Re: [ossig] Linux Seminar Again

[Colin Charles <byte@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 2004-07-11 at 18:29, Seah Hong Yee wrote:
> Well, this was about more than a week ago, I didn't see too many of you there, 
> so, this was what I saw....

Was there a second one ?

> 1) Linux is expensive, this is when they compare windows 2000 to RH enterprise 
> edition. 

Apparently, the initial TCO does warrant this. RH has been trying to
sell the 5-year support idea, while MS support line is usually less

However, if Windows 2003 is out well, last year, and its support expires
in 2007 when Longhorn comes out (probably a year later?), that matches
RH's support structure too, at a possibly cheaper cost :)

(not barring folk can use WhiteBox Enterprise Linux, CentOS, Debian,
Fedora, Mandrake, SuSE, etc...)

> 2) Linux lack intergration, they shows that windows platform come with 
> everything from database, middleware to client software, while Linux lack 
> such.. user must do it themselves. I am not sure I missed anything in the 
> last few years, but since when does windows install everything from MS SQL to 
> MS office by default? Intertingly enough, they compare this to debian.

Actually, there was a recent article on Newsforge about how many apps a
default Windows user missed out on! I think it was posted here to the
lists as well... And err, Debian with its powerful "apt-get" and dpkg
system means almost point-n-click fun (okay, use Synaptic, for instance)

Fedora/RH comes with a Package management tool, while SuSE comes with
YaST. Does Windows come with an equivalent these days?

I have on my "taskbar" quick launchers to:
Terminal <--> MS-DOS Prompt
Evolution <--> Outlook Express
OpenOffice.org <--> n/a
Epiphany <--> Internet Explorer
gVim <--> Notepad *grin*

And on the other corner, weather applets, wireless monitor as well. Does
Windows come with a weather applet standard?

> 3) there are linux viruses, they listed around 30 of them on one powerpoint 
> slide. Many of them I have never heard of

30? Thats a huge number. But how many actually had an effect on the
users? Or on the servers they "hit"?

> 4) You can't sell GPL software, it has to be give away FREE.

Seems this is a common misconception, and even BillG himself mentioned
this in a recent statement in an article published yesterday (or today?)
in Asia Computer Weekly. He also mentions that it kills jobs - how odd

> 5) They also didn't forget the vulnerability list for linux compare to 
> windows, 

Heh. Linux isn't open source :)
(Since they switch comparisons between RHEL and Debian, why did they
leave OpenBSD out?)

> 6) And off course some chart showing windows 2000 is at least as stable as  
> linux if not better. 

I'm sure it is these days though... In terms of uptime, on it not being
connected to a network, I'm sure it can stay up as long as Linux without
a reboot :)

> The 4th session was about .net, no much linux bashing but mainly about they 
> .net thing, featuring Tan Loke Uei, pretty much a marketing thing about 
> .net...

Did they not mention Mono? Seems Microsoft used Mono at LinuxTag (I
could be mistaken, but it was a linux conf, read miguel's blog) for a
.NET demo

Say, maybe we could start a .NET thread to delve into the topic a little
more. Mono has piqued my interests recently, I don't know much about it,
can't write anything but basic C# programs, but am definitely interested
in the Gtk# bindings... Has anyone out there used Mono regularly? Used
.NET? Tested portability of code? Looked at all the bindings? Oh, Cocoa#
bindings for OS X are funky too, another interest
-- 
Colin Charles, byte@aeon.com.my
http://www.bytebot.net/
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, 
then you win." -- Mohandas Gandhi


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