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Open Source Software in a Windows Environment?
brennan73 asks: "Like many people, I work in a Windows NT/2000 shop that has absolutely resisted bringing *nixes into our environment. Everyone has their reasons - my boss has resisted because it would be more difficult and expensive to find a replacement admin if I leave, since said replacement would need to be able to administer both Windows and *nix boxes, which I can understand. But I'm still curious...has anyone out there replaced major pieces of Microsoft software with open source equivalents in a medium-to-large business environment, while still running on the Windows platform?"
"Like many people in such shops, I've just about had it with IIS's security problems. I'm also highly unimpressed with Microsoft's new licensing schemes. In other words, between security and money concerns, I can see good reasons for businesses to look for alternatives to Microsoft's standard offerings, for apps and utilities if OSes are ruled out by management.
So, I'm thinking of replacing IIS and Office with Apache and StarOffice for Windows, and I'm open to other examples on both servers and the desktop. Why did you switch? How painful was it for both you and the users? Any experiences that anyone could relate, even failed experiments, would be great."
While some developers undoubtably want to yield no quarter to Microsoft, I doubt that's the real problem.
Have you ever looked at code that truly supports Windows platforms? Microsoft may claim that it's a common platform, but the extra work required to support different Unix platforms (Linux, BSD, Solaris, HP/UX, AIX) is trivial compared to the extra work required to support W95, W98, WinME, NT4, W2K and now WXP.
The only reason most shops can get anything out the door is the fact that there are tools designed to hide this inconsistency. Few people program in Xlib directly, but it's accessible to those who need to do something Athena/Motif/KDE/Qt/et al don't do. But the last I heard, nobody (except maybe some games developers) gets within three or four layers of the Windows API. That makes the cost of cross-platform development extremely high, since the abstraction layers are so different.
Of course, low level programming still interacts with the APIs directly. But I remember shocking a former boss speechless when I gave him a copy of the Linux parallel printer driver. It was about 5 pages, and everything was done once. He had written similar device drivers for Windows and basically had to write the same code four times.
On a related note, this is why I continue to insist that Windows is a toy OS. The most fundamental requirement of an OS is to hide hardware and system details. I should not have to rewrite code so it works with Zip disks in addition to floppies, or SCSI drives in addition to IDE drives. Yet programs can't access NTFS disks unless the programmer recodes them. They can't migrate from Windows API to another unless extremely thick abstraction layers are used.
In contrast, with the "toy" Linux I have routinely migrated work between Solaris and HP/UX systems at work to Linux boxes, and back, creating an extremely flexible development environment. The required source code changes, if any, can be localized into #ifdef blocks. With autoconf, I don't even need to worry about different Makefiles.
If you're paid for your work, the significant extra work required to support Windows makes sense. Or if you're a major project, like Apache. But for somebody who is doing this work in their spare time, supporting Windows means that a lot of other things won't be done.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I don't think this is a troll; it's a legitimate question. Fortunately, there's a legitimate answer. And that is ...
The open-source/free-software (hereafter os/fs) landscape is constantly changing. Some projects (e.g. Mozilla) are better about putting out constant updates than others, but the fact is that os/fs in general is a rapidly evolving world, and limitations that existed a year or a month or even a week ago might not exists today. So it's worth checking on a regualr basis to see what solutions exist.
Also, not only are the technologies changing, but so are the skillsets that grow up around them. It seems to me that what the poster was asking about was what kind of experiences people have had with migrating from M$ to os/fs solutions. Well, it's perfectly reasonable to think that someone might have useful knowledge to share about this migration process that they didn't have last time the subject came up.
I think that in the long run, this might be a good way to get the PHB's to recognize the value of os/fs. M$ pushes its projects on the basis of M$ itself being this huge, monolithic entity that will always be there. That's probably true [sigh] but the countervailing os/fs argument is that monoliths don't (and in fact can't) respond to user needs and create new opportunities the way distributed, open projects can. Put it in terms b-school grads will understand: these days, os/fs is at the cutting edge of innovation, and if your business doesn't get with the times, it will be left behind by faster, more agile competitors.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
You may want to suggest replacing internal use ones too. Unfortunately with the strong possibility that this rolled-up viruses thing continues , (Ie virus's with port 80 AND mail virus infection vectors) it only takes one goofy secretary to open the "Funny attachment" and Blammo! The bugger is now behind the firewall.
Ugly.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
HOWEVER, almost every attempt I've made to move to Linux or open-source software on the workstation front has been met with absolute failure. The only real open-source program we use on a regular basis on the workstation side is PuTTY, really. Every time I tried moving a user to Linux as their OS, for example, or switching them from MS Office to Star/Open Office, they end up complaining loudly that it's too different, and their boss ends up making me switch them back to what they normally use. They're extremely resistant to change; they may be willing to try something brand new, but not switch to something that's different and replacing what they've used before.
So, that's where it stands at my company... we've done the switch to open-source, but only as much as I can switch without the users noticing the real difference. Otherwise, I can't get them to try something different. This is the main problem we face in getting the OSS alternatives in, IMHO... not the MS monopoly enforced by their strongarm tactics, but end-users too unwilling to use something else.
Just my $.02...
Unless your boss is a complete moron, the only place that an open source rollout is easy is in the backend.
Anything the users can touch taste or feel needs to remain Windows/Office/Outlook - but behind the scenes is different.
I worked in a few environments where the smtp transport to the exchange server was Linux/Sendmail based. And file/print servers based on Linux/Samba. And with the Gartner Group adverisies (remember, Gartner Group is why it took most Windows 95 didn't get rolled out in most corporate environments until late 96, when 95b was available) it should be a no brainer to get off of ASP/IIS/MSSQL to PHP/Apache/MySQL
Basically, here's the reasons:
1. Security
2. Low Cost of Ownership
3. Security
4. Free
5. Security
Just like Mr. Scott said in STIII : "The more they overtake the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the drain"
Do you really? How can you look your boss in the face and tell them that they do not have to replace Outlook and the platform it runs on? I would rather resign than misslead my company that way. My advice may be ignored, but it will always be honest.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Who the fuck uses the MFC anymore? That is the problem with you Linux dipshits, you base your information on things that are 6 years old. You probably think that Windows still runs a 16-bit environment on top of DOS. Go back to writing viruses, spreading Anthrax, and knocking down tall buildings.