*BSD News Article 41519


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From: henryh@well.sf.ca.us (Henry Hwong)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linux thoroughly insulted by Infoworld!
Followup-To: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Date: 23 Jan 1995 16:49:59 GMT
Organization: The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
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Nathan Hand (nathanh@bin.anu.edu.au) wrote:
: Henry Hwong (henryh@well.sf.ca.us) wrote:
: : Joe Sloan (jjs@dostoevsky.ucr.edu) wrote:
: : : Henry Hwong <henryh@well.sf.ca.us> wrote:

[son of whack]

: Excuse me. I have nothing against what you said. People want the
: security of money changing hands and the responsibility which
: changed hands with it. Yeah, fine. But why are your arguing with
: the poster before you?

Who's arguing? I'm merely stating points. I think free operating systems
are great. I'm having a dandy of a time running NetBSD.

: You (Henry) had said "Nobody in their right mind is going to use
: Linux as an um-tiddly-i-poe". The follower (Henry) just said that
: there are people out there, with right minds, using Linux as the
: afore-mentioned um-tiddly-i-poes. How can you dispute that?

You're replacement of "database" with "um-tiddly-i-poe" completely
misses the point. I never dissed Linux as a whole -- only one use
of it. Besides, I don't think jjs@dostoevsky.ucr.edu ever mentioned
the use of a database.

You have to understand the mentality of the typical corporation with
lots of data that you rely on for daily operations with millions in
cash flow. As an systems consultant, I have to see it in their
perspective.

If I were to recommend Linux as the basis for all their operations,
I would be laughed right out of the room and told never to come back.
Features and stability are only a small portion of a big check list.
That's why we have the Windows plague upon us.

Look. What a big insurance/manufacturing/service corporation needs is
not necessarily what a computing support group needs at a school or
university. If all you need is a bunch of Usenet accounts or a
platform to do some computing research, Linux (actually, I prefer *BSD,
but let's not start that again :-)) will do fine. However, for a
company that needs something like Oracle 7 or Sybase System 10, Linux
just can't cut it. Especially if the product isn't ported to Linux. See?

: If you want security thats fine. If you want support thats fine.
: If you want huge crowds in the same boat with you thats fine. But
: people with right minds _do_ use Linux. Dont make out that these
: people are out of their minds or that Linux is somehow inferior.

I guess you missed the previous poster's smiley. I seriously doubt
that anything I said or will say will change his mind. Nor do I
expect to.

This is fun. Who's condemning whom here? I never condemned Linux, but
your knee-jerk reaction to my posting unfortunately validates the
"Amiga-like devotion" to which the Infoworld columnist was refering.
Let's keep our discussion rational. Okay?

-Henry