My take on this: If a commercial tool is being used by our members to facilitate their jobs, then it at least deserves some consideration. As long as the presentation of the tool focuses more on HOW to use the tool in a Linux/FOSS environement (or to provide such an environment) then the presentation is likely going to be of some use. If the presentation focuses on the marketing of the tool, then I'm not too interested - I can get the marketing spin somewhere else. VMWare is in a grey area concerning this - learning to use their product facilitates a number of different possibilities - with and without open source - but they themselves are not open source. However they do have programs in place to support LUGs.
So, I can see why there may or maynot be an opinion with VMWare, but feel that in this case, a presentation is suitable to our members. If the above arguments were applied to Microsoft, then some points match - except that MS refuses to support the open source community (though they do make token gestures so they can say they do), and they do not have a specific tool that facilitates and encourages a Linux/Open Source environment or the freedoms that come with such an environment. So in this case I would vote against an MS Presentation for our general meeting. But, as a business person, who must work with whatever my customers may have installed already, I'm interested to listen to how they claim they can interoperate with open source products (which is ironic because they would be using the STANDARDS that MS likes to um... tweak...). I might be willing to attend a separate meeting for something like this. But as Aaron pointed out - I had my chance the other day and didn't go.. :) My thoughts.... Shawn On Friday 29 April 2005 09:06, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Possibly but the usage of VMware is not limited to MS > > products and IMO has a place in just about any IT department, > > especially in a help desk application. Or am I missing the > > point somehow? > > > > Thanks, Myles > > First off let me stated that I have absolutely nothing against the > product and am not comparing it to MS. :-) > > I guess my point was that It is not so much _why_ the Executive at that > time chose to bring them in to present (and it is true that a lot of > mixed users utilize VMWare) but that it may have set a precedent for > advertising rather than informing and educating - > > again just my opinion. > > _______________________________________________ > clug-talk mailing list > [email protected] > http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca > Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) > **Please remove these lines when replying _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [email protected] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying
