I agree with you all when it comes to sendmail and apache. And don't get me wrong, I
see great value in going the open source way. All I'm saying is that in 20+ years of
working in companies I can't comprehend suggesting that they change their internal
desktops over to sendmail and star office, or whatever. Apache is a server area so I
don't think it counts here.
But say they could have office on Linux, they at least the OS is "in the door". From
there it would be an easier road to acceptance. Sometimes you might have to join 'em
a bit to win.
Sincerely,
Jim Ryan
-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Rauschenbach [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 13:17:11 -0400
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: maddog speaks
On Tue, 27 Jun 2000, Paul Lussier wrote:
> In a message dated: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 14:55:11 PDT
> "jim t.p. ryan" said:
>
> >I've never really understood the free software thing anyway. Sooner or later
> >somebody has to pay don't they? That was a real question, not rhetorical. I m
> >ean is any really big, established business going to run on free software? I
> >don't think so, it's unamerican;+} Really, the mindset is "you get what you p
> >ay for", right or wrong, that is the culture. If it doesn't sell, mark it up
> >and people will assume it's better.
>
> More than 90% of all e-mail is sent to external-to-origin sites via sendmail
> which is completely free, and which, up until 1998 had absolutely no official
> commercial support. Companies running sendmail, almost never pay for sendmail
> support, and pay for the software even less. If you don't count e-mail as
> mission-critical in today's day and age, then I don't know what is.
>
> Additionally, more than 60% of all websites are running on Apache, which falls
> into the same category as sendmail.
>
> Now, if you are asking if they will run *entirely* free software? Then I'd
> have to say no, since there are many applications needed which just don't have
> free equivalents.
>
> But also, keep in mind, the word "free" as it relates to software doesn't
> *have* to mean just that you don't give someone money in exchange for the
> ability to run their software. The most important aspect of "free" software
> is the access to source code, the ability to change said code, and the ability
> to redistribute that changed code. With that in mind, I don't know why any
> company would want to run their business on anything *but* free software.
This last paragraph gets right to the point of why there is a debate about
calling it "free" versus calling it "Open Source" (which might be
(ironically)tradmarked).
On a related note, I just noticed something that I consider a bug in my mail
client. My first thought was not "Damn, I'm gonna have to live with that ?"
but "Damn, I'm gonna have to read the source code." Note that the second
option is completly unacceptable to most people, because they can't read the
source. The first option, unacceptable to me, is the ONLY option for closed
source personal software. Granted if you pay $100,000 for a commercial (I mean
for commercial use, not commercial resale) you might have another option. But
if you pay $100 or less, you basically get what you got.
> --
> Seeya,
> Paul
> ----
> "I always explain our company via interpretive dance.
> I meet lots of interesting people that way."
> Niall Kavanagh, 10 April, 2000
>
> If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right!
>
>
>
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--
Standard is better than better. If your web page cares what browser I'm using
it's broken.
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