[luau] MSWindows

[djnishim at hawaii.edu]

Microsoft may not have the most efficient or robust products on the 
market today, but what they do excel at is marketing their products and 
technologies to the public and big businesses, which open-source based 
companies are still lacking.  A company can produce the most secure and 
stable OS, but if they do not have the marketing edge, the company will 
surely flop.  Microsoft does play dirty, but corporate business is a 
dirty game.  Don't get me wrong...I am a sys admin for linux servers 
and a few windows servers(only for asp purposes), and I want to 
completely convert to having only linux.  I love the stablity and 
administrative freedom that linux and other *nix systems have to offer.

To compete with Microsoft will take more than designing technologies 
and producing products that are better.  Someone has to step up to 
their dominance in the marketing game.  As software developers and 
programmers and advocates of open-source, we need to think about why we 
do what we do.  What is the purpose of creating this certain program?  
How is it feasible to the general public or the user we are developing 
for?  What type of impact will it have?  Has it already been done?  If 
the product we develop is similar to another proprietary product, (such 
as one from Microsoft) what can we do to have a greater appeal than the 
product we are competing against.  I remember trying to set up a linux 
box for the first time, and I didn't know what to do or what anything 
meant, so I flew the floppies into my closet and reloaded windows.  
However, my first time setting up a Windows server was a cinch and got 
it up and running to do what I wanted to do in less than 2 hours.

One last comment....don't you think it's ironic that the GUI front-end 
for Linux such as KDE and GNOME (on default settings anyways) have such 
a strong resemblence to the Windows desktop?  We can't hate Microsoft 
for everything?

By the way (sorry this IS the last comment), Redhat's administrative 
tools are a bit confusing, but I believe that new sys admins should 
learn to do everything from commandline.  Someday your system will mess 
up, and you will have to boot into single user mode without any graphic 
interface to work with.

-dan

----- Original Message -----
From: Warren Togami <warren at togami.com>
Date: Friday, July 26, 2002 10:32 pm
Subject: Re: [luau] MSWindows

> On Sat, 2002-01-26 at 19:14, Randall Oshita wrote:
> > Sup guys,
> > I'm a heavy Windows user, and a Linux newbie.
> > Why are open-source gurus so adamant towards Microsoft? <my opinion
> > after surfing around numerous open-source communities. 
> > Is it because they don't give their software away for free? 
> > I know Linux dudes say it sucks but why? What makes it better?
> >  
> > I'm not trying to cause a fight with you guys, I like my Red 
> Hat, just
> > wanted to hear some opinions.
> > Thanks.
> > Randall Oshita
> 
> I have a different take on the situation than most Linux folks.  I
> acknowledge that Microsoft has some very well designed technologies...
> like Visual Studio, MS SQL Server management tools (not the server
> itself), Windows XP remote desktop (and sound) protocol that beats VNC
> by a wide margin, and especially MMC abstracted plugin-based 
> managementtool interface and some others.  Notice how nearly 
> everything I
> mentioned is a management or development tool.  These pieces of their
> warchest have much greater levels of integration, and GUI learning 
> curvethan anything Open Source currently has.
> 
> (Yes, our system management and design tools need SERIOUS work.  
> Look at
> Red Hat 7.3's configuration tools as an example of poor consideration
> toward potential new sysadmins.  Look at the extreme flexibility and
> control of MSSQL Enterprise Manager, then look at the best Open Source
> tool.  I would love for someone to prove me wrong, though.)
> 
> The part about Microsoft that I detest is their abusive business
> practices that leaves the industry with little choice by destroying
> competition.  I want competition in the marketplace.  I hate Microsoft
> for this to such a degree, that I would NEVER take a job that uses
> primarily Microsoft, develops on Microsoft, or promotes the use of
> Microsoft technology no matter how much I am offered.  This may 
> not seem
> like much to this list, but this is a radical concept in the Computer
> Science department and I was laughed at by an entire room of fellow
> students when I said it.
> 
> I simply will NOT support unethical practices, no matter what the 
> cost.
> What would it take for me to stop hating Microsoft?  If they stopped
> being mean.  That's all.
> 
> 
> In addition to my future plans for RHCE, I've recently decided 
> that I
> must study all aspects of other technologies including Microsoft and
> Cisco.  I plan on getting CCNA soon, and studying MCSE after their 
> .NETserver is released.  I am already very familiar with Windows 
> 2000 Active
> Directory because I've owned a license of Windows 2000 Advanced Server
> and Pro edition since it was released.  (Active Directory is my only
> real certification at this point.)
> 
> Why the heck would I do this?
> 1. It wouldn't take me much additional work.
> 2. I can make a more convincing argument of why Open Source is 
> better at
> a certain task if I fully understand Microsoft's tech.  Know thy 
> enemy.3. Knowing multiple systems, especially with experimentation 
> withLinux/Windows interoperability (like Samba) tends to create a much
> greater level of understanding of Windows than most MCSE's will ever
> know.
> 
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