LinuxWorld Preview

jlttb writes "LinuxWorld gets under way this week in New York City, and CRN has some extensive preview coverage this morning, including a look at Raptor, IBM's first Linux mainframe, and other IBM and Compaq Linux servers to be announced at the show. A second feature takes a look at the growth of the Linux services channel, from industry heavyweights like IBM, Compaq, Red Hat and Caldera, to smaller 'mom and pop' Microsoft and Novell shops that are re-focusing on Linux. Finally, the magazine looks at how Microsoft and Sun are each fighting back against the gains made by Linux in corporate America." I still haven't packed yet, but I'm looking forward to the show.

Comments

The Unix Market

[Alien54]

Apparently the statistics are that Linux is gaining market share at the expense of the other unixen, instead of MS.

I wonder what could be done to encroach more on theMS market, given the recent stumbles by MS in the market (perpetual license rental, etc.)

Re:The Unix Market

[Catiline]

I wouldn't normally respond to someone who takes your tone. Usually, I try to only write 95% of the reason- and leave the last 5% as "an exercize for the reader"- but apparently this didn't help you at all. So I will, for I hope is the only time, ennumerate the exact layout of my reasoning.

I want to state clearly before I begin: I am not trying to convince you that I am right. Your tone was offensive- you insinuated I was speaking unfounded falsehoods- that single unspoken point is what I plan to refute. You do not need to agree with me when I finish, just admit that my point of view is as valid as yours.

On with the explanation.

In response to my comments on virii: Uhh... maybe since it only has 0.24% of the desktop market share, it would make no sense to write a virus for it.... When will you twits realize this and quit comparing everything to Win95?

There are two things I would like to mention in clarification of my statement. First- that quarter of a percent figure is highly dubious- as it was gleamed from brower hits. If you reread that discussion, you will find a great many people disagree with that statistic. I do not claim to know what the real percentage is, but keep your 'damn lies' to yourself ("There are lies, damn lies, and statistics." - Benjamin Disrali). [By that last statement I mean: if you continue to quote that figure, it will only worsen your credibility.]

My second point is that no, I am not basing my arguments upon Win95 or Win98. Look around you: the latest versions of windows (Win2K, XP) were based on the NT codebase and anything I say about them does not carry the 95/98 heritage. And I tell you, for the average user, they are just as virus dangerous as any other version of Windows. Outook still is the premiere virus and worm carrier- the latter do not care about user privledges. Flaws also exist within the default user controls, because XP has its' default user login set to administrative privledges- meaning all users, by default, get root-equivalent privledges unless set otherwise. Even were this not true, the Nimbda and Code Red viruses proved that even Microsoft's server code- which I assume was properly configured with reguard to user access controls- was easily exploited. Until these security issues are resolved, viruses will flourish on Windows as they do on no other platform. And it is my personal belief that the DOS heritage that Microsoft still caries will prevent proper resolution of these issues.

True or false, it is what I believe. I hope you now understand the intent of my first statement.

In response to my comment on crashes:but I've never had an NT crash that brought down the whole box.... Only time you'll EVER encounter a BSOD on NT is if you have serious hardware/driver issues.

I am sorry to burst your bubble. When I have used NT - to be specific, Win2000- I have encountered system-halting errors that brought the box to its' knees. The system flat stopped responding. While it was possible to pull up the task list, the system would not halt the offending process, permit me to begin new processes, nor permit a reboot. It was neccesary to toggle power to get it to return to a normal state of operations.
This was not casued by a driver conflict (reading a CD-RW is not a driver conflict), nor did a BSOD ever appear: the system just "froze" for over 15 minutes (so I assure you this was not a timeout). Even with the worst X processes I have encountered (foolish attempts to make WINE work where keyboard and mouse input are stolen), it was still possible to SSH into the machine from another and kill the offending process(es). That would not have worked in the case I experienced with Windows 2000.

True to most cases or not, these have been my experiences. And as such, it forms the basis of my opinion- stated in my second point.

With reguard to program features: I forgot that Microsoft and Sun developers aren't users either. As far as having to dig into a text file or recompile the code myself to get at these "useful features," no thank you. Also, what "useful features" are you talking about?

Hmm. Perhaps my phrasing of this point was poor. I will begin anew, following the pattern of the first two explanations, and hope I end up with something more appealing to your tastes.

Microsoft's and Sun's developers are users. However, they are not the target audience of the majority of their products (Office, Outlook, Windows). These products are designed for the lowest common denominator- the people with the least computing experience- and not the power users that generally use *BSD or Linux as a workstation. I do not need to explain how the experience of a new user and a frequent user differ, do I? For the power user, the features of these systems are but pale imitations of what is done in Linux and other Free (libre) software- because they are designed to assist the power user, not the new user.

Ah, and you ask me to list features. That I will refrain from doing- it is my opinion that in light of the above paragraph it may very easily become an insult to your intelligence. To hold off a snide retort, I will list only one difference between Windows and Linux that is a very helpful feature and is nearly omnipresent: regular expression pattern matching. [I warned you!]

I hope you now understand that what I said may not have been quite what I meant, and I hope my opinion on this matter is clearer.

With reguards to technical support:Basically the difference between being told to 'RTFM' and live humanoid technical support.

Unpaid volunteers do not have to put up with stupidity; hence stupid questions get a very curt responce. This occurs in the commercial software world too: remember the tech support joke that ends "Pack your computer back up and return it; tell them you're too dumb to own one"? Fielding a stupid question is irritating whether or not you are paid (but being an unpaid volunteer, Linux folks strike back). Freedom is never zero cost; the cost of using free software is that of forced education.
The difference in educational materials is vast. On one hand we have Windows for Dummies (the title alone reveals who that's marketed to) and the Windows help files (which does not help me very frequently: I never can find what I need nor does the information provided answer any of my questions), and on the other hand there are man pages and the Linux Documentation Project- which if you read both of and follow the instructions will help solve 99% of the most common, and several uncommon, problems. And here is where the difference really shows: when you have read the Friendly Manual (and/or HOWTO), if you still have an intelligent question, not only are further references provided, free of charge, but asking about it on the Internet will gardner serious, insightful help from more experienced users. Woe into you, however, if your question is "HELP! HOW DO I TYPE LOWER CASE LETTERS?" for you will be derided as the clueless idiot you are. (If you can't find the shift or capslock keys, what are you doing online?)

The relevant difference in support is not one of quality- for in either case looking in the right places will get you the answer you want- but of attitude. Commercial support is given grudingly and may carry (sometimes hefty) fees; Linux's community support is willingly and freely given (unless you call a distrobution vendor). No question is too great to get an answer (but all the small ones are answered in the Very Friendly Manual. Why are you using our product and not reading the manual?)

With further reguards to support: It's all about money, and not about furthering technology. They're out to get you, those evil bastards. That must explain the transition from NT 3.51 to 4 to 2000 to XP.

I am sorry that you, with your bias, were unable to read beyond my bias and understand what I was attemting to say. Again I apologize: this time I can see where my brevity prevented my true meaning from being clear. Therefore, I hope you will understand the following longer explanation of my views.

Have you seen the demotivational poster for Consulting? The tagline is: "If you aren't part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem." Unfortunatly, the Microsoft anti-trust suit showed how true this statement is. Microsoft wanted to provide the solution to everyone's problem. OS? Windows. Browser? Explorer. Productivity? Office. Server? IIS. ISP? MSN. They don't want a piece of the pie, they want to own the pie (and oven and doughmaker and farm and...). Even were they not to be so flagrant in their behavior, the very nature of capitalism demands that a company be able to show a positive cash flow. This means they must either sell a product that is consumed by use (like razor blades), sell a service (like a doctor), "lease" their product (as cable companies technically do) or continually sell newer, "better" (in quotes solely to indicate a lack of value judgement) products like automobile makers.

I withold stating a judgement of any but the last. I do not plan to continue to pay a company because "this time we got it right"; in any industy but software, when the company does it wrong they swiftly lose customer loyalty. And commercial software, by far and large, has lost my support- because they expect me to pay them when they fix a known mistake.

Upon that argument I base my support of free (gratis) software. If you didn't get it right before, I sure don't trust you to do it right this time. However, since Free (libre) software has shown a far greater reliablilty than software from other vendors, it still has my financial support (and yes, I do buy distro CDs from time to time; the printed manuals make it worth my dollars).

And in response to my comment about protocols:people listened to Hitler too because they thought he was interesting and had something which sounded like a great idea at the time. But we all know how that turned out.

{Spock-like, a single eyebrow lifts} Facinating. Rather than attempt to refute this point, you change the subject and attack me personally. If nothing else you had to say were to go toward my opinion of you, this alone would make me think you a troll. (That is NOT a moderation hint!)

{Sigh} What I meant was that if after all of the previous topics, you still had a receptive audience, then you go ahead and hit them with the double-barreled shotgun blast- a point so strong, even you shirk from denying the implicit charges.

And now, sir, if you wish, we can take this to a more appropriate place- for that promised entry into my journal is up. Anyone is free to respond to any portion of this message in that forum; I will recieve notification of your post and reply with all due speed (and the same respect as is found within this very message).

wired preview

[asv108]

Wired has a preview too. Check it out here

Re:Did I read this right?

[bconway]

Actual, Compaq's support does go back 10 years if you include Digital (now owned and assimilated by Compaq, of course), which gave Linus an Alpha to port Linux to oh-so-long ago. I'm not really a fan of those ads stating Compaq's age-old commitment to Linux, since for the most part it wasn't even them, but I guess you could look at it that way.

Re:Preparation for LWCE

[AntiTuX]

I've got a little propaganda page up about it. Go read and make sure it makes sense. If you wanna help out, please email me. I need all the help I can get right now. Last year I was there for Window Maker. I'm probably gonna go to kinko's and print out like a hundred of them or so, to make me look like I've actually got my shit together. Right now, I'm just getting started, so there's not much going on. It'll probably just fail as a site, but hell, I haven't ever really done anything for the open-source community other than get a tux tattoo on my shoulder. Mostly because well, there's really not much that sysadmins can give back. I figure this is the best way for me to be able to. I dunno, it probably sounds cheesy, but it's something I wanna try to do. -- John

Re:Wish I was there...

[talktech.org]

Talktech.org will be doing interviews throughout the
expo. we broadcast on www.renaissanceradio.org (kfnx) 10-11am. PST. Tuesdays. Tomorrow we're interviewing Marcos Mazoni or the Porto Alegre, Brazil and the
state of Rio Grande do Sul, and was instrumental in making that state the
only one in the world with a policy to use open source software exclusively.
regards, dawa (news reader on talktech!!)

Re:What the heck is a channel?

[jcorgan]

A sales channel is the method by which a product goes from manufacturer to end-user. There are many varieties, some of the more important ones are listed below:

• Direct channel: sales made directly (duh) by the manufacturer to end-users. Typical of companies which have high-price, low-volume, standalone products. Manufacturer is responsible for warehousing, distribution, extending credit to customer, collection, support, maintenance, etc.
• Single-tier Value Added Reseller (VAR) channel: Resellers purchase a variety of gear from different manufacturers, integrate them, and offer a completed product to end-users. A VAR channel can specialize in certain types of technology and can provide specialized services over and above any individual manufacturer. Typical of medium-volume products. In this case, the manufacturer "creates demand" by marketing, advertising, and even offering customer support to end-users.
• Two-tier VAR channel: For fast moving, high volume products, the first tier is made up of distributors, who provide warehousing and consolidated ordering to manufacturing. They are able to get volume discounts and allow the manufacturer to concentrate on shipments to just a few, large "customers." These distributors, in turn, then sell to individual VARs, extending them credit, etc. There is not typically end-user support or interaction at this level. Finally, individual VARs, which can be both mom-n-pop shops to large retail focused outlets, integrate and deliver whole products and associated services.
• Retail channel: For "shrinkwrap" products and consumer-focused items, the retail channel has two or even three tiers to get from the manufacturer to the consumer (think supermarkets, Good Guys, etc.)
• Dealer Channel: Similar to retail, but more in the franchise model where individual dealers are directly licensed by the manufacturer (think cars).
• Multi-level Channel: A network of people that both sell manufacturer's products as well as recruit people to become additional dealers (and can be very annoying in the process :)

There are endless variations on these, but you get the gist, I hope.

Does this answer your question?

Re:security a priority?

[Catiline]

Never confuse distro X with Linux. Go over to the Linux From Scratch page- Linux can be very small indeed when custom tailored to its' environment. When the distros try to be 'one solution for everyone' they are guaranteed - proven thanks to Microsoft - that bloat will inevitably ensue.

As a counterpoint- I don't want to argue *BSD versus Linux - nor KDE versus GNOME - nor EMACS versus Vi. Can't we realize that these differences empower us- indeed, challenge us- to find the 'most superior' solution? After all, without a struggle, there can be no change.