On 11/30/00 8:22 AM, "Simon P. Lucy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> At 07:30 30/11/2000 -0500, John Welch wrote:
>> On 11/30/00 4:18 AM, "Simon P. Lucy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>> At 21:33 29/11/2000 -0500, John Welch wrote:
>>>
>>>> Well, maybe someone who isn't so busy dissing customers as unknowing
>> morons
>>>> will realize that's a *bad* thing.
>>>
>>> This has gone on long enough. You are ranting at the wrong people, though
>>> given your methods you're unlikely to get any different mileage from
>>> ranting at the right people. LDAP will or won't happen regardless pretty
>>> much of anything you have said, since nothing you've contributed so far
>>> would encourage anyone that LDAP would be a good thing for them (in their
>>> own terms) to do.
>>
>> <sigh> Let me ask you something here. Because only about two of you have
>> gotten it. What do you think is going to happen, rant-wise, if Mozilla 1.0
>> comes out, is heralded as the one of the crowning glories of the open source
>> movement, and no LDAP, slow IMAP,etc?
>
> Mozilla is at 0.6. If 1.0 is meant to be a 'complete' feature release then
> I'd expect it to include an LDAP client. The speed of IMAP is a relative
> thing, by your own figures its improved already over NS6.
Um...it's still worse than any other client out there, and improved from
unusable to really slow isn't anything to brag about. I expected the 18th
version of Mozilla and the first release of a corporate product to have that
already, remember my analogy about AC power. It didn't. It didn't have it
after months of many, many publications saying that *not* having it is a bad
thing. So now....give me any good reason to believe anything that isn't in a
nightly drop or on Netscape's download page? Fool me once, shame on you, and
don't whine that no one believes you afterwards.
>
>
>> Do you really think that anyone is going to say, "Oh it's open source, they
>> don't understand what customers are, much less need, so we'll let them
>> off.'?
>>
>> Nope. Only it's going to be much worse.
>
> Well it might be worse, LDAP isn't as ubiquitous as you seem to think though.
Really? Tell me something, look at the fortune 500, and tell me that. I can,
without taking more than 10 minutes point to 5 companies with almost 1
*million* users that rely on LDAP. And all the major colleges. If you are
speaking about *strict* home use, you're correct. But how many people are
strict home users? There is a huge chunk of people in the home who are also
working *from* home for corporations, etc. They need LDAP too, and aren't
going to see a need for 2-3 mail clients.
>
>> Secondly, the level of my *rant* is related to the response I get. When I
>> get a reasonable response, I can be amazingly calm. Tell me to shut up and
>> go away, and pull back a bloody stump.
>
> You've had, I think, perfectly reasonable responses, on the other hand you
> persist in not listening to them. And no, no one has a bloody stump, nor
> even a nibbled finger.
No one's given me a reason to yet, and if I were to do that, it would mean
that I had given up on Moz. Or Netscape. Why waste energy bitching about
something you don't care about?
>
>>>
>>> Patience seems the easiest course, the world hasn't fallen apart in the
>>> past two weeks and its unlikely it will in the next few months. If you
>>> don't want to hear claims of Real Soon Now (and no one has actually said
>>> that, just that its likely to be developed), then don't get involved until
>>> there is an LDAP client.
>>
>> Real Soon Now would be a better response. I don't have a choice. I can
>> explain to my users that, "no, right now Mozilla *and* Netscape 6 are
>> nothing more than interesting experiments in incorrectly managed projects,
>> and if you blow out your NS 4.7.5 install for it, you won't be able to get
>> work done." But that's not going to stop them. I also have a real problem
>> with the "DON'T TOUCH" school of IT management, so I don't have a real
>> problem with the users installing software.
>
> Then you should and the trend is for centralised control in largish scale
> sets of users, ummm why else would you be interested in LDAP?
Because there is a major difference between management and control. I
*manage* my network, and *help* my users. I'm not enough of an IS Nazi to
*control* them. I work with adults, treat them as such, and 99% of the time,
that works. I also let them occasionally make mistakes, because it makes
them better users, and my job easier. I've worked at places with iron
control, and it causes more trouble than it prevents. I use LDAP because
it's easier for my *users* who are my *customers*. I personally can use any
fool thing, but LDAP is better for them. It's also replacing NIS/NIS+ with
Solaris, and since we run on that, we use LDAP.
>
> You can tell your users the truth. Right now there is no LDAP client for
> mozilla.org based product until there is, installing it will remove their
> ability to use the directory. I also wouldn't recommend the current mail
> client as a replacement for any user. But you can also say that you have
> been told that it is likely there will be an LDAP client and that the
> advantage of projects like mozilla.org is that changes that users want do
> get implemented and that it tends to be quicker than the more traditional
> closed proprietary development.
I have. They don't believe me. I mean in the "You must be lying. You have to
be" kind of way. But since AOL hasn't done any meaningful work on their
*preferred* corporate client, I, and too many other IS admins are being
*forced* to slowly stop using Communicator. And as anyone else in my line of
work will tell you, doing vendor changes, regardless of up front costs, is
painful, and you really try to avoid it unless you don't have a choice. If I
end up, while Mozilla and Netscape diddle around, having to replace
Communicator with something else, and that is working when there is a decent
corporate version of Netscape/Mozilla released, I'd be a fool to set myself
up for that much work just because it's Netscape or Mozilla. But that would
be the only reason, unless they *really* improve that product in every way
by orders of magnitude.
>
>
>> But when I am, regularly spending a great deal of time dealing with fixing
>> the damage that Mozilla and NS6 cause to windows installations, (Thank GOD
>> that 70% of our desktops are Solaris), then it becomes my problems. When I
>> get emails that should be tear-stained from readers who ignored my warnings,
>> and have had Netscape or Mozilla take down their machines, it becomes my
>> problem.
>
> If that actually is the case then I would blame those administering the
> users rather than the users themselves, giving users carte blanche over
> installing their own system software (and for all intent and purposes an
> email client is system software), is just asking for trouble.
Home users my friend. They own the hardware, it's their choice. These are
the works/doesn't work crowd. Remote workers, who have to have that level of
flexibility, because they are mobile constantly.
>
>
>> And If I am catching crap based on a product, then it's going to get shared.
>> Open Source is no longer the isolated geek lab it once was. The common folk
>> have heard of you, and are starting to use your work. Get over it. I for one
>> cannot *wait* for the day when the Stallman gets *reamed* by an 80 year-old
>> granny...hee.
>
> Umm the words 'Grow' and 'Up' come to mind.
So do 'get' and 'bent'. But that's not important. The point is, Open Source
has come out of it's adolescent stage, (emacs, bind, dns, linux, other
science projects), and is now being looked at in a serious fashion as a way
to get real work done, and give some of it back so that everyone benefits,
(Mozilla, Darwin, Linux). But that has downsides too.
>
>
>>>
>>> I think those that have responded here have shown patience with you, you
>>> might at least reciprocate.
>>
>> When I get responses that are better than "shut up and go away" in more
>> words, then I respond to those.
>
> You've had them, you just don't listen or if you do you redefine them in
> your own terms.
I've had 2. Those folks have been very good at pointing things out that no
one at Netscape or Mozilla had thought to. Customer relations are *so*
important.
>
>
>> You guys are classic open source. You can't understand that standards
>> compliance doesn't matter to the *vast* majority of people. They expect
>> that. It's like AC power support in a toaster. It had *better* be there.
>> They also could honestly care less about XPFE/XUL/etc. They want a browser
>> that browses, email that emails, and a fast, pleasant experience. You've got
>> a fantastic rendering engine, but the package it's wrapped up in is just
>> awful. It's *been* awful. People have been trying to tell you calmly and
>> reasonably it's awful. Well now Netscape has released an awful product, and
>> in the eyes of the world, Netscape *is* Mozilla *is* Netscape. And y'all are
>> reacting like a deer in the headlights.
>
> Ummm no. I'm entirely not classic open source anything, I'm more than
> aware that its the relevant application of standards that matter. If
> anything there is very little navel gazing involved in mozilla.org compared
> to other open source developments. I don't know if you took notice at the
> time but the UI style has been modified considerably from the original
> simply out of cogent screaming taking place in the relevant newsgroups.
Oh very true. Compared to other open source projects, with the exception of
Eazel, and MAYBE Gnome, Mozilla is quite responsive. But again...what are
you quoting...the UI *style*. Tell me, did anyone actually watch someone
trying to use this? It doesn't feel like it. Engineering - wise, it's
slicker than loon stuff on a wet rock. Conceptually, it's astounding. But so
far, it doesn't work that well. There's too many UI holes, issues, etc.
There's too little evidence of making the app fit the user or user
environment, rather than the other way around. It's really bad if you're an
experienced Netscape user. Then *nothing* works right.
>
> AOL/Netscape marketing put a stake in the sand and constrained a release to
> meet it. This is normal product marketing and there is always blood on the
> carpet and there is probably far more blood spilt and vituperation
> internally in Netscape then you will ever be aware of.
Oh no fooling. But the problem here is the communication going out to the
world is one of "This is a 1.0 product, standards compliance, it's hard, we
had a hard time." Someone, anyone needs to say, (and since netscape and
mozilla are such siamese twins, one statement would work for both. BTW-
Mozilla would be well served to start getting more email addresses that
aren't *@netscape.com), "We screwed up. This is not a stable product. This
is not feature complete. We're sorry. And we are going to bust ass to fix
it." That statement, in a press release, from Netscape would be the most
amazing balm for everyone who is pissed off at Netscape and Mozilla.
Why this would be cool would be because *then* Netscape and Mozilla could
point to the latest build and say "Look, here is the latest verison: We
fixed this bug, and that bug there, and over here, another bug fixed. This
is what open source is allowing us to do. We're a few builds away from
fixing these bugs. Download it and see". It would be a PR extravanganza, and
it would *work* because it's HONEST.
Two examples: Originally, the iMac was only going to have a 33.6K modem.
There were some technical reasons, mostly because of V.90 issues at the
time. But people howled. They ranted. And instead of getting all "We know,
now leave us alone", Apple did really an astounding thing. They said,
"You're right. A 33.6k modem is not good enough. It gets a 56k modem." From
an arrogant-assed company like Apple this was AMAZING. Same thing with
AppleShareIP 6.3. They were going to charge for it. And we screamed bloody
murder, and not nicely, and we didn't stop. And you know what? Phil Schiller
gets on the ASIP list and *apologizes*, and says, If you already have 6.2,
it's free. Heck, if you have 6.0, it's free. We were wrong."
>
>
>> There are a LOT more problems than LDAP, but that one is so astoundingly bad
>> that none of my peers and associates can comprehend how it got the low
>> priority it did.
>
> Perhaps because you and your peers have a different checklist. It sounds
> like you saw a version a while ago that had a placeholder and made an
> assumption based upon it and haven't bothered checking back since (the LDAP
> feature discussion has been going about 3 months on and off at least),
> perhaps you even said to a few users 'go ahead and try it'.
Well, it was a reasonable assumption to make. If it wasn't going to be
there, then why even bother with a place holder in the second level of a
hierarchal menu? And no, I didn't tell anyone to try it. And it wasn't until
the PR3 level releases that it went away. And at least PR3 did a one -time
suck of my LDAP entries. Now, neither version does that.
>
>
>> I got news for you...I'm the nice one...
>
> I'm intrigued as to why you think you are different to myself or others? A
> lot of people that comment here deal with users and clients.
>
Because the ones who deal with non-technical types aren't arguing standards.
They know that non-techies don't care. So far, I've not seen a lot of
evidence from Netscape or Mozilla, although Mozilla seems to have more of a
clue, that this is a pertinent fact.
--
"We aren't going to try to train you,we're going to try to kill you."
- Soldier I, SAS
