Re: SEUL: Interest abounding...

[George Bonser <grep@oriole.sbay.org>]

On Fri, 16 Jan 1998, Loren S Osborn wrote:

> What isn't being brought up, is the fact that SEUL (and e-linux also) are
> *VAPORWARE*... We all agree that, currently, Linux isn't very attractive
> to the end user: That's why we're working on SEUL/e-linux.  Linux *IS* a
> real product.  If we do alot of cool advertising with regaurd to SEUL,
> people will get frustrated because it doesn't exist, and give up on it.
> If we do alot of cool advertising (not specifically directed at sys-admins)
> and people will start getting curious about what Linux is *NOW*, find out,
> say "Yick! Why would I want to use anything like this?...", then when SEUL
> *DOES* come out, it will flop: because no users will like Linux...
> 
> Let's think this out first guys...
> 
> 
> Comments? Suggestions?
> 
> Loren

In thios month's Linux Journal is an article describing how Linux
completely displaced Netware and Windows at Railway Signal.  Linux Alpha
boxes running X are the main desktops with some other 486 machines also
running X as "fat" clients for programs running on the faster alpha
machines.

In this article, Linux won the desktop but it is a BUSINESS desktop, not a
home desktop. Other things to think about are platforms. IS SEUL to be
intel only? What about SPARC, Alpha, and 68k? Linux promises to extend the
useful life of old Sun IPC/IPX/SS1/SS2 hardware. Win Sun announcing the
release of Ultra Workstations for <US$3000 that take PCI hardware, we are
going to start seeing more of the old Sun hardware on the used market.

What kind of users are you aimed at?  Home users or work users? Windows is
a home OS that has been kluged into a network. NT has no concept of a
subdomain. The network is Linux's stongest selling point. My personal
opinion is that if you only have one machine, you probably do not need
Linux but if you have more than one, you probably should not be using
Windows.

George Bonser 
If NT is the answer, you didn't understand the question. (NOTE: Stolen sig)
http://www.debian.org
Debian/GNU Linux ... the maintainable operating system.