From: jonathan at nuclearelephant.com (Jonathan A. Zdziarski)
Subject: CyberInsecurity: The cost of Monopoly

Well since neither you, myself, or anyone else on this list is
interested in this thread continuing, I'll make a few minor comments,
and you can go back to all that finger licking good turkey.  I've toned
my comments down a bit to be more conversational rather than
confrontational.  If you want to chat some more, I'd suggest we take it
offlist.  Otherwise, nice chatting with you.

>  I did run Linux directly on a PC for few months but that was a few years ago. 

That's a LONG time, you should consider looking at the latest; 2.4
Kernel + Gnome 2.4 + Talk to someone who can show you how to really do
some neat stuff with it.

> > My laptop came with a free copy of Windows XP
> 
> I am thinking it probably wasn't free.... :op  I must thank you, your OS
> purchase in some small way probably helped pay for my MSDN Universal
> Subscription.

Crap you got me there...but it was well worth the money to take the CD
to the range with me =)

> This may sound mean, but thousands is not large. That is medium at best.
> Scaling an app or a supporting a server environment for thousands is
> considerably different than scaling one for a large company. 

I realize this.  But I also realize you were not the sole individual
doing this at HP.  If you were, you'd be in upper management at HP which
means you wouldn't have any technical know-how whatsoever, which
obviously isn't the case.  It's very easy for an IT person with a heavy
windows background to suggest that supporting 30k users is easier with
Windows, but if you take a look at the way things are currently moving
(for example Telstra ditching Windows), you will start hearing about
large (10k+) Linux enterprises more often.

> I will agree that IIS hasn't been the most effective, they are working on
> it. Did you try Apache on Windows?  Because really, it isn't Linux running
> the web services, it is Apache. 

Yes, just about anything we experimented with failed miserably in
comparison to running it on a unix box.  We didn't actually use Linux
for a whole lot - I personally prefer Sparc for anything that will take
a heavy load - It's the semi-trailer of UNIX IMHO (i guess that makes
SCO the single-wide).  Anyhow, while Apache is serving the pages, it's
the underlying operating system performing all the forking, threading,
filesystem functions, networking, etcetera (as you know).  Our Solaris
and Linux boxes both significantly outperformed comparable machines
running Winders.  Look at any bake-off and you'll see that just about
any UNIX OS can take twice the beating a Windows box can.

> Good to see that you are open to looking at changes yourself... You
> automatically discount the company with the largest software R&D budget in
> the world used 

That's kind of my point - for a company with the largest R&D budget in
the world, I'm completely unimpressed with anything they've done with
it.  It was obvious that Windows 98 was Apple '87, and Windows XP today
(granted it's adapted to newer protocols and chipsets) is basically
built around similar old technology - even the ooh'd and aah'd
visualizations existed in other desktop managers prior to XP's release. 
Bottom line is if the rest of the world stopped developing new software
and standards, Windows would be at a stand-still for quite some time
because they'd have nothing to clone.

> I consider a paycheck pretty formal and I have a desire for it. Again, I am
> not here for the religious ferver of correcting the world of its evil ways.

If that were true, this thread never would have gotten on the slope it's
been down. =)

> Give the linux cd to your mom.

Heck my mom can't use Windows without calling me three times a day.  I
might let her set up Linux just so I can log in and start her
spreadsheet program for her.

>  Have her set up a small home network with it
> in a matter of minutes

I get the gist of what you're saying...and I am stating that anyone with
enough computer savvy to set up a Windows box could easily do the same
thing for Linux using a user-friendly distribution (e.g. RH9).  The best
example of this is probably still OSX, but with that you're comparing
apples and lemons.

> None of the Linux flavors are to that

I think since RedHat 6, it's been almost as simple.  I understand it's
been a while for you.  Give it a look.  You can grab the ISO on their
site for F R E E!

> Definitely getting bad in that company. Carly has sunk that company. 

I noticed an advertisement in a magazine prior to the Columbia crash -
it bragged about how HP re-engineered all of NASA's computer systems so
they could spot problems before they occured.  Guess that didn't work
out too well for Carly eh.  I keep thinking if only Micromuse had gotten
that contract; when I was working there our visionary tool was taking
names when it came to predictive failure. But I digress...

>  All of the
> coding I believe is going (or in the process of going) over to India now. I
> am wondering how long it will take for HP to realize that screwup. 

One of the companies I'm helping put together right now did just that a
few years ago prior to asking me to get involved.  Was a miserable
failure, as you are predicting for HP.  The CEO also forked out $70
million at his prior company to try and build the same system I gave him
in about a month.  Truly sad that there are so many unproductive among
us and abroad (especially abroad).  I've no doubt HP's going to fail for
this, and many other reasons.  I personally will boycott HP until they
stop planning obsolescence into their products.  (I realize other
companies do this too, but HP takes it to the extreme).

> I would rather work on whatever system is on top.

Can't argue with that - it's your life, you're following wherever the
cash leads (although it's very odd that it led you to Windows - I'm
surprised you don't run sex.com), and I doubt anyone can deny that
Microsoft owns the market share presently.  We're just going to have to
agree to disagree about how they got to (and stayed at) the top.

> And when exactly would that be occurring? I would prefer that you not think
> about nor speak about my ass anymore. 

They found a new moon system around uranus, according to slashdot.  That
is the last I will mention of your ass.

> Issues with your Linux laptop? 

Heh, only about half as bloated as Windows right now =)  Of course,
running Photoshop in wine in the background I'm sure it aking up a good
bit of RAM.

Jonathan

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