Forum to discuss and answer questions on Enterprise Agreement

[Bill Nash]

On Tue, 2 Jul 2002, Trent Shipley wrote:
> How much is *retraining* going to cost.
> I've used Linux and Windows and Windows is *much* easier to work with.

> Linux and its tools also tend to have a lot more anoying bugs that the
> comercial stuff.  The saving grace seems to be that the *nix architecture

	Bugs, as opposed to what? Every OS has bugs. The Windows line of
OS's do not lend themselves well to helpful diagnostics. If you're going
to go off about bugs, as it concerns the whole OS, you need to make the
distinction between desktop and server, absolutely. Linux, or any other
Unix flavor, is not going to be 100% stable as long as there is a user in
front of the machine. EVEN SO, Linux desktops offer far more in support
capability than a Microsoft Desktop does, hands down.

	If you don't believe me, ponder syslogging meaningful error output
to an admin who can spot problems as they happen, that may not have to
rely on a, for lack of a better term, stupid user to cough up appropriate
support information. The interface may not be up to par, from a general
usability standpoint, but I'll chalk that up to Microsoft having a good
run on making the general populace 'stupider' when it comes to handling
machines. See aforementioned stupid user.

> tends to keep my OS up and running--provided that the user knows the tricks
> to take advantage of that fact.

	What tricks? Most Unix installs, out of the box, will just sit and
run unless the user does something asinine. At least in most cases,
privileges and user space restrictions take care of that. I can't say that
about some versions of Windows. By and large, retraining the users to use
a new OS/interface is the least of anyone's worries. My big concern is
where the riots will start when people realize just how badly they've been
treated by the Redmond cartel. People will resist the change because they
don't understand it, and MS is what they've 'always used'. Teaching a new
skill is cake. Teaching a new way of thinking is a lot harder.

	Here's a fairly common real-world example. Various friends and
acquaintances tell me, out of the blue, 'I want to run Linux.' My
response, invariably, is "Good for you. Why?" Unless the next sentence
includes the words 'programming' or 'networking', I try and talk them out
of it. Why? Because without fail, every person who's taken the time to
install a Unix OS on their machine, be it standalone or dual boot, has
removed it inside a month. Typical reasons are "Didn't use it," "Couldn't
figure it out," or "It broke and I couldn't figure out why." It's not that
these people are truly stupid, it's that years of using MS products has
conditioned them. Crack is bad too, but people still smoke it, right?

> Even so, I wind up restarting Xfree pretty often.  The fact that I don't have
> to reboot the machine is pretty irrelevant--restarting the X windowing system
> is the moral equivalent of rebooting the work station.

	I hardly find that to be a valid complaint when I have to reboot
this XP box sitting here fairly periodically. At least when X crashes, I
know why, and I can get under the hood and find the problem myself. Again,
MS products are not conducive to troubleshooting. I personally can't keep
an X instance running for more than a week, because I'll knock it down as
I'm tampering with the machine. Any machine with a user in front of it
should be considered unstable.

> I think that the point isn't whether free, open source, or even Apple or IBM
> solutions are better.   From a business perspective "better" is irrelevant.
>
> What is relevant:
>
> 1)  The County is in violation of State and County regulations.
> Specifically, Microsoft is a a convicted monopolist.  The County can't do
> business with monopolists.
>
> (NOTE WELL: to carry the case you better have lawyers there.  The county will
> have lawyers.  The license fees are chicken-feed compared to total operating
> costs .  The County will have lawyers there to keep it from being forced to
> do something that will cost it a lot more than the relatively irrelevant MS
> license fees.)

	This has to be the single most important point in this whole
thread. The zealotry is about to cost our county, literally, millions of
dollars. Forget the Slashdottings, that's all pandering for the mob.
Whatever the outcome is, any solution or options presented to the county
need to be in the best interest of both the county, and ourselves, as
citizens. Personally, I would not support a mass exodus from any MS
products that are floating around. The sheer cost in dollars, man-hours,
and efficiency is simply too high.

	DO NOT push Linux into the county space simply because doing
business with MS is in violation of regs. That's a poison pill trying to
cure a problem that doesn't really exist. Any entry of open-source into
the government space needs to be done as a stable services alternative
first, which is probably the most expensive aspect, from a licensing and
support viewpoint.

> 2)  There exist alternatives to MS.

	And one of them is also Apple.

> 3)  The alternatives in #2 don't have to be better than MS.  They just have
> to exist and be minimally viable.

	I think that really depends on what space you're trying to tackle,
user or services. This rant is already getting long, I'll skip this one.

> 4)  Get a lawyer.  Be prepared to sue the County into compliance.  You are
> planning to visit a regulation induced disaster on County IT and gigantic
> unecessary expenses on Maricopa County taxpayers.  The whole thing is driven
> by regulations, economic logic is irrelevant.  If the County is indeed in
> violation, the courts can be used to cram the whole thing down the CIO
> director's maw.  If the County is *not* in violation of law then your cause
> is toast.

	Speaking from extensive experience with forcing things down
people's throats, this last is the absolute worst thing any private
citizen or well intentioned entity could do. Whatever the intention of the
law in question, application of it needs to be handled with care. This can
be done properly, and what you cite above is not it. As it's panning out
so far, it's looking like a lynching in the works, at the hands of some
farm implement wielding penguins.

	For the Linux community, pushing this violation of regs simply
because 'MS is bad' is going to work out better for MS in the long run.
Whether or not anyone realizes it, there's only a few 'teams' in this
space. There's MS, Apple, Novell, Sun, and similiar others in the Big
Leagues. Redhat, FreeBSD Caldera, Unified, Mandrake, they're working their
way up from the minors. The rest of us? Streetball with house rules.

	With the attention this has received, you can bet your ass MS has
a regional marketing team putting fresh scrubs on their spin doctors.
They'll be coming at this with a plan, and that's a lot more than I can
say for the Linux community. Don't get me wrong, I like the Open Source
way of doing things, but I'm the worst kind of realist, as well. Unless
someone with some business sense, some assets, and a good plan pops into
that meeting and offers up some solid alternatives (Redhat, maybe?), this
is looking to be a vaguely entertaining alternative to the fireworks we'll
be missing out on this week.

- billn

--
Don't like my opinion? Let me know, I'll give you another.
--

>
> On Tuesday 02 July 2002 21:22, you wrote:
> > Curtis Zinzilieta wrote:
> > > A far worse result would be to turn out in numbers, largely unorganized,
> > > and appear before them speaking like religious zealots.
> > >
> > > Numbers are important, yes, but more important will be the ability to
> > > calmly and rationally present our points and viable alternatives.
> > > Alternatives that can actually be implemented in a reasonable timeframe
> > > and can be expected to work.  I believe it's impossible to expect the
> > > county to turn over every desktop and server in a very few days, for
> > > instance, regardless of standing laws or statutes.
> > >
> > > Again, clear and concise points, well presented, with backup, are what
> > > will be needed here.  Speaking off the cuff, without prior thought or
> > > consideration, is not likely to make many points.
> >
> > I'm cramming to get my thesis out and have only been skimming the
> > posts...
> >
> > On thing that I have not seen discussed so far is suggestions on how to
> > ween the Gov. off of M$.
> >
> > Example: can Kword, Kspread, Kpresenter, etc. be compiled using Qt, etc.
> > and run on Win*?  Is there another opensource *word editor which works
> > on multiple platforms?  How bout databases?
> >
> > If I was their IT guy I would want to see the following at least
> > described if not in person:
> >
> >   1) A list of software with capability lists that are common to
> > orginizations like theirs.
> >
> >   2) a compatibility chart for what they currently use to what roughly
> > replaces it.
> >
> >   3) a list of those packages which will not only run on *NIX, but also
> > Win* so that I could lod it up on the uses machines and start getting
> > people to use it, etc.
> >
> >   4) and possibly last, and this would likely be the clincher, chart the
> > costs (seat purchase, maintance, etc.) of the two.  Best of all would be
> > a first pass on estimating the migration costs also.
> >
> > well... back to working on my thesis...  that's my 2 c
> >
> >
> >   EBo --
> > ________________________________________________
> > See http://PLUG.phoenix.az.us/navigator-mail.shtml if your mail doesn't
> > post to the list quickly and you use Netscape to write mail.
> >
> > PLUG-discuss mailing list  -  PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> > http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
> ________________________________________________
> See http://PLUG.phoenix.az.us/navigator-mail.shtml if your mail doesn't post to the list quickly and you use Netscape to write mail.
>
> PLUG-discuss mailing list  -  PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>