Derek Martin wrote:
>
<snip lots of good stuff, including a <shameless plug2>excellent plug
for Mission Critical Linux></shameless plug2>
> I think the real question that people are asking is " Are there any
> *COMMERCIAL* applications for Linux?" The answer to that one is a little
> less favorable for those who are looking for assurances, unfortunately.
Less favorable, but not by much. Many companies are porting their stuff
to Linux, including all major DB vendors, Office Suite vendors, etc.
The only ones who aren't are MS (of course), Intuit (Quicken, et al,
which if they don't port, will get overrun by GnuCash as it improves),
Symantic, games manufacturers (although they're coming around, and Loki
is busy providing porting services for them), possibly some others.
Unless you are a MS only shop, the odds are good you can find the app
you want in a Linux version.
<snip more good stuff>
> One question I have is what can we do to get commercial software and
> hardware companies to provide more ports and support for their products on
> Linux? Many people still point to this as a weakness of Linux, and though
> progress is made, they still have a point.
Main thing I can suggest is to keep asking these commercial folks for
Linux versions, and pointing out the alternatives that you WILL use if
they don't port. If they lose enough money, they'll decide it makes
sense. Also, for the hardware folks, point out that they don't have to
actually write the Linux drivers, if they'll release sufficient specs,
the Linux community will write the drivers. If they're worried about
reverse engineering, remind them that their competitors almost certainly
already have the capability to reverse engineer, so releasing the specs
doesn't help them, but not releasing the specs hurts the Linux
community, and it hurts the company because we'll take our money
elsewhere.
>
> While many of this may not necessarily hold a lot of value in it, most
> people want to be able to buy a CD with some software on it and click the
> mouse a couple of times, and have their new software or hardware up and
> running. We still don't have this. Hardware support has improved a lot,
> especially for graphics boards, but there's still a lot of stuff that just
> doesn't work. Like DVD <grumble grumble grumble>.
>
> You'll often hear me say that there is no NEED to run windows, which I
> wholeheartedly believe, but I reluctantly have to admit that there are
> still a number of reasons why someone might WANT to run windows, namely to
> fill in the holes that are left in the hardware and software support.
>
> My only other question is when the hell is someone gonna fix NIS so that
> it doesn't SUCK?
Replace it with LDAP services?
>
> --
> PGP/GPG Public key at http://cerberus.ne.mediaone.net/~derek/pubkey.txt
> ------------------------------------------------------
> Derek D. Martin | Unix/Linux Geek
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> ------------------------------------------------------
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeffry Smith Technical Sales Consultant Mission Critical Linux
[EMAIL PROTECTED] phone:978.446.9166,x271 fax:978.446.9470
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thought for today: That's one small step for a man; one giant leap for
mankind.
-- Neil Armstrong
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