs here, and no room for a tenth of that in unknown bugs. The
only way to avoid Linux 2.4 hammering Windows 2000 performance-wise is
to carefully stack the criteria, as Dave did with his hardware.

Market inertia is the only thing between Linux and World Domination(tm).
I'll quite happily write you an article pointing out, in excruciating
detail, Why It Is So. (-:

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TIA, Leon

-- 
Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation.
If at first you don't succeed, try a shorter bungee. When in trouble,
when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. The two great secrets
of success are: don't tell anyone everything that you know.