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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."
Lots of people run it on Windows.
HTH,
"Nothing was broken, and it's been fixed." -- Jon Carroll
There is little open source software for windows, because authors of open source software do not want to support microsoft.
Apache and Star Office are exceptions, because they want to become standards and that means being available for the most popular desktop platform.
IMO Open source software is usually harder to use for the average microsheep. People like GUIs are are willing to pay for them. It seems that that is what the linux world is lacking at the moment.
Functionality is not always more important that ease of use, at least that's how most users think.
- PS. This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R where eliminated.
I work at a pretty big company, about 7 locations all over europe and canada. We have a running windows nt 4 network and we replaced all the DNS servers with Redhat, this was pretty painless. We are currently investigating replacing our IIS servers with apache and possibly our VPN servers with PoPtOp.
It isn't much (yet) but I am pretty fanatic about migrating more and more so, we probably will have more open source software.
I must say replacing office with staroffice is pretty impressive. How did your users react?
Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity
I work for one of the major phone companies. After the recommendation to move off IIS came out, the management started a project to do just that. Phone companies tend to like and trust Unix, since that's where unix was invented. With the recent virus', worms and trojans, microsoft has really damaged their reputation with CIO and CTO's. High level executives don't like it when they look bad, especially when there are good alternatives. Most of the support, admin people I know have been negative about the new licensing. If they don't change it, Microsoft will hurt themselves.
The obvious example is one of the most frequently used. I usually suggest that people use Mozilla as their primary browser and mailer. It's still pre-1.0, but tends to be less buggy than IE, support standards better, provide more privacy features and overall saves a lot of headaches for user and admin alike.
I use the Gimp under Windows, but it's a bit clunky (especially in opening and saving files), so I would not reccomend it to everyone.
> my boss has resisted because it would be more difficult and expensive to find a replacement admin if I leave
:) why would you leave if you like your job? isn't it a way of saying "I want to be on the safe side if I throw you out" hehe...
Sounds like the reverse-excuse
Yeah maybe alarmist, but you can install BSD or Linux on the same hardware that runs windows, so if you'd leave you could always offer to put the system (or the parts you changed, i.e. probably Email firewall and httpd) back on a windows platform for the next person that would replace you... Normally when you give your 2 weeks (or more depending on the terms) notice, you have time to train someone for the basic stuff and fix/tweak the last things...
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Well...
We just completed a StarOffice 5.2 rollout.
This was in direct response to some very threatening letters we received from the BSAA (Business Software Association of Australia). In hindsight, it was just a scare-campaign to fool us into buying more software - and it half worked. We bought Win2000 licenses for MOST PCs. And we bought Office XP for those who absolutely needed our legacy VB code in Excel. We use Access (developer) to create and distribute our database front-ends - the developer version lets you distibute an Access 'viewer' type package without having a license for Access.
The most interesting change for us though was StarOffice - about 85% of our staff who were using Office 97 are now using it, and we have 2 people trialling StarOffice 6-beta.
Also, I recently bought Borland's Kylix (www.borland.com/kylix). It's Delphi for Linux (Rapid Application Development, for those who don't know). I am half-way through creating our first Kylix-based database front-end (I'm presently testing it out at home, talking to M$ $QL Server on Win2k running under VMWare!!! Ha!). We are about 6 weeks away from our first Linux box on the desktop. It'll be running Netscape 6.1 (it has a spell checker for email - what can I say?), StarOffice 6-beta, and my Kylix-based database front-end. Oh - by the way - Kylix is available for FREE download if you only create open-source projects with it (I bought the Desktop Developer anyway...).
If all goes according to plan, I will start on the (very) long task of rebuilding our database front-ends under Kylix, but as I said - it will take time... I estimate that in 5 years (and my boss backs me up on this) we will be running a fully Linux-based office, and the only commercial app we'll be using will be Kylix.
I am forced to use W2K for my job. Having Cygwin installed gives me almost a complete *NIX environment (Openssh, Bash, Perl, Python, Postgres, Xfree, etc) that runs seamlessly in a Win32 system. It is completely awesome.
We're been quietly replacing several NT file and print servers with a Redhat 7.1/Samba solution.
Managers are beginning to discuss replacing all the publicly available web servers with Apache (currently IIS).
We are deploying two new web servers in November, and both will run Redhat/Apache.
Myself and others are testing the StarOffice beta, on Linux as well as NT.
There's beginning to be a discussion about how to move our Visual Basic applications over to something that M$ can't orphan.
The big push for 'Active Directory' seems to have died,
The Novell guys are talking about Novell/Linux on the same box, but I'm ignorant of the details...
If you are bored with the look&feel of the windows shell/desktop/taskbar you could replace it with i.e. litestep or some other shell replacement. check this nice site for a list of shells and other related stuff & news about the subject.
Don't think it's something you would deploy company-wide, but with a good theme it sure would impress your co-workers and it's also great for *nix people that are familiar with i.e afterstep, windowmaker and the like.. Last time I checked lots of the shell replacements (if not all) are open source in some form or other..
- No tears, please! It's a waste of good suffering!
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
KDE runs on Windows. It uses the Cygwin POSIX emulation layer (they claim they only had to change about 100 lines). Currently it requires an X server, but they are working on eliminating the dependency.
I also remember an older project, using a non-free POSIX toolkit. Can't remember the name, tough.
Sadly, even Microsoft has a solution to your problem:
They have a product called Interix (it isn't their's, they bought it from a startup). It runs under Win2k or NT4 and basically provides a *NIX environment for an NT system. All the GNU stuff is there (shells, gcc, make, etc etc) and the source to them. (source CD is sold separately for $20, or download from their ftp site). Should be noted that the only code there is the code to GNU products, not the actual Interix code.
it isnt free. It does cost something on the order of hundreds per copy.
[disclaimer]This post is not an endorsement of Microsoft or their products.[/disclaimer]
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
And if I REALLY need to get into windows there's no need to reboot. Double click the VMWare icon and load the suspended image file of Windows. No more than four seconds and I can do whatever I need to do in Windows. The only thing that's still problematic is integrating samba browsing in Nautilus in a good way. KDE is of course a good alternative, but personally I don't like that environment.
I got some screenshots up at my site.
We have a couple of Linux boxes running now on the back end. Our firewall is running kernel 2.4.x to get the improvements netfilter brings. gShield is a great tool for firewall control. Don't edit the config files with Notepad or Wordpad, though.
We have a dedicated PC at our hosting company, a RAQ4 w/Apache.
On the desktop, we are stuck with MS. Most of the software we use for our business, (insurance) is provided as part of our contracts with the insurance companies. We don't rate and quote insurance with the software they provide, they don't do business with us. We are stuck for the moment. In the future, though, we may be able to make some changes. Many of hte companies we do business with are moving to "web" apps, or Metaframe/Terminal Server scenarios.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Which idiot modded this up? Do astroturfers now come in pairs of two? It is a complete lie.
SO-5.2 is absolutely comparabale and better in parts than MS Office 2000.
Anyone who thinks differently should tell where the problems are. General statements (crashes a lot) are hard to bleive without any detail.
Moritz
I've done it. At work, we had need of a web server for our team, but the Powers That Be didn't want to make part of the Intranet available to us mere peons. I downloaded and installed Apache for Win32 on my NT 4.0 box and had it up and running in about 15 minutes (10 minutes spent reading the manual). It runs quite happily on my NT box serving my team.
The next thing we needed was a SQL server for our bug tracking database. Our database was originally a MS-Access 97 application. The shared datastores was an Access MDB on an NT file server supporting a team located at two different sites. We discovered the hard way that Access was not designed for network operation :-)
We couldn't get a license for Microsoft SQL server from Management, so I downloaded MySQL for Win32 and installed it on my NT box. I also downloaded the MySQLODBC driver and several MySQL tools (e.g., the Access to MySQL server migration utility). Within a day, we had created and deployed our bug database as SQL server based MS Access application. Yes, MS Access app connected to a MySQL backend. No problem.
So at work, the NT machine I do my development on runs Apache and MySQL supporting up to 8 users without a problem.
On a bigger scale, the big corporation I work for is a MS shop. For the project we're working on, we insisted on and got UNIX servers (IBM machines running AIX). FastConnect from IBM was screwing up constantly, so we bugged the IT department enough until they installed SAMBA -- we dragged them kicking and screaming into it, I might add. No problems. NT and Win9x workstations connect to and use an IBM AIX as our fileserver.
This happens all the time, guys. Most Win32 ports of Open Source apps have very nice installation packages. Both Apache and MySQL come with automated installs which, frankly, are some of the slickest installers I've ever used. Apache and MySQL require a minimum level of competence to set-up and maintain.
Oh, and how did Management react when they found out about my Apache/MySQL server? Very, very positively. I was commended for my initiative and resourcefulness. The Dept VP said he loved the choices because it cost nothing to the department.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
Another way to accommodate demands that you move to a platform that supports Outlook calendaring is to consider (try approaching this option with an open mind) moving to an OS X environment.
You get the (sort of) BSD unix environment to work in, and have the ability to install all the Micro$oft apps (Office, Entourage) and interact with the Windows boxen out on the network just as if you were similarly hobbled with Windows.
And it's all native -- no emulation or VM to reduce performance.
Of course, you'd have to change the hardware, but that's usually the cheapest thing to change, and gets replaced on a regular basis anyway...
As a regular user, you can add a Windows `Send To...' option to your menus which make it available as an editor. Also, when you open the File Types menu, if you choose the Advanced options for a TXT text document and change the program used by the `open' action to gvim, you can make it the default text editor.
If you are really lucky and have registry access, you can make it into the default source-code viewer for IE.
Not having to look at Notepad has made me a much happier (albeit still reluctant :) Windows user.
CJW
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.
That's an excellent question: People who like (or have to use) Windows can find open-source replacements for most of the closed source apps they run. In fact, that's a nice way to fade a Windows house to a Linux/Open-Source house: Changing the operating system and consequently all the applications is way too drastic for most houses. Cross-platform open-source software are both cost-effective AND non-MS (which means you have a choice).
.NET stuff later).
/Office XP box (a 'hasn't crashed,ever' combination)... You might want to try out GIMP for Win if you're into that kind of stuff, or Mozilla as a replacement of IE (can't think of a reason to do that, though).
One of the downsides is that for some of the applications, you really have to adapt the Unix Way Of Thought & Work (and realise that not everything reads it's config from the registry). That's not really a downside, but it's one of the reasons people are afraid to jump to Linux in the first place! Another downside is that GUI open-source software have a way of looking,well, unfinished, as opposed to the exoterically polished MS software.
Now, let's see... IIS to Apache shouldn't be too painful, unless you have an site based on MS technology (or plan to use
MS Office to StarOffice... Well, I don't like StarOffice and I love MS Office but I guess this is a matter of taste. Get rid of Outlook though if you don't use Exchange Server (question: does an open-source Exchange Server-compatible alternative exist?) . If it's pre-2002 version (which at least blocks any executable attachments), it's going to cost you a lot.
Personally, I also use GCC and the command line tools on my Windows XP
There is no such thing as 'world peace'.
I run a Linux users group and I also advocate Linux for what it is good for. I personally believe that every platform has its use.
However, I have a problem with insipid people like yourself that need to show how immature they are by using "M$" or "Wintendo" instead of calling the products by their real names. Personally, I am not fond of Celeron Processors, but I don't go about calling them "Celery" processors. I am also not incredibly fond of Microsoft's business practices, but that doesn't mean that I need to refer to them as "Micro$oft"
The OS Windows, is not personally the best choice for all jobs, calling it "Windoze" or "Wintendo" simply shows that you are closed-minded about things.
If you wish to advocate or intelligently discuss the merits of your OS of choice, which is my OS of choice, you must do so in a mature fashion. Going into the offices of any business, to sell your wares or skills talking like that. May not only get you laughed out of their offices, but will surely keep you from getting their business or that job.
Furthermore, to call something, that you have admitted to not using, "Wintendo" simply shows your lack of mental width. As for myself, I am studying to become a Linux+, RHCE professional. I am also training to become and MSCE. Why would I do that? So that I can properly determine what is indeed the best solution for my clients or job to get their work done. If the client asks for Windows, they get Windows. If they ask for Solaris, guess what? They get Solaris. If they ask for Linux, they get Linux.
I am also becoming an MSCE so that I know the shortfalls of the Windows platform. The same holds true for learning all I can about the Unix and Linux in general. One thing is unable to be all the things to all the people. That is why you need to know all the things or enough that you can properly explain the benefits and the shortfalls of those systems.
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If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Dude, Exchange is basically the server side of the Outlook arangement (When used as groupware). Exchange, for what it's worth, is probably one of the better things Microsoft has done. But the rub is that it doesn't seem to have any decent (or at all?) *nix clients.
I've tried to get Evolution (Which the suits like because it's a damn faxcimile of outlook) working, and with some massaging it'll talk to the mailboxes via IMAP, but the calander (at least on 5.1) is just plain incompatable.
Which is a shame, because where I'm working, licencing costs are really hurting us, but we can't make that final switch until we can replace outlook.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
A little community college I went to used the Exchange webmail system. It was actually a pretty good setup. No students bothered to use Lookout, they just fired up IE (or Opera for the smart and discerning), and that probably cut down on the amount of viruses spread around. In addition, half of the students were computer illiterate graphic artists. The administration had learned from experience that's it's a whole lot easier to give each student a URL, a login, and a password then to expect them to configure a pop3 client.
We recently did a big roll out in a Govt dept (Can't tell you which one tho. NDA!) using 2000 boxen, running MySQL. It was a freaking joy to behold.
MySQL runs like the clappers, and *assuming you don't need row level locking and a few nifty things like that* slipped right in where MS-SQL once reigned.
The MySQL odbc drivers all worked charmingly and allowed the VB-drones to make their crufty little db apps as seemlessly as if it was Ms-sql.
Apache works pretty sweet too if you need a *real* PHP host. I've been told the ASP on it works moderately ok if you really must. (Which you may if management heard that Gartner recomendation).
Of course none of it reeealy compares with the using linux as the be-all-end-all windows service pack! But that goes with out saying really.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
HP's OpenMail can replace an Exchange server. It allows Outlook as a client and supports calendaring. I don't know what other clients it supports, or whether other clients can use the calendaring features.
This is something I see as one of the biggest obstacles for large scale acceptance of Linux/FreeBSD/... in business environments. Suits like it a lot, it seems they can't live without it. A viable alternative should be high on the priority list!
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
We are a small company in South Africa, and we run vritually everything on Open Source software. on the server side we have:
.....
... we will see about that soon ...
3 Linux Mandrake boxes:
1)Samba PDC and main fileserver (also NFS), openldap server,
2)Postfix/UW-IMAP/amavis virus scanning mail server, apache web and webmail, Star Schedule Calendar server.
3)Samba/CUPS printserver, intranet server
The only proprietary software here is the Star Schedule server, which we are looking at replacing.
1 Windows 2000 Server/MSSQL 7 server/IIS
This box is for the ERP/Project Management software we use (don't blame me, management didn't even consult IT).
On the desktops we run mostly Windows 2000 or Windows NT with Star Office, GIMP, and Netscape. We will be deploying Mozilla and OpenOffice to replace Netscape and StarOffice.
Openldap provides a convenient shared address book, and allows use to use linux on the desktops as conveniently as Windows boxes joined to the domain. Password authentication on linux is done with pam_smb, account info by ldap -> one account and one password. Star Schedule povides calendaring, although it is not that robust. We migth migrate to phpgroupware
There are a few people who have MS Office (since they claim they can't send (Star|Open)Office to other companies
Other proprietary software we use is Pro/Engineer and Wave (from Ricardo). Pro/E does not run on linux (yet), but Wave does.
Oh yeah right... I just realised what you where saying.. Got it. The Outlook web access thing in Exchange.
I've had mixed results with that. I gather Exchange 2000 does it better than 5.1 which seemed to me a little hideous on system resources for some reason.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
That's what we are using to automate our windows environments ! windows has no embedded scripting language as for example OS/2 with REXX. We use it for nearly everything - automated installs, login scripts, database management, system administration, etc. It makes life a lot easier and extensible, and the support (newsgroups, internet) is excellent. If you try to do this with a microsoft method, you would have to learn several different programming and scripting languages, pay for compilers (VB), click a lot around, and would require much more personel, and have a crap support !
Thanks for stereotyping Open Source software developers. Unfortunately you are wrong. Many people who become involved in Open Source software do so because they want to share software with people and not because Micro$oft sux0rs. Simply because most of the posts on Slashdot typically mindlessly bash Microsoft and call it the Great Satan doesn't mean that people developing software that they want to benefit users of software will divorce themselves from the Windows platform.
What makes you think that Open Source development is restricted to users of a certain platform? Open Source Developer != Linux user even though a lot of them are.
Apache and Star Office are exceptions, because they want to become standards and that means being available for the most popular desktop platform.
Exceptions, huh? How about
Our facility was recently sold to a company that uses Lotus Notes/Domino. We had been running M$ Outlook/Exchange. I used to complain bitterly about Outlook/Exchange (and I was the e-mail admin), but after fighting with Notes/Domoino for 3 months, I'd give my left nut to back to Outlook/Exchange. Notes/Domino supports even less standards than M$ (Can you say "non-RFC822 compliant"). At least running Exchange I could use a POP3 client to get my mail. I don't even have that choice with Domino. It's a memory hog, slow, and bug ridden.
Plus the fact that the corporation uses it's "database" capability (Think Filemaker Pro v 2.0-3.0) for just about everything; which forces you to use the Notes client. A programmer I work with has pretty much either implemented or found Apache/PHP/MySQL equivalent solutions for all of them that are faster, more reliable, and easier to support.
I aggree 100% with Peter Gutman's assesment:
Notes Spotting"Choose no life, Choose Lotus Notes"
-NeilI think a lot of folks are doing stuff like this. We did it a little at a time. MOST of our users haven't noticed anything different except that things tend to run a little better. The firewalls/proxy servers went to a Linux box three years ago. Web based access to corporate mail moved to an open source Linux solution last year. Hardly anyone realizes that the last three years of corporate transactional data (we're a financial institution) now resides on a sub $1,000 Samba box. Can't even remember when I moved that....certainly over two years ago.
/proxies. Outlook is history..replaced by Pegasus Mail (I know.....not open source or Linux friendly but works great) which will soon host a Python scripting engine for all the stuff that VB does in Outlook.
This year, we bought some insurance agencies to add to our holdings. BEFORE we bought them they were MS everything....from the mice up. Seems that most of the insurance business likes Redmond a lot. AFTER we bought them, they have Win2K on the desk, Samba as a server, and Linux based firewalls
The stuff runs great. The people don't know the difference...they just say that they're glad they all have a new "computer system". A few suits have trouble because they only know "names" like Exchange or Outlook. They also expect to see a calendar in their e-mail software....although they can't explain why it belongs there. I always have handy, an expense report on what the stuff cost us and a quote from CDW on what it WOULD have cost us using NT Server/Proxy/Exchange, etc. I also remind them that their way would probably cost us more IT staff too.
None of this was hard to do. None of this was technically difficult. None of this hurt our business.
All of this worked. All of this helped our people. All of this saved us money. All of this was the right thing to do.
Pick a project....think it out...do some research and get it done. You'll be happy you did and your company will be better for it. I did it in a very conservative financial institution that HATES to take risk. And now I work for a better company because of that decision.
You don't need Exchange to share calendars with outlook, exchange just makes it easier. It can be done without exchange but requires alot of manual config. Each user can set there outlook to have there calendar sent to a common dir on a server either via ftp,or a samba file share. Then there is a place in contacts, that allows you to specify where a persons calendar resides.
Its a pain to get it started, but once you do, they never know. Does the same thing as the exchange server.
Aren't HP discontinuing OpenMail?
...
Speaking of Exchange replacments, that page I linked to says that Exchange 2k and Outlook XP use WebDAV to communicate. I knew that public folders were WebDAV enabled, but it seems like the whole Exchange shebang is accessible by WebDAV!
I think I'll have to take a look at the Exchange 2k demo and see for myself
I deal daily with a nontrivial program coded directly to the windows API (no MFC or anything of the sort). It runs across several flavors of Windows (98, ME, 2000) though being developed on 98 and never targetted to 2000. Additionally, it was developed without MS tools using an open source (though not Free) compiler.
Bleh!
Here are just a few of the tools that are considered traditionally in UNIX/Linux/BSD territory that are available for Win32. In all actuality, there's enough out there to get as much of Linux running on Win32 as Win32 running under WINE.
/ ruby-install.html
t ml
i ls.html
s .html
XFree86: http://sources.redhat.com/cygwin/xfree/
KDE: http://kde-cygwin.sourceforge.net/
GTK/PHP/Libglade: http://gtk.php.net/download.php
Apache: http://www.apache.org
PHP: http://www.php.net
PHPTriad: http://www.phpgeek.com
Perl: http://www.activestate.com
Ruby: http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/ruby/downloads
Python: http://www.python.org/download/download_windows.h
TCL/TK: http://www.pconline.com/%7Eerc/tclwin.htm
MySQL: http://www.mysql.com
MySQL ODBC: http://www.mysql.com/downloads/api-myodbc.html
PostgreSQL: Included in cygwin (only works on NT)
ATT's U/WIN* Unix for Windows: http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/uwin/
Cygwin: http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/
DJGPP: http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/
Native UNIX command-line binaries: http://www.wzw.tu-muenchen.de/~syring/win32/UnxUt
vi: http://www.cs.vu.nl/~tmgil/vi.html
Emacs: http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/voelker/ntemac
OpenOffice: http://www.openoffice.org
Mozilla: http://www.mozilla.org
GIMP: http://user.sgic.fi/~tml/gimp/win32/
List of GNU software for Windows: http://www.gnusoftware.com/
And so on . . .
There's a list over at DMOZ.org of a lot of this.
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
Using SSL IMAP got us away from exchange. I still
don't have a calendaring solution (which hurts
really!). Outlook will do IMAP, but with a fairly
large (microsoft admits) bug in the implementation
where a thread collision occurs between the
automatic polling of the server for updates and
the manual send-recieve button.. it's a lockup.
Anyway, my smtp/imap server has 400 days uptime
on it now.
A very good way to assuage the fears that you
are irreplacable (you probably are!) is to make
your own RPMS. get source rpms for the stuff
you use, modify the conf files included, rebuild.
I keep a repoisotory of them which are basically
my modifications against RH62 (older servers) or
rh71 (newer ones). This makes disaster recovery
also very easy (which you should have anyway! the
admin leaving the company is also a disaster!).
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...
In short it would cost HP lots to give away something unusable and likely not worth fixing up.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
"Cygwin is a UNIX environment for Windows. It consists of two parts:
The Cygwin DLL works with all versions of Windows since Windows 95, with the exception of Windows CE."
Interix claims to be faster than other eumulated Unix environments, but if performance is an issue then why not install a reliable BSD or Linux distro? Check it out here.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
This is a very timely discussion!
:(
My company is in a pretty tight situation. Changing over to Microsoft's subscription based licensing scam is expected to increase our costs by well over $200,000 per year in an industry with already razor thin margins. The verdict: No bloody way.
So we are very much looking for alternatives. Thankfully the management (so far) does not seem to be very biased nor can they afford to be with one of our major competitors already making a switch to a *nix based system.
However, we have been having real difficulty finding adequate commercial quality open source replacements. My recommendation was to take a "modular" approach: don't look for the one solution to fix everything and don't try to replace all at once.
The easiest to switch over will be the Web Servers: Heavy usage but it's over TCP/IP rather than hands on. Switching to a BSD box running Apache with our "existing" JRun enterprise server slapped on top should do the trick. Goodbye IIS!
Workstations is where it will get ugly. We want to keep our NT boxes for now and concentrate on finding software to replace Office/Outlook that will run on both NT AND an alternative open source OS to ease migration down the road when M$ finally pulls the plug on NT. Backwards compatibility with M$ document formats is also a must for both internal and external reason. So far - not much luck. Open Office is really nice, but its a replacement for MS Exchange that's gonna suck. Tried StarOffice and simply was not impressed. I should also point out that the vast majority of the employees are NOT in IT so Windows look&feel is also required to mitigate resistance.
One of my recommendations has been centralize everybodies personal folders on a central filesystem running Linux/BSD and using Samba to integrate it seemlessly with the rest of the NT based LAN. Coupled with tighter restrictions on who can install software on any given desktop should help to pull us away from NT.
BUT... It's the database backend that is going to be really hard to replace. Currently we use SQL Server but years of bad programming habits resulted in software that is tightly coupled to the existing system. It's gonna be hard to break that link but we're working on it. SQL Server was chosen because of its costs (free, believe it or not) but now its gonna be one of the biggest contributors to the increasing costs because of the new stupid client access licences. Does anyone know of a database system fairly compatible? Needs to handle stored procedures of course hopefully similar to Transact SQL. Heavy usage, transaction support, tight security, and all that are also requirements. Oracle was suggested by management thinks its far too expensive. And of course - it must be stable. Knock MS all you want but SQL Server has worked for us well so far.
This allows calendar sharing (though it barely works even as this) but completely leaves out any of the nifty optimization/rescheduling/reservations stuff typically used.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Since the parent post didn't go into details about how to make your editor of choice the source code viewer for IE, I thought I would explain. It's easier than you think, and doesn't require registry hacking.
:)
.html or whatever file type you just edited.
.pl.)
(The following instructions work for Windows 2000; if you're using 98, please adjust slightly.
1. Go to Tools/Folder Options in My Computer or Windows Explorer. Click the "File Types" tab.
2. Scroll down until you find HTML, PHP, or the file type you are currently viewing in your browser.
3. Click the Advanced button.
4. Edit the "Edit" type, or create a new type called "Edit."
5. Browse until you find the application you want. (I use EditPlus, which does source code highlighting for PHP/JSP/Perl.) Make sure the "Use DDE" box is unchecked.
6. Click OK until you are out of all of the dialog boxes.
7. Make sure the Edit button is showing in IE's toolbar. If it's not, make it show up by right-clicking on an empty area of your toolbar and clicking "Customize."
8. Open a new browser window and go to a URL that ends in
9. The "Edit" button should show up, and you should be able to edit the page in your preferred editor. (Note: for Slashdot, you have to edit/create a file type in Windows for
The real advantage of this is that you can set different types of files to open in different editors. For instance, I set HTML to open in Dreamweaver, but I set PHP to open in EditPlus.
HTH,
Erica
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"
VI is nice to have around. Thanks for the VIM tip. I've been using VIW from Watcom.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Back at an old employer (name removed to protect the privacy of their management
Instead of purchasing additional (expensive) licenses from MS, we decided to give mySQL a try. We used it for things like log processing and analysis, telcom system call modelling, and other fun stuff. It worked *beautifully*, and they're still using it fairly heavily today (according to an old-coworker who's still there now).
I think a great place to start is with information handling and processing, stuff that databases and scripting languages (i.e. Perl, PHP) are designed to do. There's a lot of MS shops out there starting to experiment with using these solutions in lieu of MS-based alternatives (such as ASP or customer C++/VB apps and MS databases). My advice is to start there and move forward
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.
Meeting Maker sucks. It's best feature is that it provides calendaring without requiring that you use Windows. But the non-Windows interface is a Java applet, and there is no good Unix web browser with decent Java support. (Compare the performance of IE's Java vs anything else). On top of that, Meeting Maker's user interface is terrible. I don't know if Exchange is better, but people certainly perceive it to be. And that's what matters. Unless a replacement can be as good or better than Exchange, it's not going to fly.
2. never ever tell your boss. keep a dinky win box around so it looks like you use windows. use it to get into your unix boxes.
"i was saying gnu-rd"
It is MUCH easier to find qualified UNIX support than it is M$ support. Half the MCSE's out there crammed the night before and haven't a clue what they are actually doing. Software support is MUCH better for UNIX as well. I've never had Sun tell me that the solution to my server problem was to re-install my OS either. While WIN2K is a step in the right direction, I still gotta believe in the long run UNIX hardware, software and support is cheaper and more available.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
When IT people at one of my clients, a company with about 200 employees, were saying that they had heard bad things about Microsoft's Proxy Server 2.0, I reinforced that and explained to them how bad Windows is in general when it comes to Internet-related stuff, and why Unix-based systems are better. I suggested that they could use a Linux box with Squid as their proxy server, and that since it would be a dedicated-function box, it wouldn't have large maintenance overhead. I explained that Squid is used by large service providers and can handle big loads.
They went for it, and have been running Squid on Red Hat for some time now. Pressing my advantage, I suggested that they could switch their use of SourceSafe (version control) to CVS and getting much snappier operation across the Internet when developers are working from home. I demonstrated this to them, and they were convinced. They now run CVS for version control, too, using the WinCVS client.
The same company tried out Jitterbug for bug tracking. This wasn't as successful. There's now some talk of trying out Bugzilla. But I no longer have to evangelize this stuff, they're sold. They've received the threatening license letters from Microsoft, and have even gotten to the point of considering replacing Microsoft Exchange with an IMAP server. The only thing holding them back is good centralized calendar software. Anyone know anything good? It doesn't have to be free.
Another area where this company has moved in a more open direction is switching from Microsoft's ASP for web apps, to Java-based JSP. By now being thoroughly sold on the benefits of Free Software and Open Source (since they have developers and even admins who have been frustrated by Microsoft's lack of openness), they picked the Resin application server. Their intranet and extranet applications are now capable of running on either Linux or NT.
When their Windows-oriented vendor came to them with a $18,000 proposal for a Checkpoint Firewall-1 firewall, the IT manager said no thanks, we're thinking of setting up a firewall on one of our Linux boxes. This vendor was one of those who had been complaining of problems with Microsoft Proxy Server, and guess what, they're now showing interest in Linux also.
This company may even switch their file server. There's been some talk of this, due to Microsoft's per-seat license costs for accessing a Windows file server. It probably won't happen soon, but I have the feeling that it'll happen in the end.
Switching the desktops, though, is not considered a serious option, although it's been discussed more than once.
The important thing is to get a foot in the door. Figure out a reason to install an Open Source package - even if it's Apache on NT. Once people start having some familiarity and comfort with the idea of free/open source software, the possibilities become obvious, and it sells itself.
Get them to send HTML files - it's more of a open standard than word doc ever will be, with editors and viewers just about ubiquitous. And it handles 99% of business documentation needs.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
I think that porting open source project to closed source OS like
Windows is bad idea. Let me explain why.
In current world, success of operating system is defined not only by
its technical merits, but also in big part by selection on software
running on it. It is clear that user will not be using system, no
matter how good it is if it does not have application software he
needs. In this way, each time you port Unix product to Windows you
extend Windows software selection on Windows.
One may ask, so what? Extending windows selection does not hurt Lunux
users - it's different users, different market. Unfortunately it is
not true. Each company producing popular software title decides which
platform to support. The more widespread (some call it "standard")
Windows become - it is less interesting for the company to spend
resources porting it to Linux.
So if you have your popular open source software title running on
Linux or BSD, think twice before porting it to windows.
Check out Steltor who sell probably the best scheduling system there is. It has clients for Windows, Mac (including native Carbon) and Linux, web, WAP and imode interfaces, and even an Outlook Connector which makes it work with Outlook. The backend, CorporateTime Server, runs on a wide range of platforms, including Linux. It is cheaper than Exchange, more robust, more scalable (designed for multi-server, multi-site scalability from the beginning) and very easy to install.
I know you asked for Open Source solutions, but at least CorporateTime is sane, open and Unix-friendly.
So quit dreading and set up an evaluation server (for free) now. It is very hard to dislodge a working solution. Use that to your advantage.
Out of sincere curiosity.. why did they go with OS X for servers, and not linux?
Depending on the number of apps, a very realistic solution, in some cases, is to roll out a few large NT/2000 servers, using Citrix Metaframe, and using the metaframe client in linux. This allows you to permit launching of various NT-only apps from the linux desktop.
SQL server works fine, until you have to scale it.
Both the Office import and export functionality has worked flawless for me.
Try importing .xls version 7 with lots of graphs with lots of datapoints. Crashes every time for me. Simpler .xls sheets and Word documents are fine though. Anything with graphs is a crapshoot in my experience.
That would work well if Outlook Web Access were a decently fully featured replacement. This might work well for students, but for a company that utilizes things like the public folders, schedules, and calendaring parts of Exchange/Outlook, the full client is almost necessary.
Since then I've used a ton of Open Source and Free software on NT. I've played around with Sendmail, BIND (as a cacheing only local nameserver), MySQL, Ruby, Python, XFree86 (with windowmaker, which confused the hell out of my local Linux zealot friend ;) even tcl... I use emacs and the cygwin bash + other apps ports (ssh, GPG, all the time. It all absolutely rocks, and best of all it's got me familiar enough with the basics of developing on and using a *nix system that I've been able to swap onto Linux, Solaris and openBSD with a minimal speedbump, allowing me to concentrate on learning the interesting bits of Unixland (system stuff, IP tables, NAT, IDS and a ton of security software that still isn't available on NT. Although (shhh!) nmap now compiles out of the box... netcat runs,too...)
In short, if you're on windows but interested in checking out Freedom, these ports make a nice comfy way to get familiar with the other universe. Most of it is also far superior (more secure, more stable, more flexible and powerful) than the point-and-click Microsoft provided tools.
The one thing I need now is the strength to have another bash at getting Mutt or Pine working. I love mozilla and use mail & news for everything now, but I'd still like the cheap geek thrills of a non-gui scriptable CLI mail client. Then I can get cron mailing me home-rolled tripwire-like security checks daily...
PostgreSQL has CygWin Support for NT.
Bush's education improvements were
"... Samba as a server, and Linux based firewalls/proxies"
When there are discussions about open source, there doesn't seem to be enough recognition that this is a sure way to use open source, even if it is necessary to run Windows on the desktop.
Bush's education improvements were
I think the best scheduling software is Steltor's CorporateTime. It's cross-platform, robust, scalable, and cheap. You can set up an eval server for free and start playing with it.
While I'd agree that Meetingmaker sucks, the Solaris client is not Java-based. Its Motif. Errrm, yeah, that's better, sort of...
I wish I had a kryptonite cross, because then you could keep Dracula and Superman away.
MSSQL is derived from Sybase. The TSQL procedural language comes from Sybase. I don't know how much MS has changed it since forking the code. Sybase is probably your easiest migration path.
Many people would run various UNIX emulators on top of VMS, mostly shells and command line tools that gave the system some semblance of rational design. And with NT, people are doing it all again: Cygwin, the UNIX emulator from Bell Labs, and a few commercial ones. Ultimately, it's futile: you can't completely hide the underlying problems. But if you just use NT or VMS systems casually, it helps.
Another irony is that Cutler's operating system have frequently been uninstalled to run free stuff. People bought the PDP11 to install v6, v7, and 2.8/2.9BSD. The VAX was the primary platform for BSD UNIX for many years, and more VAXen were probably running BSD than VMS. And today, everybody buys PCs with various versions of Windows preloaded and installs--Linux or BSD.
A word of warning, EveryThing Works Likes This.
That isn't just about IIS, it's about every part of software making.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
Though I'm a server jockey, and working on mostly server apps that are deployed on linux, I am currently being forced to use W2K at my office for development, which are then ported to linux for deployment. Screwy engineering process, but one I've learned to cope with because other developers have felt our pain, and made life better for everyone by porting the best of the open source tools.
I use Cygwin for most of my CLI tools. It provides a bash prompt and an incredibly useful set of tools such as grep, find, diff, ssh, tar, gzip, autoconf, automake, make, gcc and others. Beyond that, many other useful tools have been ported or are easy to port because of the services provided by cygwin. I have had problems getting cvs to work correctly. I have also had problems getting emacs to look correct in the console window.
I also use emacs for all of my text editing and devlopment needs. Not only does it give you a powerful development environment in conjunction with visual c++, it can also be hooked into cygwin. I tried VisEmacs and didn't like it (YMMV) as much as simply setting the proper environment variables and churning out programs with emacs 'compile' set to run nmake.
- You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!
The initial reaction in most (70%) of cases was "WTF is this. How do I start my Excel?" Actually people STILL refer to StarCalc as Excel :(
Most people slipped into using it quite well. The biggest question was "Where do I find xxxx?" and the answer is usually "That menu item is over there now...". There haven't been any requests for features that StarOffice doesn't have - it's just a matter of locating the feature, and most people are fine doing this themselves.
There are of course a few people who insist on calling me every time they can't find what they want, and for those people I make a FAQ web site, and direct them to it. If they still give me problems, I complain to their supervisor, and they are told to pay attention and stop wasting time. This group of people represent probably 3% of users.
On the flip-side of the coin, there are probably 40% of people who admit regularly that StarOffice 5.2 is actuallly BETTER than Office 97. I get comments like "It's much easier to lay out columns", "The help system is better", "The formatting features are more powerful", "Things are where they should be" and such... I expect there are a further 40% who really don't care / notice the difference, which leaves 20% of users wishing they still had M$ Office, and I just remind them that 1) we are saving a LOT of money, and 2) a new version is on the way which addresses most of their issues (what happened to my desktop)
The general nature of the business? Well everybody does a little word processing, which is actually a large change for us because 2 years ago we employed 2 Word Processors full-time. This is fairly basic stuff - 2-3 page reports to clients. Our account managers use StarCalc for their own internal calculations, but MOST spreadsheets we send out to clients are produced by Excel (see below) by the analysts. Our accounts department is running StarCalc, and our billing department is about to switch (ETA 2 months).
For those interested, our business NUS Consulting: http://www.nusconsulting.com is a utilites cost-analysis company. We analyse our clients' energy, fuel, fleet and telecommunications costs, find them savings and form consortiums to give our customers some bargaining power.
Our analysts, as I said, are quite dependant on legacy VB code in Excel, so they are the only ones stuck with it for now, but we will HAVE to get them away from that, because we are outgrowing it. Most of our Excel workbooks will initially be replaced by Access / SQL Server, and eventually Kylix / MySQL.
There is no mention of prices on the meetingmaker's web site. That's usually not a good sign...
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
When I used to do NT admin work, I found Perl to be pretty handy. Unix admins have been using Perl and other scripting languages to automate repetative tasks for years. NT admins by and large don't seem to be very familier with the concept, but it is doable.
GNU Cfengine is another great sysadmin tool that's also has an NT version. If you administer a lot of systems (Unix or NT) this a fantastic tool to have. Your fellow NT admins will be completely befuddled trying to figure you how you installed that latest IIS patch to 50 machines before lunch!
Firewalls are another good place to start introducing some free software. I frigging LOVE OpenBSD with IPF (or the new PF) packet filter as a firewall.
Start will small changes like these. They won't require any user training or major changes for your end user. They also won't require much buy in from management. And they'll make it easier to put more free software into place later. When the inevitable objections to a larger, more visible free software related project comes up, you can confidently inform the objector that the company has been using free software for years!
Hardware is the cheapest thing to change? Gets replaced on a regular basis? I don't know where you work, but where I'm from the hardware is the most expensive thing and only gets changed when absolutely necessary. We don't run out every year and drop money on new systems just because something faster is available. We stick with what we have for as long as possible. We've still got Pentium 200 boxes from 1997 running NT4 and office 97. We've upgraded the memory in them to 128megs and installed new 30 gig hard drives, but other than that they are the same as the day they shipped to us. They of course do not have the same capacity as more recent systems, but then we're not trying to run XP and OfficeXP on them, we're running software that is contemporary with the hardware.
The point of diminishing marginal returns on increases in hardware speed was reached long ago. New computers nowadays are made a periodic necessity due to the decrease in speed and efficiency of software, not because increases in speed allow good programmers to add new features that will actually make a difference in anyone's life. Rather the speed increases allow software companies to create and ship crap code and get away with it. I've got an Apple IIe in a closet at home that I bought back in 1985. This computer has a 68k upgrade card bringing the total ammount of memory up to 128k. I used a WYSIWYG word processor on this computer called Multiscribe that featured a true GUI and multiple font types. The program did not have all of the features of something like StarWriter, WordPerfect, or Word, but when you consider that its base functionality was similar and that it ran on an 8-bit 1 mhz processor under 128k of ram it becomes clear just how sloppy the coding of something like Word 2000 really is. I of course understand that the larger a program becomes, the more difficult it is to create relatively bug free code that is also efficient. The problem is I doubt anyone is even trying to create good code.
It has long been said that what Grove giveth, Gates taketh away. This is quite true, now more than ever when programmers almost have to go out of their way to intentionally make code that will slow current systems down so that consumers will be forced to waste their money on new hardware, at which point the cycle will repeat itself.
My advice, use what works until such point that it doesn't work anymore. That goes for hardware and software. If your copy of Office 95 or Wordperfect 7.0 still does the job for you on your pentium 133, and you don't have a compelling reason to upgrade to something new, don't. Save your money now so that when you do have a good reason to upgrade you'll be able to buy the computer you really want.
As for making a switch to OS-X you're solving one problem by replacing it with several others. First there is the fact that OS-X isn't the fastest operating system to begin with yet. Most mac applications are created for the older MacOS, which means you'll have to run a "Classic" VM on top of OS-X in order to run most software. This is a memory and cpu cycle hogging process that I wouldn't want anyone to have to make continual use of. Then there is the fact that changing platforms like this means that all the software you currently own won't run anymore. Unless of course you use a product like Virtual PC at which point you're worse off than with the MacOS Classic VM since you're emulating the hardware now too. Then there is the problem of the lack of available software for the mac. Lets say you're willing to replace all your software with mac stuff. Where are you going to get it from? Things like office are of course available, but what about that niche product you've bought to do a specific thing in your business? How much do you want to bet there isn't a mac version and that the company would laugh if you asked them to create one? Macs are simply not used in corporate america outside of specific industries such as graphic design and desktop publishing. Even there the PC is putting the hurt on the platform. This is why Apple has had to target the iMac as a HOME computer, they can't sell them as a business system. The truth is that the iMac is a superior home system. Its self contained, reliable, and geared towards the luddites who are the only first time buyers left to sell a computer to anymore. My 80 year old grandfather owns one and aside from having to remind him to be careful when he buys software there have been no problems with the computer. For him it is the best system to have. That doesn't mean I'd expect my users to have to put up with one here at the office though. Windows isn't exactly the best OS, but compared to the classic MacOS it is a work of art. OS-X isn't quite there yet and the apps aren't either. One day that might change. If Apple offered a computer with a mature OS that was technologically up to date and ran a sufficiently wide selection of software pertinent to a work environment I might consider trying one out. That day has not arrived yet however and might never do so. I expect Linux to get there long before Apple does.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
I can understand the firewall replacement (Proxy server -> linux based system), but replacing sourcesafe with CVS? True, over the internet the plain sourcesafe solution isn't up to par, but the integration in visual studio is seemless, it works very ok and dont get me even started about wincvs... CVS is a good versioning system, but when it comes to useability... it's hopeless.
There are a couple of solutions for using visual sourcesafe over the internet though, fast and reliable, with all the benefits of VSS: integration in visual studio's tools and visual browsing of the database. Two things CVS will not bring you.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Yes, in Exchange2K it's built in and works very neatly. In Exchange 5.5 it's a clever web front end. 2K also offers a feature where the mail store is exposed as if it were a file system so you can do all sorts of things with that.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Check out Slipstick for more material on Net Folders but trust me now, they're not worth using.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Word can't even READ the SO file format. How does it make Word better, that it has an incompatible file format?
.doc files, unlike MSO, wich does not even open .sdw files.
.doc files, I could not care less.
The OFFICE SUITE SO-5.2 is as good as MS Office. I did not say SO is better than MS Office at importing documents from another office's format.
It is though, it can at least do sometthing with
If you CREATE a document in SO, you will find it superior. MS Word might be a better file viewer for
Moritz
Dig up an old 486 or old P90, drop in a couple of NICs and set up FreeSCO...
Easy, painless, secure, and best of all...Free (as in speech and beer).
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I agree about group jargon being used to program and deprogram people. However, in Corporate America many of the higher ups have been so brainwashed into believing most everything that comes out of Microsoft representatives mouths that it only serves to play into Microsoft's hands by using such terminology.
Microsoft tells the CTO and CIO that those Open Source people are a bunch of immature, unclean geeks. Then someone spouts off, "Micro$oft, Microserf, Windoze, Wintendo" and a host of other incorrect names for their products. The Microsoft rep then simply says, "I told you so..."
So, in America, it is important to advocate in an intelligent fashion that appears mature to the heads of corporate IT departments. That would have a great deal to do with the Puritan values that, unfortunately, pervade much of American society.
--
.sig seperator
--
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?