R. Scott Belford wrote:
Are you certain that it is in our best interests to put a yet-to-be released OS, Fedora, on a city-councilman's computer? If the city will not allow a Linux machine to connect, what has changed to allow you to put the machine in his office? Are you really asking any of the several hundred subscribers to this list to just stop by his office?
This project has a very different objective. Our main goal, at the first stage, is to find problems (technological & political) and try to solve them. The experience that we accumulate will become our most important asset. Everyone is being forewarned that we are going to have a lot of problems in this endeavor. Tons of problems. But if we can package this a success, this will be the best selling point for Linux desktops.
If we can demonstrate the viability of Linux desktops, then, with time, the city's IS decision makers will have to welcome Linux servers as an option. Most of us probably don't like politicians, but they are the ones that make things happen.
When I first came back to Oahu (after 20+ years), I had four computers on my desktop, each running a different localized version of Win95 (which subsequently changed to Win98, then Win98SE): English, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese. I am sure everyone knows why. With RedHat 9 (not Mandrake, not SuSE, not Debian), I am now able to use only one computer. Furthermore, some screwy characters may pop up when you use the English version of Microsoft Word to read a Word .doc file that was generated with, say, a Chinese version of Word (and vice versa, which can be very embarrassing). In this regard, the Linux version of OpenOffice.org is doing a much better job. For this reason, and very much this reason alone, we need to seriously consider Linux.
Senator/City Councilman Tam and I went back a long long way. Neither of us really care what computer system the city should be running. This is the domain of IS professionals. However, we cannot ignore the fact that, as discussed in the preceding paragraph, Linux may become an important piece in putting together the "International Multi-Cultural Center" project that City Councilman Tam has been blueprinting throughout the 20+ years of his political career.
Yesterday, Taiwan's Linux consortium announced that they "envision" a $35 billion Linux-related software industry by 2007. And, as I mentioned previously, Japan's next phase NII (National Internet Infrastructure) project may go entirely Linux. It will be very nice if we can get even a tiny piece of the pie. The above thought, which, as many here will tell me, is much closer to fantasy than any possibility of reality, may very likely go nowhere, but we cannot afford to do nothing. At the present time, as long as I am underwriting the cost, no one should complain. At least we will learn some experience. Wayne
