other perl groups

[Charlton Wilbur]

JC> You have a point. On the other hand, other commercial OSs
JC> (such as, I believe, Mac OS X and Solaris 9) come with several
JC> well established free software packages, including several GNU
JC> utilities and Perl. Companies like Sun and Apple also don't
JC> have control over Perl, so why do they include it?

Microsoft already *has* a language aimed at the same problem space as
Perl: Visual Basic. If they provided Perl, they'd be weakening Visual
Basic's position on the Windows platform. Beyond that, by providing
Windows-specific tools, they lock people into the Windows platform: if
you want to do scripting on Windows, you need to learn Visual Basic;
and that Visual Basic knowledge is not transferable to Linux or
Solaris or OS X at all.

By contrast, there's little benefit to Apple to create an Apple-only
general-purpose scripting language[1]: the amount of effort necessary
to be specifically contrarian in this could give much greater returns
elsewhere. The same can be said for Sun: the benefits of including
Perl are *much* greater than the benefits of not including it,
especially since many people would likely just install Perl anyway.

Charlton

[1] AppleScript doesn't really count - it's an extremely high-level
glue language that plays well with the Cocoa framework.

 

[Jim Cochrane]

Because I can't see Windows in the workplace as anything more than a
temporary solution to the difficulty imposed by unix on average users. The
best of both worlds would be an easy to use system that can be extended and
developed to meet a business's needs. Windows is not that. Linux is also not

Hmm, I thought such an OS already existed. I haven't used it, so I can't
say for sure if it meets these criteria, but from what I've heard about it,
it does. (In case you haven't guessed yet what I'm talking about, it's
OS X.)

 

[John J. Trammell]

To cut to the chase, though, the faster revenues drop the faster heads
get chopped. Linux is a powerful, secure, cheap and quickly becoming
easy-to-use OS. You do the math...

<dons tinfoil hat>

Here's the math:

MS bankroll: 5e10 USD
US Congress(wo)?men: 4.4e2

Which means approximately 1e8 USD per congressperson. With a little
bakshish, they classify Linux as a copyright circumvention device,
and poof, away it goes for all time, game over.

<doffs hat>

I'm not saying I *believe* that will happen, but it's conceivable.

 

[John Bokma]

Because I can't see Windows in the workplace as anything more than a
temporary solution to the difficulty imposed by unix on average users. The
best of both worlds would be an easy to use system that can be extended and
developed to meet a business's needs. Windows is not that. Linux is also not
that, but is much closer to becoming it than Windows.

Doubt it. Both GUIs for example are getting faster bloated and more
focussed on skinning, and other things you really can do without than XP.

M$ can come up with
all the "revolutionary" new layers of abstraction it wants, but what's under
the hood is still a shambles.

Under the hood are many changes too, you can not compare Win2K, XP to
Win95 and friends.

To cut to the chase, though, the faster revenues drop the faster heads get
chopped. Linux is a powerful, secure,

secure... sure. That's why there are special secure versions of
GNU/Linux, and many people really considered about security don't use
Linux at all.

cheap and quickly becoming easy-to-use

An easy-to-use OS doesn't exist. If all MS users who surf as
Administrator, and infect their machine on a daily basis get Linux, they
will make similar mistakes. Both operating systems provide enough rope
to hang an advanced user, imagine a novice.

OS. You do the math...

Microsoft #1 for the coming 10 years.

 

[Matt Garrish]

What I want isn't relevant - Microsoft isn't targetting me. But for
anyone preferring Perl, there are 1,000 people preferring Movie Maker.
The fast majority of the computer users are just users. They aren't
programming. They have as little interest in having Perl on their
systems, as they have in having a C compiler, of Visual Basic, or
Java development tools.

1,000 people who prefer Movie Maker for *personal use*. I don't believe for
a minute that Linux (or any OS I can think of) is any immediate threat to
Microsoft in that regard. As an OS in a work environment, however, Windows
is garbage. Aside from all the security holes that keep our tech support
group running around after viruses, the systems just don't work. Worse, the
so-called "mcse" people don't have a clue how to fix them. The sad reality
is their answer to everything is to re-install the system (and what choice
do you have half the time anyway, it's faster than trying to debug).
Microsoft's advantage was the difficulty of use of other operating systems
at the time, plus the notion they pushed that any idiot could maintain them
(i.e., dump your high priced unix specialists).

I'm as inclined to believe that Microsoft will survive in the business
market, however, as I was that Nortel was really on the rebound. I also
found it ridiculous that Linux was being pushed so hard as an imminent
toppler of Microsoft in the nineties when it was still in its infancy.
Microsoft isn't going to crumble and disappear any time soon, but like any
fad it's passed it's peak (notice, for instance, the trouble they're having
getting people to upgrade Office now that the only new selling points apply
to well less than 1% of users. I especially like their "Can we interest you
in a new license agreement that forces you to keep giving us money?" idea).
I expect what you'll see over the next ten years for them is where they
level off to.

Matt

 

[John Bokma]

1,000 people who prefer Movie Maker for *personal use*. I don't believe for
a minute that Linux (or any OS I can think of) is any immediate threat to
Microsoft in that regard. As an OS in a work environment, however, Windows
is garbage. Aside from all the security holes that keep our tech support
group running around after viruses,

Strange, since I never have any kind of virus on my Windows computers,
for years (no active ones that is). Making users limited, not
Administrator, and use Thunderbird / Firefox instead of OE / IE helps a lot.

the systems just don't work. Worse, the
so-called "mcse" people don't have a clue how to fix them.

The viruses shouldn't be active on your system in the first place.

I am very afraid, if you so called tech support was given GNU / Linux
systems they would configure those systems in such a way that they would
suffer from similar problems, or worse.

The sad reality
is their answer to everything is to re-install the system (and what choice
do you have half the time anyway, it's faster than trying to debug).

If you have no clue how to keep a system clean in the first place, maybe.

Microsoft's advantage was the difficulty of use of other operating systems
at the time, plus the notion they pushed that any idiot could maintain them
(i.e., dump your high priced unix specialists).

I'm as inclined to believe that Microsoft will survive in the business
market, however, as I was that Nortel was really on the rebound. I also
found it ridiculous that Linux was being pushed so hard as an imminent
toppler of Microsoft in the nineties when it was still in its infancy.

And as a desktop system, it still is, IMHO.

 

[Matt Garrish]

Despite Windows being classified as "garbage", it's still actively
being used by your company. I rest my case.

I wouldn't rest it based on a guess. We currently have no choice because of
a global agreement the company that bought us up had with M$ (buyout ==
Unix -> Windows). If that company does any serious consideration of the
agreement when it comes due, I find it hard to believe they'll lock us into
it again. Without cygwin we'd really be up shit creek without them
paddles... : )

Matt

 

[Matt Garrish]

Strange, since I never have any kind of virus on my Windows computers,
for years (no active ones that is). Making users limited, not
Administrator, and use Thunderbird / Firefox instead of OE / IE helps a lot.

The viruses shouldn't be active on your system in the first place.

I am very afraid, if you so called tech support was given GNU / Linux
systems they would configure those systems in such a way that they would
suffer from similar problems, or worse.

Which is my whole point. It doesn't require much to be M$ certified as far
as I can tell. These problems just ballooned as soon as we had to switch
from Unix servers to M$ (and the personnel in tech support were changed).
The only consolation is that the desktops in our department are specifically
not under their control, and so we haven't had to suffer in the same way as
other departments (buggy software the exception).

I don't know what the point of this thread is anymore, but given the choice
I just wouldn't use Windows as a work desktop (see my other post for why I
don't have that choice). I suppose a company with no needs except email and
the internet would not be swayed to dumping M$ because of the bugs, but a
company like the one I work for is shooting itself in the foot by using
Windows when better alternatives are available (and I don't buy the idea
that inertia will keep M$ on top). I don't really care to prophesy the
future of M$, but the idea that Windows is going to be the be-all and
end-all of OS's for forever and a day simply because they've had better and
more aggressive marketing is ludicrous. All things come to pass, and Windows
is no different.

At some point M$ has to stop expecting people to keep paying ridiculous
amounts of money to upgrade their own buggy platform. If they think they can
keep riding that tide they're sorely mistaken. Office's diminished sales are
proof of that. The growth of Linux is also proof. The ability to succeed
rests on a company's ability to adapt to its changing environment (or
ability to buy out all competition as M$ is wont to do on occasion), and
Linux is the first real test for Microsoft because they can't just buy Linux
out. As I said before, the next ten years will show whether they get the
real hint and do something about it (i.e., that people are getting fed up
with the exorbitatnt costs and shoddy software) or if it is their time to
wither. I don't see their current business model keeping them healthy for
long if they don't change, though.

Matt

 

[Alan J. Flavell]

I don't know a single non-IT company where non-techies mainly work on
Unix/Linux platforms.

Are you taking up a new job as devil's advocate?

 

[Matt Garrish]

Come back to me when 10% of the non-IT Fortune-500 companies have switched
at least 20% of its office management to Linux.

I've been hearing that Linux will be the death of Microsoft for years.
I don't know a single non-IT company where non-techies mainly work on
Unix/Linux platforms. But I do see and hear about companies switching
to Microsoft.

But I'm not saying that there will be a death to Microsoft. Or that it will
be Linux that does it (and any talk of crushing all competition reeks too
much of current M$ practices for my taste). I was asked why I would be
afraid if I were an M$ employee, and I've tried to explain my rationale. The
software model that has gotten Microsoft where it is can't sustain it
forever. And when/if they realize that, they will begin to cut back and
focus on core technologies to shore up any bleeding(it's what all companies
have to do when they become over-extended and short on cash). And that will
lead in turn to layoffs.

I don't think I'm espousing terribly deep economics here. If they continue
to flog their model and Linux (and others) continues its improvement, then
they're going to have a much harder time keeping their stranglehold. I doubt
that the Fortune 500 business are going to be the ones setting the trend
away either, so I wouldn't put much faith in those numbers. The trend (if it
emerges) will be set by smaller companies that can't afford the ridiculous
cost of Windows and Office when all their employees need are email and a
word processor.

Matt