> ... our faculty are world class and select whatever
>software they need to continue to produce worldclass publications and
>research.
Well, let me comment a bit about Linux in academia. I also
work in a large teaching university (SUNY at Stony Brook), and I also
worked in couple of other place - e.g. MIT math department. So I know
what I am talking about.
So: in my experience, greater majority of users (I am talking
about math professors), even world-class mathematicians, use whatever
system is installed on their compuetr by sys admin. Typically it is
Solaris. They usually know very little about UNIX - and why should
they? All they really use is e-mail, netscape, TeX and related
stuff, and maybe Maple. If they use solaris, it is not because they
think it is better, faster, or more user friendly - it is because it
was installed by sys admin. (Of course, there is also a minority of
advanced users - but they are a minority). If the sys admin puts Linux
- and this was done on some machines in our dept now - the majority of
users will only be happier...
Of course, there are some things where you need a highly specialized
programs - for example, for analyzing data form molecular biology
experiments - there the situation is different. But in math and
physics, this is not the case.
Best,
Sasha
