[seul-edu] Re: Unified Front...

[Leon Brooks <leon@brooks.fdns.net>]

On Wednesday 24 April 2002 22:45, Stephen C. Daukas wrote:
> Applications that are released by
> vendors in the US "support" Red hat first and others second, if at all.

RainingData (nee Pick Systems) don't support anything but RedHat, nevertheless 
D3 7.2.1 works just fine on Mandrake 8.2. I'd be surprised if the same was 
untrue of SuSE.

I'd still favour (but not zealously) Mandrake or SuSE over RedHat. For 
technically savvy IT departments, I'd actually prefer Debian since it's 
generally much easier to `disentangle' Debian packages than RPMs for making 
tighter, simpler systems. I would make the point that RedHat-oriented 
applications run on them (yes, Debian via alien or similar).

> Of course, each flavor of Linux has a different
> file structure so if you really wanted to run ColdFusion on Linux, for
> example, you'd be nuts to select anything other than RH - right?

Wrong. I have an NT-guru associate running CF under Mandrake 8.1.

> One reason why M$ has been so successful is that they have avoided the
> "religious" wars that existed in the UNIX community 20 years ago, and that
> exist in the Linux community today, to a lesser extent.

Wrong. M$ have had some pretty ferocious internal religious wars (e.g. NT vs 
9X), and even today people are plugging 95 into Athlons and being amazed by 
how fast it is compred to ME or XP.

> now we have the Red Hat derivatives including Mandrake, et al.

Derivatives can be a misleading word. Mandrake, at least - while installing 
and running the vast majority of RedHat RPMs - has an enormously different 
installer, toolset and appearance to RedHat.

> Everyone went with M$ because they didn't have to understand the technology
> to reach a decision

No, you're describing Apple customers.

> - they just went with the market leader.

No, Microsoft simply told them to buy Microsoft often enough and loudly 
enough, and followed it up by any means - fair or foul - of ensuring that no 
choice was available.

> this
> "war" against the "evil empire" has absolutely nothing to do with technical
> excellence - one only need look at M$'s technology to understand that
> technology doesn't an empire make!

Yes. And we won't win this "war" by fighting it or differentiating it on 
Microsoft's terms (except perhaps when directly answering Microsoft-inspired 
objections).

> Imagine a School Board meeting considering the motion of "going
> Linux".  Imagine someone in the audience asking the simple question of
> "does what we run today work on what you are proposing?".  That is the sort
> of question you can't easily redirect because the inference is "are we
> throwing away our prior investment if we adopt your approach?"  Add to this
> concern the uncertainty of Linux (which vendor), the whispered advice from
> those who know, or think they know, what GNU/Linux/Open Source is all
> about, and you have the biggest case of the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt)
> factor imaginable!  This usually translates into no action - status quo -
> the marketing strategy of the market leader.

Agree.

> Now, Microsoft has have provided the potential motivation for reconsidering
> the status quo - they are seen as going after the schools for $, something
> in short supply already...  Extortion, perceived or otherwise, and the FUD
> factor do not mix well...

Agree. Trust us - at gunpoint. Hmmm.

> I think it is pretty clear that Star Office is the productivity app of
> choice, even though it has an occasional glitch with M$.  Beyond that,
> everyone seems to have their favorite browser, favorite email client, and
> so on.  Dare I bring up gnome versus KDE?  ;-)

This is actually an advantage. To understand this, you have to step out of 
salesman's shoes for a brief moment, and ask what it is that Microsoft 
*don't* give their clients, and the answer is `real choice'.

One size most assuredly does not fit all. Monocultures in every other arena 
are unhealthy, and I'm sure it's no different here.

I take your point that a standard package makes a good reference point, but 
even Microsoft provide the appearence of choice. This is an important 
marketing point, because the decision is beign transferred from `shall we buy 
into this or not?' to `how shall we buy into this?' or perhaps more 
accurately `which of these shall we buy into?'

My modest proposal is to have two or three families of packaging. For example 
(SuSE and other fans feel free to shoot me down):

    Mandrake + KDE (Konqueror); or
    RedHat + Gnome (Mozilla); or
    Debian + FluxBox (Galeon)

Debian would specialise in server things (high security, and offer OpenBSD as 
an alternative) and lite-hardware workstations.

Mandrake would specialise in client/server, because they already have some 
direct support (including a HOWTO) and the next Mandrake will arrive with 
LTSP built in, and in bleeding-edge hardware because they support it very 
well. It must be said that SuSE is almost interchangeable in this respect: 
they do video cards better, Mandrake do stuff like scanners and printers 
better.

RedHat would be the `standard base platform' or `brand server'. (-:

All would offer OpenOffice, Scribus and whatever other non-WM-specific apps we 
could cram on. I'd recommend supplying a one-CD and deluxe version of each, 
and emphasise that each of them can be set up as insert-and-depart 
(fire-and-forget) installations. I know Mandrake and Debian are quite happy 
to be installed from a wide variety of network servers (HTTP, FTP, NFS, SMB 
at least), and presume that the same is true of SuSe and RedHat.

Cheers; Leon