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Linux Advocacy At PC Expo
The important thing about the PC Expo Linux presentation, though, wasn't audience size, but that it wasn't the typical "preaching to the converted" situation we see at Linux and Open Source conferences. This was an audience that had to be told what Linux was, and what it could do, almost from scratch. The whispers I heard as I sat at the back of the room, taking notes, indicated that most of the people seated near me knew that Linux was an operating system for computers, but little more than that. They paid attention -- and many of them took notes.
Indeed, some of the people listening to Mark and Maddog took more notes than I did, because to them the idea of a Beowulf system was brand-new, as was Mark's claim that 99% of Fortune 2000 companies -- including Microsoft -- use Linux in one way or another. Most of the material in Mark and Maddog's presentations was pretty old hat to long-time Slashdot readers. But to the people in that room, almost all of them Windows users, it was all worth hearing.
The LinuxMall.com "Linux Summit" held Monday was even smaller than today's Linux keynote -- Mark estimated attendance as "about forty" --but both events had good crowds, in the sense that most of the people sitting there, finding out about Linux for the first time, had paid between $200 and $1300 to attend PC Expo, and felt that learning about Linux was a worthwhile use of their limited time at the show.
Ah, exactly where is Microsoft losing any ground? Maybe in the small server market, let me amend that by saying that maybe they're not gaining ground quite as fast as they'd like to. On the desktop though they're the king for the foreseeable future. I mean be real. This posted by a total Linux advocate that's been running Linux 24/7 for years now. I have to admit even I'm intrigued by win2000. By all accounts I've heard it's not half bad.
did people hear that Linux can do everything W2K can do and better or did they hear you need to be a technogeek to use this stuff?
Actually, just about the opposite is true. Every major GNU tool and popular piece of Unix software has been ported to run on Windows NT/2000, plus it can run the unbelievalbly vast array of native windows software. Linux can't claim better stability either - I've been running Win2K since the early betas, and it's never crashed on me.
Now if you want to argue that FreeBSD can do everything that Linux can do and do it better, then maybe I'd agree with you :-)
You didn't catch the "Natalie" reference?
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$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Maybe its because there was no room left after Microsoft took up 1/3 of the main room.
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Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
The GUI for managing my RAID subsystem is called DPT StorageManager. What else did You need to know?
OK, the security model is a tricky thing. First, what do You mean with W2k security model? NT borrowed a lot from VMS (which is nice, but could've been done even better), and when correctly applied, was better than the typical Unix uid/gid system.
But, as usual, even security is probably less than 10% technology. You need decent security policy and good managers who know what those policies mean, and administrators who implement the technical side of the policy. Unfortunately, there is a widespread notion that anyone can manage Windows network, even though it's even not any easier than managing a Unix based network. Probably because Unix comes with arcane text-based interface for administration, while Windows has GUI for that. Of course even that idea (that Unix has only text-based admin tools) is mostly obsolete.
Part of the problem in Windows security management is the software: try to install Windows software centrally and securely. Try to manage WinNT security audits. And so on.
Of course as I don't have proper training (MSCE? What's really the proper training for managing Windows based networks?), my opinions are biased. But I'd take on a VMS+Linux network any day before WindowsNT.
In the end of the day, You just have to ask "What do I *NEED* and how will I get that?" The answer may be Windows or Linux, or something else. For me the answer has been Windows and Linux, but there is no way I'll expose Windows to internet, nor would I run services on Windows if I can run the same service on Linux.
This question recently came up on the LAM mailing list (LAM is a free implementation of MPI). and Yes, beowulf is used in a variety of non-academic settings. Many government research labs use it (I am presently working at Lawrence Berkeley on cluster-realted work) .com addresses use the sofware. Also, looking over the mailing lists, many people from various large companies use the software.
and, from the download logs for
LAM, I can say that a _lot_ of
MPI is an industry standard which has for years been used on Crays, IBMs, HPs and other mainframe and supercomputers. MPI is a highly portable API, so porting to PC clusters can often be just a recompile (realisticly it sometimes takes a bit more tuning, but no where near as bad as say porting from X to Win32 graphics API or something like that)
Who am I? Subscribe and find out
ZDnet has a very entry-level article on the keynote ("So what is Linux?'), with links to the above video in WinMedia (if yr into that sort of thing).
__________
I was there during the keynote, and then I went to the exhibit floor. AT LEAST 10,000 people where on the floor, maybe even more.
siri
I've got a number of the Windows Resource Kit books. I mean, I live in Seattle, it's hard to avoid them. If you ever want to ace your MCP or MCSE tests, just memorize them. Don't try to do it right, though, just parrot what the big monkey tells you, or you lose points on the tests.
The problem is with the approach to the security model. It's both inconsistent and MSFT allows it's own groups to ignore the rules they apply to everyone else. If they'd just live by their own rules, start the default configs at fewer rights, establish some standard levels, and not let people code around the security model, it might actually work. But they ignore all that, and the result is that any trained monkey can slice through their security with a minimum of training and luck.
Will in Seattle
This is partly the "Linux kernel" versus "GNU/Linux system" thing. There's a hell of a lot of ideas in something like Debian.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Linux (and BSD, for that matter) would suck a whole lot less if it didn't do X.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
First that depends on whether when he mentioned Linux if he was actually discussing all free *nices. I know that, well at least last year, Hot Mail ran on Solaris and OpenBSD.
Also, if you read the Win2000 license it mentions that there are a couple services and products that are under the GPL license and mentions where to get the source code.
MS may not be using Linux for external services but they are probably using it for testing and comparison.
I would look more to insurance companies and old not tech blue chip companies. Those are generally more stingy about using something this new and without the backing and support of a very big company.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
What is this world coming to?? I bet no one in my family (apart from me and my dad) have heard of Linux. But it really doesn't matter, IMO... Linux has a strong support-base (just look at /.), but Windows has a strong user base. That's just the way it is. Maybe in a few years when people get mad at Microsoft, and they see Linux commercials on MTV, they'll consider them; but until then, Linux will just be one of those.... other guys.
Well, what do you know...
:)
/home/reaper/source/_____.c
Gee, look at that.
Voting Moo Anyway!
I'm sorry, sir, your rifle is incompatible with your version of glibc, please reconfigure and recompile. Bear in mind you'll need some aiming kernel patches (found here (fixes some aiming bugs, and tightens general rifle handling security)). The aiming kernel patches fixes a severe bug which has caused several people to shoot themselves in the root. Please be advised, this is NOT a drill.
Voting Moo Anyway!
They are also releasing the German version WordPerfect Office 2000 Linux.
Interesting timing as the German Minister of the Interior has reissued a report recommending that German Federal Depts use open source software.
This report was first released last March but was quickly pulled after preasure from Microsoft. A massive letter writing campagn has convinced the minister to rerelease it.
Maybe Corel sees more potential in the German market. The desktop has not exactly taken off in the US as yet.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
I like Linux, but I don't really need a multi-user OS for my desktop. I like BeOS, but I would really like to have backwards compatibility with some of my Windows apps. I like Macs, but I really need multi-tasking and I am unconvinced OS X will be the answer. And I like PalmOS, but it hasn't seemed to scale particularly well yet. ;-)
Does anyone know of an effort to port WINE to BeOS? I would be so glad if I could, once and for all, get rid of this buggy, unreliable mess.
Free music from Jack Merlot.
Not if has Caldera Linux on it :(.
man... I don't know anybody that's going to this either. I think that its just a matter of the internet catching the new product release fire. You can check thing out way before the actual show nowadays, and their is plenty of product info on the net without the crowds.
or, it could just be the lack of free t-shirts
kick some CAD
thats all.
he wasn't only there on tuesday.. i MET him on monday.. he signed a RedHat 6.2 cd i got at the RedHat booth earlier :)
http://www.awwsheezy.com
Linux can do much of the work that W2K can. The problem is that major differences are under the hood. Look at Novell. There server can run TCP/IP, act as a web server and run in clusters but MS shops don't take the time to look at all of the details. They look to see if Windows can do it also.
I hope someone in the oil bid'ness can add to the detail here, but for a while there was an annoying Dell brochure saying how some oil company was using a cluster of Dell machines to crunch data for sea-floor mapping ... now this was at least 18 months ago, but I'm fairly certain it said those machines were running Linux, went into an impressive cost-savings etc.
...
Lemme see if Dell's terrible search engine yields anything
incredible! Try this link about amerada-hess to prove that, if nothing else, Dell never throws anything away. (They *sell* their trash;) )
sw
"Hey Carlito, r'membah me? Benny Blanco from the Bronx!"
IMO, life's too short not to switch operating systems! There's no point banging your head against the wall for the rest of your life...
I'm suspicious of any engineer with an attitude like that. I'm an engineer myself. Part of our job is to keep up with current technologies.
What if the designers of computers way back when said "Life's too short to switch from valves to transistors"???
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"You take a distribution! Rename! Stamp CD's! IPO!"
- CmdrTaco, Geeks in Space, Episode 2 from 6:18 to 6:23.
"Chiswick! Fresh horses!"
Great, I've been looking for some bad moderation.
Our heroine is back at her desk, weeding the mediocre bookmarks from her browser.
Malda walks past wearing a long, black overcoat.
Catrin: (suspecting that Naomi included their latest lunch trip in her gossip) Naomi, why is Rob wearing that coat?
Naomi: (startled from her morning nail-filing ritual) Huh? Oh, I don't know.
Catrin: Did you mention that scene at the coat store to him?
Naomi: What, when you were drooling at the skinhead coat?
Catrin: I would rather you referred to it as salivating... and for the last time, it was not a skinhead coat!
Naomi: (snapping her gum) Whatever. Yeah, I think I said something.
Catrin: (slightly exasperated) He's not trying to impress me again, is he?
Naomi: Yeah, right... I think he heard me say that you like, thought overcoats are cool, and then he like, thought I would like them too, or something. He'll take whatever advice he can get about impressing women.
Catrin: True. There was that time he heard Whoopi Goldberg liked guys with shaved heads. He sunburned his scalp and had to put weird green lotion on it for two or three weeks afterwards.
Naomi almost chokes on her gum as she starts giggling.
Catrin: He definitely didn't think it was funny.
Malda appears, looking furious.
Malda: (in a low, angry voice) I thought I asked you not to mention that.
Catrin: Oh, come one, it's not that big of a deal.
Malda: (in a whisper) It is in front of Nat.. I mean Naomi! I've almost convinced her to dye her hair brown!
Malda appears to get an idea. A wicked smile crosses his face.
Malda: I've decided that you waste too much of your time online. From now on, no entertainment related sites may be accessed from the office. Especially the X Files. In fact, no more internet access at all... except for me.
Malda casually pulls the phone line out of the wall. Naomi shrugs and resumes snapping her gum. Catrin glares at Malda.
Later in the day, Catrin takes Naomi with her to pick up sandwiches for lunch. This time, Catrin stops in front of an extremely flamboyant male lingerie store.
Naomi: Like, what are we doing here?
Catrin: Oh, I was just thinking about how sexy men look in those lacy camisoles. Especially when (supressing a grimace) they're wearing a matching thong.
Naomi: Really?
Catrin: Oh sure, lots of women feel the same way.
Naomi: Oh.
The next day, there is a hint of lace peeking out from under Malda's shirt, and, Catrin notices with satisfaction, walking seems a little uncomfortable to him. What a perfect day for the big Linux convention.
--
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The geeks shall inherit the earth.
How 'bout "oh, poor, pathetic me?" Is that better?
:(
Yeah, I know I'm not funny... I'm just trying to get modded down. Pleeeaaase! Poor, pathetic me, I've only got a karma of -4
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The geeks shall inherit the earth.
Ha ha, first reply to fgdfp!
Drop my karma! Drop it like a rock! Drop it like Malda's lead ass to the bottom of the gene pool!
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The geeks shall inherit the earth.
Well, you never know...
Things are really moving fast, and maybe a lot of that has to do with the linux IPO fever, but either way, the more people hear about linux, the more legitimate they perceive it as. Sort of sad but true:)
sig:
See the "..for smart people" banners Wired runs here? Look elsewhere guys.
I didnt notice that in preview, but I did notice after 'submit'... In retrospect 'it doesn't do _____' may have been better. Of course, someone would find some app called '_____' and piss me off with that :)
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
Posted by 11223:
:) (Remember, it's FreeBSD with a funky graphics system). As for WINE on BeOS, a porting team is working on it but it depends upon having X-Windows on BeOS at this point, which is near unusable.
OS X will be the answer
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
*Please* don't try and claim that Linux can do "everything that W2K can do and better".
Because it can't.
Linux has its many strengths, but so does Windows 2000. Please come to terms with this fact.
For example, Windows 2000's security model is *far* more advanced than the one employed within Linux (and the other Unices).
Of course, Linux has its many advantages too, but to advocate Linux as being better in every way is just *stupid*. It will fail at the first hurdle.... "So where's the GUI for me to automate the RAID partioning on my server?".
*Intelligent* advocates are needed.
Linux is certainly not the end. Someday, something newer, better, and more sophisticated will replace it.
What we can hope for, though -- what we should strive for, in fact -- is that the shift from proprietary software to open source software is a permanent one. At least for the mass-market, horizontal stuff like operating systems, web browsers, and office suites. It is a worthwhile goal to pursue the permanence of open standards and open systems. This will not only prevent another monopolist from taking over, but it will allow the shift from paradigm to paradigm to take place as smoothly as possible.
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Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Perhaps that is what accounts for the low presence and attendance of Linux folk at this particular expo. May it be that the Penguin world has outgrown its niche position of unexpensive NT/Novell replacement for small enterprises and has established a market for itself, complete with dedicated expos?
Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
how many people were in attendance, in total, during the linux-oriented keynote? 144 might actually be a lot, if the total attendance was only 1000 people at that time.
and, i would like to see Kurzweil as well, probably more than John Hall, unless it's John S Hall, of course.
i browse at -1 because they're funnier than you are.
Ah, exactly where is Microsoft losing any ground?
With the market share they have held, they have little place to go but down.
Maybe in the small server market, let me amend that by saying that maybe they're not gaining ground quite as fast as they'd like to.
According to IDC, they aren't gaining ground at all. Microsoft's server market share was completely flat between 1998 and 1999. IDC are normally big time Microsoft apologists, and Microsoft advertises heavily in their publications, so they would have no incentive to be biased against Microsoft.
On the desktop though they're the king for the foreseeable future. I mean be real.
Even though I wouldn't dispute that Microsoft will have the biggest market share on the desktop for at least the next several years, that doesn't mean they aren't losing ground. MacOS has made a big comeback, and according to IDC, Linux is giving MacOS a serious run for its money for the #2 position (according to IDC MacOS has risen to from something like 3% to around 5% and Linux has surged from virtually nothing to 4% of the desktop market). Additionally, other alternatives such as BeOS and the *BSDs are starting to mature and are starting to make at least small gains in desktop market share.
Another interesting market is PDAs. So far Windows CE has been pretty much a complete flop against PalmOS, and significant interest has started for Linux in this market as well.
Dedicated servers are a market that Microsoft has been trying very hard and mostly unsucessfully at breaking into. Linux, *BSD and QNX seem to have pretty much divvy'd that market up.
I mean be real.
It isn't real for anyone to think that the status quo will remain forever.
I have to admit even I'm intrigued by win2000. By all accounts I've heard it's not half bad.
I'm not at all interested in Windows 2000. Most of the people I know at work who have tried it have ended up going back to either NT 4 or Windows 98 in frustration either after having repeated system trashed problems, incompatibilities or disappointing performance. Its not like those guys are all anti-Microsoft either, those of us that are never bothered trying it at all. And its not like we are average users, I am talking about all either development or systems staff.
> Is anybody actually using Beowulf in a non-academic, non-experimental system?
/. article talking about a company that uses a 1000-node Beowulf running genetic algorithms to produce patentable software products.
Visit www.beowulf.org.
Yes, there is a strong correlation between "Beowulf" and "academic", but it's not 1.0. And there's an even stronger correlation with "experimental", since massive number crunching is so important to modelling.
But if you skim the list at the link, you'll see that a lot of the applications have commercial potential, even if (mostly) currently used in research: applications in chemisty, meteorology, graphics, economics, satellite imagery, materials design, etc.
Also, a googling turns up this older article claiming that Beowulfs were in use (or at least under study) at Boeing, Bristol Myers, and Proctor & Gamble. I wouldn't be surprised to find that a lot of companies were beowulfing, since most companies don't make a big PR noise about their IT infrastructure, and might even prefer to keep it secret as if it were a competitive advantage.
Finally, I vaguely remember an older
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> Mark's claim that 99% of Fortune 2000 companies...use Linux in one way or another.
I don't find it hard to believe at all. Linux came over the radar about the same time ".com" came over the radar. Companies have been creating Web pages by the gazillion, and this demanded server resources beyond their traditional corporate requirements - and budgets.
Corporate conservatism is a reality, but I know from personal experience that there is one force that can compete with it: managers want quick solutions; managers don't want to sign purchase orders. In corporate IT, it's almost always a case of "Never have so few done so much with so little."
So the conjunction of "Linux over the radar", ".com over the radar", and traditional managerial stinginess has put a phenomenal number of Linux boxen on the network over the past couple of years - possibly as many as 5,000,000.
Managerial tightfistedness has undoubtedly led to the adoption of lots of Beowulfen and Samba servers over the last couple of years as well. Perhaps even preferentially in Fortune 2000 companies, since bigger companies generally have bigger IT requirements, and the savings by going Linux vs certain other solutions can add up to many millions of dollars over a fairly short period of time.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
no, Microsoft does use linux.... at least for testing. I remember a while back there was linux.microsoft.com which was discover on the web running linux and apache. Soon after the artical was released the site was taken down.
Besides if Microsoft didnt run linux, where would it get all its good technoligies for windows 2001? Theve taken everything useful they can from apple
Also SUN didnt show up. Im pretty sure that they where there last year. They did have a linux pavilion, but there where only two vendors (redhat and linuxmall). linux mall was makeing a desperate attempt to sell stuffed tuxs. On a positive note, transmeta had a very stong presence, linus was even there on Tuesday answering questions and showing his face.
shows fame is a two-edged sword... (not a broadsword then :)
:)
It could (in some cases) be described as a daikatana
Voting Moo Anyway!
It seems everyone is extremely intent on pushing Linux to be THE one and only OS. I know it's a wonderful OS and I use it on one of my servers and have plans to upgrade a few other servers from MS to Linux, but I don't feel that having Linux exclusively is the way to go. I know that there will always be other operating systems, but in a theoretical world, what if linux takes over 100% completely. I can think of a ton of advantages to this, but what disadvantages would we possibly face that haven't popped up already? It seems like it might force a lot of people out of comp. sci. I mean, how many of us started learning about computers on Windows before we ever knew about Linux?
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Also working in a "Micro$oft-only shop," I believe that there are really only a few relatively basic reasons for their dominance.
First and foremost always seems to be "support". Talk to any Micro$oft rep/team leader about linux, and the first question/bitch about it is "well, yeah, it may be cool, but who supports it?" As if it's not obvious that *several* vendors compete for the best "linux support"... Red Hat, Caldera, Corel, Mandrake, etc. (please, no 'Mandrake is just red hat!' or 'that's not a real distro!'... I don't know what a real distro is anymore, except debian and slakware...)
The "support" issue comes up in other places too. For example, I write software (database frontends) mostly in Visual Basic and ASP. Why? Do I actually like them (and active-x for that matter) better than C++/Perl/PHP/Python?
No, not really. It's because "Someone may have to support your code in the future!" Visual Basic really isn't all that more standard than C++, but I keep being told that "The next guy might not be as bright as you, and, well, the company would be in deep water if nobody is able to support the data warehouse!" I just learned VB three months ago... I doubt they would ever end up with a less experienced programmer than me... and if they *did*, 90% of all formal CS training in college is done in C++ anyway.
Another very common reason here is interopterability. (sp? ehh?) Linux office apps are either "too immature" or "don't work together" or are "too hard to figure out".
Please. ApplixWare and StarOffice both pretty damn intuitive, I think. Office components in both seem to play with each other. Sure there are some bugs, but there are also bugs in M$ products. Many exec/mgmt people are under the delusion that failings in compatibility between Office/Outlook/IE-based-DBMS's are due to "too much load", or "too many people on the localnet" etc., rather than inherent flaws. Just the same types of comments ISP tech support gets when IE or Dial-Up Networking doesn't bring their e-mail quickly enough.
There is, of course, the issue of familiarity that Picass0 brought up in the previous post. Lastly, most M$ products we use are entrenched in the system because of some obscure feature that is "absolutely necessary" and "you can't do with linux/apache/mysql".
Of course, mail service/external www/dns is all done on a couple of linux boxes...
So the question is really, what the heck is "support"? The ability to rewrite my code, or fix desktops? Deploy new versions of shit on our customer service stations? Worse yet, how can it be provided satisfactorily for linux if it means something different every time it is used in conversation? Hell if I know...
When I grow up, I want to have Christopher Walken hair.
Of course, the expo is Microsoft-centric; it is dealing with technologies of interest to end-users! The average end-user does not know what Linux is, because it was not designed for him. Two summers ago, I did some customer support, and I can only imagine how users who call the help-desk with questions like "how do I double-click" would react to Linux. In its complete form, Linux and UNIX only appeal to technophiles with either servers or high-end workstations.
That being said, I think that many more embedded devices over the next few years will be designed around Linux. Since the source is available, the Linux kernel can be optimized for the device being designed, and there are no licensing fees. So, it is far more likely that Linux would show up all over Comdex, rather than PC Expo
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
...Mark's claim that 99% of Fortune 2000 companies -- including Microsoft -- use Linux in one way or another.
Ninety-nine percent...as in, all but 20? Which 20 are those, I wonder?
Yo dawg, I heard you like the Ackermann function, so OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD
Seriously, not to knock on people for caring, but trade shows are just that. A place for marketing. A place to say, "hey check out our cool shit". Of course most of it is hardware and commercial software. There's not that much of a financial push from Linux Corporation's marketing department, now is there?
This kind of thing is great, because it totally makes it so that when some guy says to an executive "we want to use Redhat for blah blah blah" the executive is past the "red what?" stage and goes "Oh yeah, I saw a story about them on CNN, I know who they are".
The more decision-makers who are at least familiar with the name the better, since M$ have proved often that reputation often precedes quality when it comes time to make decisions.
sig:
See the "..for smart people" banners Wired runs here? Look elsewhere guys.
Part of this is true. A non-technical friend of mine said to me last week "You know that weird linux thing you use, I think its getting mainstream." and I think he may be right.
and that can only be a good thing for us.
Oh yes? I can see it giving more device drivers (probably closed, as the new intake will not be as philosophically hidebound as some), but other than that, there is the risk that they use it, go "BUH?" then go back to windows/macos/typewriter saying "linux sucks, it doesn't do X". I know quite a few people who have had this reaction. Always with Redhat, because it has the greatest exposure, shows fame is a two-edged sword... (not a broadsword then :)
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
There was also a BeOS/BeIA presence, as noted in this article about PC Expo. He also mentions in the article that
IBM was showing its new ThinkPad lines, including those that offer pre-loaded Caldera Linux.
Promising, isn't it?
...but I work for one of them. And even we have a couple Linux boxen sitting around that I know about (although they're just there in an evaluation capacity, not actually being used for anything).
DNA just wants to be free...
Linux does X. I know. I use it.
-BrentI mean, was it, only cool people use Linux?
Or was it more of a We Are Linux, We Will Absorb You?
This is marketing - did people hear that Linux can do everything W2K can do and better or did they hear you need to be a technogeek to use this stuff?
Will in Seattle
Sorry, I'm sure it would be easy to look up the answer to this question, but I'm in a lazy mood.
MSK
Seriously.. The battle for "recognition" of linux or BSD or whatever flavour of unix you like isnt about winning over the geeks.. we all know what its good for and when we want those functions we use it. We also use other OSes when we need their functions too. The recognition that alternative OSes to the win* family need will come when the guys that need telling what linux is and why its different start paying attention. 140 or 40, it doesnt matter. These are the guys in suits who can either block, ignore or help deployment of these other OSes in business.
# human firmware exploit
# Word will insert into your optic buffer
# without bounds checking
I had a
Most people here either have no idea what linux is, or just don't care.
I'd guess the numbers of these people are much larger than any visit to slashdot could typically indicate.
the more important side of this, however, is that the numbers of these people are shrinking at an astounding rate. I'd guess the number of people who have even HEARD of linux has more than doubled in the past year.
and that can only be a good thing for us.
________
1995: Microsoft - "Resistance is futile"
Working in a Micro$oft-only shop I have found the reason MS dominates boils down to this: the people at the top who write the big checks have heard of Micro$oft. They go with what they know. Most people can name a better web development tool than Frontpage, but it's the standard because it's a MS product. Everyone know what a liabilty Outlook has become, but it's MS so CEOs know it. Ditto for Office, IIS, IE, Access, and so on.
But...
CEOs of organizations often times are not hands-on with computers. A switchover to another OS is relatively painless for them on a personal level and has more to do with cost. How many hours will it take to switch processes to a different platform?
It's a matter of raising the awareness CEOs have of Linux that will get more enterprises to adopt it over MS. MS has made some very negative headlines in the past year and that doesn't hurt our cause either.
Yesterday and today people have been going on and on about how PC Expo is "so Windows oriented".
/. stop whining about the size of the Microsoft booth compared to that of Red Hat and how there's still people on this planet who don't use this vastly superior operating system?
Funny..a Dutch newspaper (NRC Handelsblad) today ran a fairly large article that stated the exact opposite: how PC Expo was a complete Linux/Transmeta affair. And no, the people who write for this newspaper are not Linux zealots at all...in the same article they stated that Linus Torvalds is one of the founders of Transmeta.
I guess this article shows that Linux is becoming more prominent and mainstream..there wasn't a word about the huge Microsoft presence.
How about
News and bla for computer musicians: http://lomechanik.net/
Back when I was younger, I did some OS/2 Advocacy in the face of overwhelming Windows opposition. Particularly fun was one COMDEX in Atlanta which Team OS/2 descended upon. With some support from IBM (Basically they got us Exhibitor's passes so we could get in before the show) we ran about and offered to install OS/2 on all the hardware we could get it on. It was rather surprising how many hardware vendors were willing to install it -- they wanted to show off their hardware as much as possible. It was kind of fun setting up the brand new Compaq Pentium 166 (With an UNGODLY 32 MB of RAM) to display 4 video streams at the same time through the media player. The NT box next to it (Same hardware) sat there the whole time running its polygon screensaver. Ah, those were the days...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?