From popmail Mon Sep 22 22:02:54 1997 Subject: Re: LINUX-BIZ Admin message: **PLEASE** Don't send unsubscribes to list! Distribution: local Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 15:27:05 GMT From: Ambrose Li To: linux-biz@lege.com In article , Leif Erlingsson wrote: > >If You need to unsubscribe, **PLEASE** don't mail this to everybody on the >list. There is a linux-biz-request address for this purpouse -- follow >the instructions in www.lege.com for LINUX-BIZ !! This is indeed a very serious problem, and part of a much larger problem, IMHO. Users no longer knows that listserv commands are supposed to be sent to the -request addresses. I think the root of this problem is spam. :-( (because all the spam tells the victims to reply to the original address. For the same reason some users no longer knows that the unsubscribe command is `unsubscribe' and not `delete' or `remove'.) -- Ambrose C. Li Programmer-analyst (sysadmin) Toronto EDP, Ming Pao Daily News +1(416)321-0088 1355 Huntingwood Dr Scarborough ON Canada M1S 3J1 [<- work ] [ home ->] From popmail Tue Sep 23 04:01:48 1997 From: Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond Date: Mon, 22 Sep 1997 21:28:26 +0100 To: Ambrose Li Subject: Re: LINUX-BIZ Admin message: **PLEASE** Don't send unsubscribes to list! Cc: linux-biz@lege.com On Sep 22, 21:09, Ambrose Li wrote: > address. For the same reason some users no longer knows that the unsubscribe > command is `unsubscribe' and not `delete' or `remove'.) ...but by far the biggest reason is that newcomers to the net no longer read instructions. It is the type of user that takes a card out of a box, plugs it in, and expects it to work without reading anything about it in the assorted documentation accompanying the product. If computers have become plug and play, then lists are doomed to have to become plug and play as well. Listserver/Majordomo/LServ should scan each incoming message for the key words "unsubscribe, remove, delete", as well as one or two-liners and bounce them to the list owner for approval when the message is suspicious. I know, some will say "that sucks", but such is life when a network which used to be used by a minority of people, is now a household commodity. Just imagine Linux becoming a household commodity. :-) O. -- Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond, PhD |-----> Global Information Highway Limited Phone: +44 (0)956 84 1113 | Always 60 seconds | E-mail: Fax : +44 (0)171 937 7666 | ahead of the past | Web: http://www.gih.com/ From popmail Wed Sep 24 07:49:42 1997 From: leif@nisse.com To: Cc: Subject: TEST INJECTED AT PORT 25 OF zip... telnet zip.mail-list.com 25 Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 05:28:01 +0000 This is the log so far of this very mail session: elijah:~$ telnet zip.mail-list.com 25 Trying 38.153.179.3... Connected to zip.mail-list.com. Escape character is '^]'. 220 zip.mail-list.com ESMTP Exim 1.71 #1 Wed, 24 Sep 1997 05:23:08 +0000 HELO nisse.com 250 zip.mail-list.com: Hello leif at nisse.com [130.244.73.94] MAIL FROM: 250 is syntactically correct RCPT TO: 250 is syntactically correct RCPT TO: 550 relaying to prohibited by administrator RCPT TO: 250 is syntactically correct DATA 354 Enter message, ending with "." on a line by itself From: To: Cc: Subject: TEST INJECTED AT PORT 25 OF zip... telnet zip.mail-list.com 25 .. and then we are at this very message, which I will not repeat! The remainder of the log hasen't happened yet, so I can't include it! Bye! From popmail Wed Sep 24 07:49:43 1997 From: leif@lege.com To: Cc: Subject: TEST#2 INJECTED AT PORT 25 OF zip... telnet zip.mail-list.com 25 Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 05:35:16 +0000 .. some text ... From popmail Sat Oct 4 18:01:18 1997 Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 07:42:29 -0700 (MST) From: Sergey Nikitin To: distribute_soft , java-linux-devel@java.blackdown.org, linux-biz@lege.com, linux-ppp@vger.rutgers.edu, linux-x11@vger.rutgers.edu Cc: nikitin@asu.edu, people@math.la.asu.edu Subject: Linux JDK1.1.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Everyone: Linux port of JDK1.1.4 (java dev. kit) is available at ftp://lagrange.la.asu.edu/pub/Linux_jdk user: anonymous Passwd: your e-mail Please let me know if you encounter any problems or find a bug. With best +++++++++++++++++++++, Sergey P.S. There is one bug - when you work with appletviewer and push the button "Properties", then the process will dump core with segm.violation. I will try to fix as time permits. P.S. Runtime libs (libjava, libjava_g) and (libnet, libnet_g, libagen, libagent_g) are ta ken from JDK1.1.2-1.1.3, the rest is compiled from scratch. ~ ~ ------------------------------------ Dr. Sergey Nikitin ____________________________________ Department of Mathematics Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287-1804 http://lagrange.la.asu.edu e-mail: nikitin@asu.edu tel. (602)965-0466 ------------------------------------ From popmail Sat Oct 4 21:57:03 1997 From: Mr Tester aka Leif Erlingsson To: linux-biz@lege.com Subject: [leif@dispatch leif]$ /usr/local/exim/bin/exim -v -oi linux-biz@lege.com Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1997 20:16:34 +0000 [leif@dispatch leif]$ /usr/local/exim/bin/exim -v -oi linux-biz@lege.com TEST -- PLEASE IGNORE, EXCEPT YLVA: PLEASE TELL LEIF! From popmail Mon Oct 6 06:02:49 1997 Date: Sun, 5 Oct 1997 16:48:28 -0700 (MST) From: Sergey Nikitin To: distribute_soft , java-linux-devel@java.blackdown.org, linux-biz@lege.com, linux-ppp@vger.rutgers.edu, linux-x11@vger.rutgers.edu Cc: nikitin@asu.edu Subject: installing JDK1.1.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Some important remarks on installing JDK1.1.4 for Linux. I had to put it into README.linux, but I did not. I will change README.linux later as soon as we minimize installation complains to zero. 1. You must be root in order to install JDK1.1.4 correctly. 2. You have to have Motif installed (later I will compile a version with Motif linked statically, but now you have to have Motif) I tested JDK1.1.4 with demo examples from JDK1.1.3 I did not get any problems, except one reported in README.linux, appletviewer will dump core if you push "properties" button. I am running XFree86 3.1.2. There was one complain about appletviewer and XFree86 3.3.1. I will upgrade my XFree86 in order to check whether it has really to do with XFree86 3.1.2. Please do not hesitate to send me information about any other bugs. With best ++++++++++++, Sergey ------------------------------------ Dr. Sergey Nikitin ____________________________________ Department of Mathematics Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287-1804 http://lagrange.la.asu.edu e-mail: nikitin@asu.edu tel. (602)965-0466 ------------------------------------ From popmail Wed Oct 8 04:02:27 1997 Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 16:43:22 -0700 (MST) From: Sergey Nikitin To: distribute_soft , java-linux-devel@java.blackdown.org, linux-biz@lege.com, linux-ppp@vger.rutgers.edu, linux-x11@vger.rutgers.edu Cc: nikitin@asu.edu Subject: JDK1.1.4, Motif compiled static Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Everyone: I compiled JDK1.1.4 for Linux with Motif statically. So you do not need Motif. But JDK1.1.4 gziped and tared is about 2 mg larger. I fixed the bug connected with (appletviewer dumps the core when you push "properties" button). Now everything seems working. But I am waiting for your responce. If you have some problem with running "jdb" Try to export JAVA_HOME variable. export JAVA_HOME=/your_jdk_home/ If you install JDK in /usr/local/java then you don't need to do anything except setting up CLASSPATH. Now Tired, go to sleep. With best +++++++++++++++, Sergey You can download everything from ftp://lagrange.la.asu.edu/pub/Linux_jdk P.S> Let me know if something is wrong, I will fix it. If everything more or less O'K I start the second stage of my project: extended math_lib for java and redesign of runtime libs. ------------------------------------ Dr. Sergey Nikitin ____________________________________ Department of Mathematics Arizona State University Tempe, AZ 85287-1804 http://lagrange.la.asu.edu e-mail: nikitin@asu.edu tel. (602)965-0466 ------------------------------------ From popmail Fri Oct 10 10:01:53 1997 From: evan@telly.org (Evan Leibovitch) Subject: Unix-on-Intel players work on a common binary To: linux-biz@lege.com Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 02:03:10 -0400 (EDT) Content-Type: text The 86open project ------------------ A group which includes some of the key developers of Unix operating systems on Intel architecture computers have agreed to work on a common programming and binary interface. At a meeting held mid-August at the head office of SCO, participants achieved consensus on a way to create software applications which would run, without modification or emulation, on the Intel-based versions of: - BSDI - FreeBSD - Linux - NetBSD - SCO OpenServer - Sunsoft Solaris - SCO UnixWare The goal of this effort is to encourage software developers to port to the Unix-Intel platform by reducing the effort needed to support the diverse mix of operating systems of this kind currently available. The specification, called "86open", will be published and freely available to any environment wishing compliance. It involves the use of a standardized 'libc' shared library of basic functions to be provided on all systems. This library will provide a consistent interface to programmers, hiding the differences between the various operating systems and allowing the resulting binary programs to run unaltered on any compliant system. Whenever possible, it will be consistent with The Open Group's Single Unix Specification. Each participating operating system will be free to implement the 86open library specification on its own. However, the reference implementation will be based upon GNU's 'glibc' version 2, ensuring that it will remain open and freely available. The actual list and behavior of the 86open functions is presently being determined. Participants in the meeting, who will be involved with the ongoing evolution of the 86open specification, include people deeply involved with the operating systems mentioned in this project. The 86open steering committee, a core of this group which will assemble the work and produce the final specification, comprises: Marc Ewing, Dion Johnson, Evan Leibovitch, Bruce Perens, Andrew Roach, Bryan Sparks and Linus Torvalds For more information, contact <86open@telly.org> or check http://www.telly.org/86open From popmail Tue Oct 14 21:01:11 1997 Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 13:52:05 +0100 (MET) From: Leif Erlingsson To: Linux Business Discussion Group cc: "Eric S. Raymond" , unix-future@rsv.se Subject: Linux Business Discussion Group MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII This is a little information about the Linux Business Discussion Group , it's history and current status. Also, this message contains a challenge to read and comment on some ideas. Really picking up on this challenge will require at least one, possibly two hours of your time. Be warned. (I didn't mention that it may also make a very big difference in your future relationship with Linux and other OS platforms.) On Mon, 21 Oct 1996 09:39:22 +1000 (EST), Robert Hart wrote this on the list: > Hi People > > This is copy of a message that was sent to one of the Australian > lists to which I subscribe. > > I am posting here as I believe that this sort of initiative is > *just* the sort of thing the Linux community should support to > help leverage Linux into the future. > > I am aware that there are many Linux installs around at > Universities in the US and Aus, but as I am *not* in the > education field anymore, my contacts are rusty... > > What do other people think about this and trying for a specific > 'linux' inclusion? Much much later Robert Hart of InterWeft, 35 Summit Road, Lilydale, Victoria 3140, Australia entered into a project with Red Hat, with Robert as project leader, and with some of the list members on this list and other lists as discussion partners. This project was announced on Linux Business Discussion Group on Sun, 31 Aug 1997 10:45:40 +1000 (EST) in a message from Robert Hart . Linux-biz slowed down some time after this message because, since Red Hat demanded this, these discussions eventually moved over to the supp-prov@redhat.com list, and only people who actually was willing to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement with Red Hat Software Inc. is subscribed there. Those discussions being under a NDA, nothing more can be said about them here and now. But before any NDA ever was signed the original intent was that once everything was finalized, the NDA would no longer apply for what came out of those discussions, and the result would again be public, or this was my understanding at the time. It is therefore my hope that once the supp-prov@redhat.com list Non-Disclosure Agreement has reached the end of its useful life, some of those discussions will once again return to the open forum that the Linux Business Discussion Group is, and to other such forums. One thing that might be profitably discussed here already at this point is ... ... Non - Red Hat Linux'es in Business Discussions and Linux in general in Business - Red Hat or other- wise, outside any large-scale support programs. Just a word of warning to those participating in discussions here on Linux Business Discussion Group , please for your own protection be very careful with divulging any infor- mation you may have obtained under NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement). I.e. don't give any figures or names obtained from the supp-prov@redhat.com list outside that list. Doing so may cost you more than you might want to think about. Also, just to avoid the risk that someone else might fall in this trap, please do not crosspost to supp-prov@redhat.com! Required reading: 25 years of Unix http://www.ssc.com/lg/issue21/impress.html or http://www.lege.com/impr-qcu.html Exceptionally powerful program development model http://locke.ccil.org/~esr/writings/cathedral.html Questions: How combine the factors for success outlined in the above two articles with Linux in Business? Answers: Anybody? PS: Linux-biz archives are at http://www.lege.com. As are subscribe/unsubscribe instructions. Extra PS: Look out for JDK -- Java Virtual Machine may well supersede both Microsoft and Unix platforms. Myself I don't really think that this would be so terribly bad. Comments? As it is, Linux is a cheaper and possibly more compliant platform than Microsoft. Microsoft has been sued by Sun for non-compliance in a court in San Jose. __________________________________________________________________ Leif Erlingsson Tel +46 8 604-0995 DATA LEGE Fax +46 8 605-2551 Glavagatan 33 URL http://www.lege.com 123 71 Farsta, Sweden Email mailto:leif@lege.com __________________________________________________________________ I remember the past. I am not doomed to buy Microsoft products. From popmail Wed Oct 15 06:01:04 1997 Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 19:37:35 -0700 (PDT) From: Dwight Johnson To: Linux-Business Subject: Great article MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII This article compares Linux with NT and other flavors of Unix as a Web server. http://www.techweb.com/se/directlink.cgi?INW19970901S0125 dwj From popmail Thu Oct 16 00:32:42 1997 Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 21:44:56 +0100 (MET) From: Leif Erlingsson To: Linux Business Discussion Group cc: unix-future@rsv.se Subject: Re: Linux Business Discussion Group MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Linux Journal have put up some discussion forums, HyperNews discussion groups, with relevance for Linux in the Mainstream: [If you comment on the below suggestions for discussion, please do so BOTH using HyperNews at the indicated URL's and also here on Linux Business Discussion Group !] http://www.linuxjournal.com/discussions.html Linux Certification http://www.linuxjournal.com/HyperNews/get/certification.html In Linux Journal November 1997: "We need a certification program. A way to say that someone is a certified Linux technician Red Hat has started this effort (check out http://www.interweft.com.au/redhat) with what they call The Red Hat Commercial Support System. I talked to Robert Hart about this and he points out that the effort is needed and Red Hat decided to go ahead on their own to get it moving. Hopefully, other vendors or possibly Linux International will turn this idea into an industry-wide effort." Certification: A two edged sword http://www.linuxjournal.com/HyperNews/get/certification/1.html "In the past I have interviewed many people who have proudly displayed their Novell CNE, ENE and some MS certs but have zero 'seat time' in their areas. Many appear to have taught to take the test but lack any applicable knowledge. It gets very frustrating on boths end of the interview when the certification does equate to a real world ability. "BTW, I have known some people with real good skills and certifications but the real key was that they had used the product they were certified in on a regular basis over a period of time. "I would like to see a Linux certification where the person demonstrates 1) an ability to install the software, 2) get X11 up and running, 3) reconfig the kernel, 4) update files via RPM or patch, 5) perform some admin fuctions such as set up a line printer, change IP address, add users, 6) find some core files (droped into place by the examiner) and remove them, 7) read the messages file and explain what is in the file, 8) read a random man page from the 1st or 8th sections, 9) explain the file system, and 10) be given a task such as report all SUID files on a system and printing out the list." Linux for Service Businesses http://www.linuxjournal.com/HyperNews/get/service.html In Linux Journal November 1997: "Service business package. This is the most concrete suggestion and it came from my Chimney Sweep. It is equally applicable to any service business where the service provider travels to the homes of his customers. It could be anything from a window washer to a roofing contractor. The software needs to run on a laptop, probably with a printer in it. The issues to be addressed are customer database, cost estimation, invoicing, inventory and travel route planning. This is not a trivial application but, once all the pieces are integrated, it offers some great potential markets. While each market, Chimney Sweeps, for example, are not huge, the possibilities are enormous. Also, these various industries have newsletters, discussion groups and, in some cases, magazines. Offer an innovative solution in such an industry and word will spread quickly." Linux FAX and Voice Mail http://www.linuxjournal.com/HyperNews/get/faxvoice.html "There are packages for FAXing and voice mail from Linux. Putting together a commercial-quailty solution for a small business would make a great stand-alone application. As the majority of the interface between users and the system would be via the telephone there is little concern for users having to learn to use a new computer. The FAX interface could be handled thru an office e-mail gateway (which Linux could handle) which would again isolate the office worker from the actual Linux command line." Linux in Government Offices http://www.linuxjournal.com/HyperNews/get/government.html In Linux Journal November 1997: "A huge market is government. Governments tend to have limited budgets and want a solution that just addresses their problem. The other advantage is that governments tend to communicate with each other particularly at the city and county level. This means that a good solution would require little marketing beyond a couple of success stories. These government solutions could include meeting room scheduling, general word processing, accounting, Internet connectivity and even web servers. The main difference between this market and the general market is the ease in which you could market a tailor-made solution. It also offers a good chance for local consultants to get involved." __ HyperNews discussion groups seems to be a neat idea, but oh how slow it seems to navigate... due to overloaded router interfaces and many router-hops between them and me no doubt. Email is still unsurpassed -- we work, eat or sleep while the email passes all those overloaded router interfaces, and when it finally arrives at our home 15 minutes later, we read it at our leisure! :-) __________________________________________________________________ Leif Erlingsson Tel +46 8 604-0995 DATA LEGE Fax +46 8 605-2551 Glavagatan 33 URL http://www.lege.com 123 71 Farsta, Sweden Email mailto:leif@lege.com __________________________________________________________________ I remember the past. I am not doomed to buy Microsoft products. From popmail Thu Oct 16 01:22:15 1997 Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 22:10:49 +0100 (MET) From: Leif Erlingsson To: Linux Business Discussion Group cc: unix-future@rsv.se Subject: Linux FAX and Voice Mail http://www.linuxjournal.com/HyperNews/get/faxvoice.html MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Re: http://www.linuxjournal.com/HyperNews/get/faxvoice.html I've been using HylaFax to email faxes and receive fax 1 yr ...but as already suggested, it's not VoiceMail ... Hylafax though is splendid for what it's designed to do, send postscript, TIFF or textfiles as fax, or even MIME mail as fax -- mind you, only the body text!!! Many customers today want automatic conversion of any kind of attached document such that it is faxed to the final recipient in a very readable format! He who solves this on Linux makes Linux the platform of choise for this application! (But it is no small feat....) __________________________________________________________________ Leif Erlingsson Tel +46 8 604-0995 DATA LEGE Fax +46 8 605-2551 Glavagatan 33 URL http://www.lege.com 123 71 Farsta, Sweden Email mailto:leif@lege.com __________________________________________________________________ I remember the past. I am not doomed to buy Microsoft products. From popmail Thu Oct 16 04:00:50 1997 Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 00:57:00 +0100 (MET) From: Leif Erlingsson To: Linux Business Subject: About these messages... Linux FAX and Voice... Re: Linux Busine... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII About these messages... 1 Oct 15 Leif Erlingsson (1,700) Linux FAX and Voice Mail http:... 2 Oct 15 Leif Erlingsson (7,335) Re: Linux Business Discussion.... 3 Oct 14 Dwight Johnson (1,737) Great article 4 Oct 14 Leif Erlingsson (4,867) Linux Business Discussion Group.. ... You didn't already read the first two, I fouled up so they were sent-out with Status: and X-Status: headers saying they, the first two, was already read. So You aren't crazy, you didn't already read the first two, unless you actually did... :-) Sorry about that! Also, for a day or two I'd be interested in samples of error messages anyone of you who post to linux-biz gets following posts to the list. I suspect everyone who post gets at least one error message, following a move to a different MTA, exim, but I could be wrong. Thanks for any help! __________________________________________________________________ Leif Erlingsson Tel +46 8 604-0995 DATA LEGE Fax +46 8 605-2551 Glavagatan 33 URL http://www.lege.com 123 71 Farsta, Sweden Email mailto:leif@lege.com __________________________________________________________________ I remember the past. I am not doomed to buy Microsoft products. From popmail Thu Oct 16 19:01:06 1997 Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 08:59:07 -0700 (PDT) From: Dwight Johnson To: Linux-Business Subject: Agenda for this list MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII After an exciting explosion of posts in the early months, linux-biz has become a list for only occasional posts and almost no discussion. As a result, Leif, the founder and maintainer, is thinking about closing the list. Linux-list hosted by ssc.com has recently taken on some of the kinds of discussion that formerly appeared on linux-biz. At the time of the founding of linux-biz, however, these kinds of posts, some of which generate controversy, would have been inappropriate. Subscribers to linux-biz might like to check out linux-list@ssc.com. It is a nice list, the volume is not presently too high. I think linux-list-request@ssc.com with 'subscribe' in the subject field will get you on. If that doesn't work, maybe a query to postmaster@ssc.com will shake loose the instructions and you can post them to linux-biz for everyone. Exactly >>why<< linux-biz is not generating more posts is a question of some interest. Certainly the purpose of the list--to promote the use of Linux and Free Software in business--is an even more vital topic today than it was a year ago. Linux today is certainly being deployed in business to a much greater extent than a year ago. And there is no end in sight. I have no doubt that the linux-biz list has been a positive factor in this. I know that linux-biz has a lot of extremely capable subscribers. I was amazed by the volume and quality of posts that came through the list in its early months. So let us ask: Is linux-biz fine the way it is? Has it served its usefulness and we could all gravitate over to linux-list--at least all of us who enjoy lively Linux discussion? Would a more specific agenda for linuz-biz give it the focus it needs to make a difference to the propogation of Linux? What do you think? Dwight From popmail Thu Oct 16 22:03:05 1997 Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 11:37:50 -0600 (CST) From: Darren Boyd To: Linux-Business Subject: Re: Agenda for this list MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hi: Personally I signed onto this list to do nothing more than lurk. I will, however, try and add my own opinion from time-to-time in order to improve the content (or at least the amount of traffic) on the list. I am very interested in seeing Linux succeed in the business world, and I believe that it can. I think that one of the difficulties of this list is that it is so general in nature. It is hard to know exactly what is "suitable" material for the list. I have found that the material that does cross this list is usually very informative and useful. For this reason, I would not want to see the list closed. So, in hopes of generating some traffic and maybe inspiring others to do the same I put forward this topic for discussion. Should the Linux community (or any particular organization within) use the "Total Cost of Ownership" marketing strategy. That is, should the organizations that put forth the distributions calculate the "Total Cost of Ownership" for their product and use that as leverage against their competitors. I'm assuming that the Total Cost of Ownership would be lower for a Linux workstation/server then it would be for any of its competitors. Comments? Also, I did subscribe to the linux-list at SSC, and the original instructions that Dwight sent out were not quite right. Here is the revised instructions from Majordomo at SSC (The "address above" to which it refers is actually the address in the example). - --- To subscribe to this mailing list, simply send a message with the word "subscribe" in the body of the message to the address above. As in: To: linux-list-request@ssc.com Subject: anything or leave empty subscribe - --- Later, Darren Darren Boyd | dboyd@its.to Home Page and Public Key | http://www.its.to/~dboyd - ----------------------------|-------------------------------- The moment of victory is much too short to live for that and nothing else. -Martina Navrtilova -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBNEZQ8U4FwKvMO64tAQEU2gP/XtreuE/tGR5L8tHp/t8vA/JV7F0Q+DwW CgRJCaeYD+swARWaiJkUzjeeoE/cfPJJMhiOawKguqgs3gix3jK802xFwufJrYMW vBR8jAJCWloybVXpIZXIT5GQKEi2YqsAMqH3CVdTQSjdqxokQt0zB8KO3iSiYio8 sh/AqZAI8xs= =Lfgh -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From popmail Thu Oct 16 22:07:04 1997 Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 21:56:22 +0200 (SAT) From: Antoine van Gelder To: Darren Boyd cc: Linux-Business Subject: Re: Agenda for this list MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Darren Boyd suggested: > So, in hopes of generating some traffic and maybe inspiring others > to do the same I put forward this topic for discussion. Should the > Linux community (or any particular organization within) use the "Total > Cost of Ownership" marketing strategy. That is, should the > organizations that put forth the distributions calculate the "Total > Cost of Ownership" for their product and use that as leverage against > their competitors. I'm assuming that the Total Cost of Ownership > would be lower for a Linux workstation/server then it would be for any > of its competitors. Comments? Are you sure that Total Cost of Ownership is at all a valid measurement when used to evaluate _any_ technology for a business ? If it is not, can you morally justify using this factor in _any_ marketing strategy ? - Antoine --- Antoine van Gelder "But not one of them, not even Fletcher Lynd Gull, had come to believe that the flight of ideas could possibly be as real as the flight of wind and feather." From popmail Thu Oct 16 23:00:55 1997 Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 22:29:09 +0200 (SAT) From: Antoine van Gelder To: Randy Wright cc: Darren Boyd , Linux-Business Subject: Re: Agenda for this list MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII randy took the bait: > > Are you sure that Total Cost of Ownership is at all a valid measurement > > when used to evaluate _any_ technology for a business ? > > > > If it is not, can you morally justify using this factor in _any_ marketing > > strategy ? > > > > Hmmm, I'll take this bait: Why wouldn't Total Cost of Ownership be a > valid measurement of a technology? Well... why are we in business in the first place ? To make money or to save money ? If I was in business to save money I could close up shop tommorrow and immediately my Total Cost of Ownership would drop to zero. 100% savings. What is going to make me more money, saving a few lousy bucks on my IT department, or having a technology that can ease a management constraint ? In other words: Are you selling me a short-term saving, or are you selling me a real business solution ? What do you think would be the impact on the Microsoft juggernaut if we start showing people the rarity with which most software solutions achieve a real bottom line impact. And how do you think they would feel if we pointed out that Linux, being free of narrowminded interest, is a lot more flexible and suited for addressing the real problems our businesses face today ? - Antoine who still doesn't get it that the cleverest of these so-called IT specialists are blind to the fact that they are using the wrong measurements to put together their 'solutions.' -- Antoine van Gelder "But not one of them, not even Fletcher Lynd Gull, had come to believe that the flight of ideas could possibly be as real as the flight of wind and feather." From popmail Thu Oct 16 23:01:58 1997 Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 14:48:45 -0600 (CST) From: Darren Boyd To: Linux-Business Subject: Re: Total Cost of Ownership MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Thu, 16 Oct 1997, Antoine van Gelder wrote: > Are you sure that Total Cost of Ownership is at all a valid measurement > when used to evaluate _any_ technology for a business ? > > If it is not, can you morally justify using this factor in _any_ marketing > strategy ? - From personal experience (even at the company at which I work) I sometimes find it hard to "morally justify" any marketing strategy. For that matter it is difficult to justify marketing at all. For example, marketing brought us windows, therefore death to all marketers :-). But to defend Total Cost of Ownership, picture this: I am bidding on a contract to set up a small network for a small business. They, not unlike the typical small business owner, are convinced of the merits of the microsoft products they here so much about on the news. They would like the newest and best windows OS installed, with the newest Corel WordPerfect Suite (they do have some bit of sense :-)). They also want a file server setup as well as a print server for the entire network. And they want a dialup Internet account through their local provider. Therefore, I convince them of a Linux server, and windows clients (I tried to get Linux clients, but they just wouldn't go for it). They are just about convinced, but a competitor of mine comes along and tells them that "Microsoft says that NT has a lower total cost of ownership then UNIX". To that, I tell them that NT on a pentium is cheaper then DEC OSF 4.0 on an Alpha 4100. But, this is Linux and this is what it is going to cost you compared to NT: Note: Where I put a $?, I mean something more then $0. NT Linux ------- -------- Hardware Cost: $? $? Same, therefore irrelevant. Although you could get away with less hardware running Linux. Software Cost (initial Setup): OS > $100 $0 (Assuming they use something like Redhat 4.2 without the commercial licenses) Client licenses $? $0 Internet Gatewaying Software $? $0 Software Cost (maintenance/upgrade) per year: > $100 $0 NB: This does not include the time it takes to perform the upgrade. Cost of maintenance from hired consulting firm: $? $? Depends on specific circumstances, but it is easier to maintain a Linux system then an NT system. Total $x.xx < $x.xx You get the picture by now. The point is, at the bottom of the page is two dollar figures. One for the cost of NT and one for the cost of Linux. The Linux cost is far less. if you put that in front of a small business owner who is trying to save every dime possible, it becomes a very convincing argument. Now, back to your point. Is it a valid measurement? It is valid, if it is accurate. It may not be completely accurate for accounting purposes (i.e. cash-flow), but Total Cost of Ownership can be a useful tool to *compare* two alternatives, as long as both alternatives are measured in the same fashion (i.e. they are equally inaccurate). BTW: The circumstances above are all made up. But, if I were ever faced with a competitor using "Total Cost of Ownership" to sell NT over Linux, yes, I would do the research and I would use their own strategy to prove to the customer why Linux is the obvious choice. Later, Darren Darren Boyd | dboyd@its.to Home Page and Public Key | http://www.its.to/~dboyd - ----------------------------|-------------------------------- The moment of victory is much too short to live for that and nothing else. -Martina Navrtilova -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBNEZ9sU4FwKvMO64tAQHNoAP/Z0I6EnsrZrgf5s+BiaChHQ+uDCJNJkSP MmED8CPClt6n+Uv0jXg4wAEqFC9Qy1htLA0QKUkmejEpTU4tru6PtAnbDhYuTxN4 mfYA1c5rcffSI7pszUv/s8po7G1UnusQ3jV+MDfN0arl7SKK/DqkxfgrjD5MQMxb 8hf6Ts/FtMg= =/vv9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From popmail Thu Oct 16 23:02:16 1997 Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 17:02:08 -0400 (EDT) From: "James M. Darlack" To: jmd@darlack.com cc: Linux-Business Subject: topic for discussion. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hi! I am trying to get a credit card reader to work with linux. So far, it is straight forward to read the ASCII chars that are on thecard. However, what do you seasoned veterans recomend in terms of a company to process the credit card data??? It will be used for on-line purchases, as well as some kiosk based purchases. Thanks in advance for your expertise and help! Jim From popmail Fri Oct 17 00:01:07 1997 Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 15:19:34 -0600 (CST) From: Darren Boyd To: Linux-Business Subject: Re: Agenda for this list MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Thu, 16 Oct 1997, Antoine van Gelder wrote: > Well... why are we in business in the first place ? To make money or to > save money ? If I was in business to save money I could close up shop > tommorrow and immediately my Total Cost of Ownership would drop to zero. > 100% savings. > > What is going to make me more money, saving a few lousy bucks on my > IT department, or having a technology that can ease a management > constraint ? > > In other words: Are you selling me a short-term saving, or are you selling > me a real business solution ? "Total Cost of Ownership" is just a buzzword. It means "How much does it cost." Unfortunately in the computer industry, that cost doesn't end at the time of purchase, there is added costs after that. Total Cost of Ownership is used to add up all those costs. the reason it is important is that the Cost is used in calculations like Return On Investment. And a lot of businesses are more accurately calculating the ROI of a information system before they make the purchase. But to calculate proper ROI, you need, not only the initial cost of the investment, but also the ongoing cost of the investment. For example. When a company purchases a truck to make deliveries with, they first calculate the ROI. They take into account the $40,000 of the cost of the truck, but they also take into account the $400 a year in oil changes, the $3000 a year in gas, the $??? a year in miscellaneous repairs. An accurate ROI can only be calculated with accurate costs. The same is true for a computer system. > What do you think would be the impact on the Microsoft juggernaut if we > start showing people the rarity with which most software solutions achieve > a real bottom line impact. And how do you think they would feel if we > pointed out that Linux, being free of narrowminded interest, is a lot more > flexible and suited for addressing the real problems our businesses face > today ? One way to do that is by using the same techniques that Microsoft uses to sell their product. If you can play by MS rules and win, you win, hands down. > - Antoine who still doesn't get it that the cleverest of these so-called > IT specialists are blind to the fact that they are using the wrong > measurements to put together their 'solutions.' I'm reminded of this saying: I would not attack the faith of a heathen without being sure I had a better one to put in its place. -Harriet Beecher Stowe Your attack on Total Cost of Ownership has been impressive. I'm interested in hearing what you would do if your customer asked for a detailed and exact cost. later, Darren Darren Boyd | dboyd@its.to Home Page and Public Key | http://www.its.to/~dboyd - ----------------------------|-------------------------------- The moment of victory is much too short to live for that and nothing else. -Martina Navrtilova -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBNEaE6U4FwKvMO64tAQHN+QQAx6/j/vF1mFnZm5dLVxOcaRfk4uXCCIGz 2qzPeSecwKiffwBfZBrgt9581pcj45vGa7r2JJ+FxyfLJee8NurEDVcCUze20uXz 2291g+BLtGX54/555+dcSZdygANj07Ku0un6q0GjH3IHuwi+lWZqUDlX5/5TKx31 DlPs18dUk64= =Kx3S -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From popmail Fri Oct 17 04:01:23 1997 Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 15:57:41 -0700 (PDT) From: Michael Dillon To: Linux-Business Subject: Re: Agenda for this list MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 16 Oct 1997, Darren Boyd wrote: > Should the > Linux community (or any particular organization within) use the "Total > Cost of Ownership" marketing strategy. NC World magazine had an article about the $49.95 network computer a while back. The $49.95 NC was an old desktop machine with Redhat Linux added to it. http://www.ncworldmag.com Michael Dillon voice: +1-415-482-2840 Senior Systems Architect fax: +1-415-482-2844 PRIORI NETWORKS, INC. http://www.priori.net "The People You Know. The People You Trust." From popmail Fri Oct 17 04:01:43 1997 Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 00:10:28 +0100 (MET) From: Leif Erlingsson To: Linux Business Subject: Some subscribers didn't see this post due to my foul-up MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Some subscribers didn't see this post due to the foul-up I mentioned earlier. I have now found out that some POP-3 / IMAP-4 configuration combinations can (did for at least one subscriber) completely loose mails with inappropriate Status-headers! Since I think it's a very important mail, with suggestions for discussion-topics, I'm re-posting it for those of you who missed it the first time around... __________________________________________________________________ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 21:44:56 +0100 (MET) From: Leif Erlingsson To: Linux Business Discussion Group Cc: unix-future@rsv.se Subject: Re: Linux Business Discussion Group Linux Journal have put up some discussion forums, HyperNews discussion groups, with relevance for Linux in the Mainstream: [If you comment on the below suggestions for discussion, please do so BOTH using HyperNews at the indicated URL's and also here on Linux Business Discussion Group !] http://www.linuxjournal.com/discussions.html Linux Certification http://www.linuxjournal.com/HyperNews/get/certification.html In Linux Journal November 1997: "We need a certification program. A way to say that someone is a certified Linux technician Red Hat has started this effort (check out http://www.interweft.com.au/redhat) with what they call The Red Hat Commercial Support System. I talked to Robert Hart about this and he points out that the effort is needed and Red Hat decided to go ahead on their own to get it moving. Hopefully, other vendors or possibly Linux International will turn this idea into an industry-wide effort." Certification: A two edged sword http://www.linuxjournal.com/HyperNews/get/certification/1.html "In the past I have interviewed many people who have proudly displayed their Novell CNE, ENE and some MS certs but have zero 'seat time' in their areas. Many appear to have taught to take the test but lack any applicable knowledge. It gets very frustrating on boths end of the interview when the certification does equate to a real world ability. "BTW, I have known some people with real good skills and certifications but the real key was that they had used the product they were certified in on a regular basis over a period of time. "I would like to see a Linux certification where the person demonstrates 1) an ability to install the software, 2) get X11 up and running, 3) reconfig the kernel, 4) update files via RPM or patch, 5) perform some admin fuctions such as set up a line printer, change IP address, add users, 6) find some core files (droped into place by the examiner) and remove them, 7) read the messages file and explain what is in the file, 8) read a random man page from the 1st or 8th sections, 9) explain the file system, and 10) be given a task such as report all SUID files on a system and printing out the list." Linux for Service Businesses http://www.linuxjournal.com/HyperNews/get/service.html In Linux Journal November 1997: "Service business package. This is the most concrete suggestion and it came from my Chimney Sweep. It is equally applicable to any service business where the service provider travels to the homes of his customers. It could be anything from a window washer to a roofing contractor. The software needs to run on a laptop, probably with a printer in it. The issues to be addressed are customer database, cost estimation, invoicing, inventory and travel route planning. This is not a trivial application but, once all the pieces are integrated, it offers some great potential markets. While each market, Chimney Sweeps, for example, are not huge, the possibilities are enormous. Also, these various industries have newsletters, discussion groups and, in some cases, magazines. Offer an innovative solution in such an industry and word will spread quickly." Linux FAX and Voice Mail http://www.linuxjournal.com/HyperNews/get/faxvoice.html "There are packages for FAXing and voice mail from Linux. Putting together a commercial-quailty solution for a small business would make a great stand-alone application. As the majority of the interface between users and the system would be via the telephone there is little concern for users having to learn to use a new computer. The FAX interface could be handled thru an office e-mail gateway (which Linux could handle) which would again isolate the office worker from the actual Linux command line." Linux in Government Offices http://www.linuxjournal.com/HyperNews/get/government.html In Linux Journal November 1997: "A huge market is government. Governments tend to have limited budgets and want a solution that just addresses their problem. The other advantage is that governments tend to communicate with each other particularly at the city and county level. This means that a good solution would require little marketing beyond a couple of success stories. These government solutions could include meeting room scheduling, general word processing, accounting, Internet connectivity and even web servers. The main difference between this market and the general market is the ease in which you could market a tailor-made solution. It also offers a good chance for local consultants to get involved." __ HyperNews discussion groups seems to be a neat idea, but oh how slow it seems to navigate... due to overloaded router interfaces and many router-hops between them and me no doubt. Email is still unsurpassed -- we work, eat or sleep while the email passes all those overloaded router interfaces, and when it finally arrives at our home 15 minutes later, we read it at our leisure! :-) __________________________________________________________________ Leif Erlingsson Tel +46 8 604-0995 DATA LEGE Fax +46 8 605-2551 Glavagatan 33 URL http://www.lege.com 123 71 Farsta, Sweden Email mailto:leif@lege.com __________________________________________________________________ I remember the past. I am not doomed to buy Microsoft products. From popmail Fri Oct 17 04:01:48 1997 Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 09:26:15 +1000 (EST) From: Robert Hart Subject: Certification versus actual experience To: linux-biz@lege.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII [this message was posted to the Linux Journal discussion group "Linux Certification" - I have posted it here too as requested by Leif] The issue of whether a qualification gained by examination is of any real value has been debated around the educational traps for years. At issue is: "Does the qualification predict some (real) standard of competence in performance of the tasks covered by the examination?". Anyone who has spent time as a technical manager will have their own favourite story about some clueless individual with a Phd, CNE etc etc - but do such stories actually indicate that qualifications based purely on examinations are valueless? The answer to this is actually no - they are not valueless; there is quite a strong correlation between performance in examination and use of the tested skills and knowledge in real life performance of tasks. Certainly including practical tests in the qualification can increase the correlation (and in some cases the inclusion of practical testing is essential - consider surgeons and airline pilots for example). Careful design of the examination can also improve the predictability of an examination. However, it is important to recognise that there is a mix of skills and learning methods that go to produce a fully rounded practicing individual (in our case a Linux 'engineer'). This mix cannot be taught in any sort of course or tested in any sort of examination because depth of experience is one essential component. Depth of experience is frequently demonstrated by intuitive leaps that can dramatically shorten problem solving tasks for example. Most vocational university courses are predicated on the idea that the course will provide a solid theoretical foundation in the subject area and some basic skills. The employer of the new graduate will then invest quite some time in developing the theoretical knowledge and basic skills to a fully rounded professional. Employers who attempt to short cut the interview process by basing their selection on qualifications only are ignoring this aspect of ALL qualifications. In designing the Red Hat Certified Engineer program, Red Hat is interested in producing a learning resource and qualification that is a useful predictor of an individual's skills and knowledge, when allied to adequate experience. If an individual has a qualification but no experience, they may still be a useful employee - but they will definitely require on the job training to do so. -- Robert Hart hartr@interweft.com.au Voice: +61 (0)3 9735 3586 http://www.interweft.com.au/ PGP info at http://www.hart.wattle.id.au/hartr/pgp.html InterWeft, 35 Summit Road, Lilydale, Victoria 3140, Australia Information Technology Consulting From popmail Fri Oct 17 04:03:29 1997 From: "Cary B. O'Brien" Subject: Credit Card Software To: jmd@access.digex.net (James M. Darlack) Date: Thu, 16 Oct 1997 20:35:54 -0400 (EDT) Cc: linux-biz@lege.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > Hi! > > I am trying to get a credit card reader to work with linux. So far, it is > straight forward to read the ASCII chars that are on thecard. However, > what do you seasoned veterans recomend in terms of a company to process > the credit card data??? It will be used for on-line purchases, as well as > some kiosk based purchases. > > Thanks in advance for your expertise and help! > These guys just started posting about their stuff. I have no idea if it is any good (Although with TCL and Perl API's you can probably make it do just about anything. And Tcl 8.0 has better serial io and handles binary data, so that ought to do the trick...). BTW -- where did you get the credit card reader? BTW2 -- let us know how things work out if you can. -- cary cobrien@access.digex.net (From altavista, search usenet for +linux +"credit card") ------------------------------ snip ----------------------------- COMMERCIAL: Credit Card Clearing on UNIX >From sales@hks.net (HKS Sales) Organization HKS, Inc. Date 7 Oct 1997 15:41:12 -0400 Keywords Credit Card Clearing Commercial UNIX software web server Newsgroups comp.os.linux.development.apps Message-ID <61e38o$5le$1@dali.hks.net> HKS announces a commercial software add-on for UNIX webservers, developed on Linux. CCVS allows commercial websites to clear credit cards over a modem. CCVS 2.0 is designed for high-volume and batch credit card processing in a robust UNIX environment. It has a toolkit which includes APIs for C/C++, Tcl, and Perl CGIs, programs and database applications. Current supported platforms include Linux, BSDi, FreeBSD, SunOS, Solaris (2.5+), and AIX. If your system is not listed, call us. For more details, see our webpage at http://www.hks.net or contact: H.K.S., Inc 4618 Henry Street Pittsburgh, PA 15213 (888) 457-7836 mailto:sales@hks.net ---------------------------------- snip ------------------------------ > Jim > > > From popmail Fri Oct 17 13:01:12 1997 Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 09:48:20 +0100 (MET) From: Leif Erlingsson To: Dwight Johnson cc: Linux-Business Subject: Re: Agenda for this list MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII A couple of comments about the list and it's agenda: On Thu, 16 Oct 1997, Dwight Johnson wrote: > [...] Leif, the founder and maintainer, is thinking about > closing the list. I mentioned in a private mail to Dwight that unless there was some responses to my recent post, or any posts at all, I doubted that there was any point keeping the list operational. I wouldn't shut it down without asking for your opinion first, and looking at the recent posts on the list there is no reason to shut it down in the near future. Dwight is right that the list has been lacking a formal agenda. I asked him if he had any suggestions for one, and the post you read from him was the response. __________________________________________________________________ Leif Erlingsson Tel +46 8 604-0995 DATA LEGE Fax +46 8 605-2551 Glavagatan 33 URL http://www.lege.com 123 71 Farsta, Sweden Email mailto:leif@lege.com __________________________________________________________________ I remember the past. I am not doomed to buy Microsoft products. From popmail Fri Oct 17 14:40:40 1997 Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 13:40:58 +0100 (MET) From: Dr Evan Summers To: Linux-Business Subject: Re: Agenda for this list MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII [Dr Evan Summers sent this from an unsubscribed address. I'm injecting it again, this time using an address he is subscribed on as faked From address / Leif Erlingsson, Linux-Biz maintainer.] > After an exciting explosion of posts in the early months, > linux-biz has become a list for only occasional posts and > almost no discussion. I have unsubscribed from just about every list I was on precisely because there is too much discussion on those lists, and there aren't enough hours in the day. I think this list is the source of _vital_ Linux/business information and developments, where new information doesn't surface every day (although I think the frequency of developments will increase dramatically in 1998.) I would be disappointed if this list was closed at this stage. Regards Evan ----------------------------------------------------------------|-----|-- Evan Summers, PhD Eng Tel +27 11 728-5742 Symphony /|\ /|\ Linux systems integration http://sr.co.za Research { } { } Johannesburg, South Africa mailto:evan@sr.co.za (Pty)Ltd {___} {___} From popmail Fri Oct 17 14:50:06 1997 Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 13:42:52 +0100 (MET) From: Dr Evan Summers To: Linux-Business Subject: Re: Total Cost of Ownership MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII [Dr Evan Summers sent this from an unsubscribed address. I'm injecting it again, this time using an address he is subscribed on as faked From address / Leif Erlingsson, Linux-Biz maintainer.] ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 17 Oct 1997 10:45:32 +0200 (SAT) From: Dr Evan Summers To: Darren Boyd Cc: Linux-Business , LPA Forum Subject: Re: Total Cost of Ownership > They are just about convinced, but a competitor of mine comes along > and tells them that "Microsoft says that NT has a lower total cost of > ownership then UNIX". To that, I tell them that NT on a pentium is Probably what they are getting at is that when you factor in the system administrator required, UNIX skills are more expensive than NT skills. That's true in that NT was designed to hide complexities and decisions so as make it as trivial as possible to administer the system. But it depends on the model being used. One person can administer a great many UNIX systems --- hundreds in fact --- whereas NT is not geared for that. But the scenario we are talking about is a small business, with one server. But I maintain that even in this environment, Linux is cheaper to maintain, _if_ you are using the model where a Linux support company installs a Linux file/internet server and maintains it remotely, via modem or leased line, whichever they have on the box for the Internet connection anyway. Again you are looking at a model where one or two system administrators is maintaining 100s of machines, obviously remotely, but where those machines are spead over 100 clients. Microsoft calculate the cost of ownership where you have one NT box serving the LAN, and need one NT administrator, versus one UNIX box _with_ a full-time on-site UNIX administrator. Clearly, for this model the cost of ownership of NT is substantially lower than UNIX. Another thing to look out for is that Microsoft's argument that "NT has lower cost of ownership than UNIX," is costed on the average of UNIX solutions from Sun, HP, IBM, SCO, etcetera, and not Linux per se, which I maintain offers much lower cost of ownership, not so much in terms of hardware or even the license fees (although zero!), but because there are already many companies out there that offer Linux installation and maintenance services at a fraction of what companies providing maintenance services for Sun, HP, etcetera, charge. Regards Evan ----------------------------------------------------------------|-----|-- Evan Summers, PhD Eng Tel +27 11 728-5742 Symphony /|\ /|\ Linux systems integration http://sr.co.za Research { } { } Johannesburg, South Africa mailto:evan@sr.co.za (Pty)Ltd {___} {___} From popmail Mon Oct 20 18:02:46 1997 From: evan@telly.org (Evan Leibovitch) Subject: Re: Agenda for this list To: leif@lege.com Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 11:04:15 -0400 (EDT) Cc: dwj@aaronsrod.com, linux-biz@lege.com Content-Type: text Leif Erlingsson writes: > I mentioned in a private mail to Dwight that unless there was > some responses to my recent post, or any posts at all, I doubted > that there was any point keeping the list operational. For what it's worth, I am so deluged by mailing lists, newsgroups and elsewhere that a low-volume, low-noise group is a rare blessing. Being low-volume these days is nothing to be ashamed of. Maybe it will be heavily used for discussion if someone raises a significant issue or makes an announcement. > Dwight is right that the list has been lacking a formal agenda. Formalities are of limited use. There is a general 'agenda' of discussions of the role of Linux in business. I'm not sure we need anything more specific, or more formal, than that. Some of what is appropriate here is instread being done in vendor specific lists such as Caldera's or Red Hat's. But it may occasionally come here, and perhaps it's worthwhile to tell users of those lists that issues of relevance to all distributions might be better served here than in the distro-cpecific areas. If there is no resource-based reason for shutting it down, please don't. -- Evan Leibovitch, Sound Software Ltd, located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario Supporting PC-based Unix since 1985 / Caldera & SCO authorized / www.telly.org When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem comes to look like a nail From popmail Mon Oct 20 19:59:04 1997 From: Bobnhlinux@aol.com Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 12:17:14 -0400 (EDT) To: linux-biz@lege.com Subject: Re: Agenda for this list In a message dated 97-10-18 01:19:01 EDT, Dr Evan Summers wrote: << I think this list is the source of _vital_ Linux/business information and developments, where new information doesn't surface every day (although I think the frequency of developments will increase dramatically in 1998.) I would be disappointed if this list was closed at this stage. >> I would also be disappointed. I suspect that much discussion moved to the Red Hat discussion lists, BUT, since I don't belong to a company which qualifies for the Red Hat NDA, I can't join them. This list is the only business oriented list I know of. As for an agenda for this list, my main interest is how to convince business (in my case, government, & non-profits) to use Linux. As in the discussion on total cost of ownership, the most important point isn't the cost (which is less), but the fact that Linux is better. Bob Sparks: Linux fan, user, promoter From popmail Mon Oct 20 22:29:59 1997 Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 15:01:11 -0400 From: "Sheldon E. Newhouse" To: linux-biz@lege.com Subject: wabi replacement (Softwindows) As many of you know, Insignia has a product (SoftWindows) which will allow many unix workstations to run Win 95 applications. It is available for most unix platforms, but not for Linux. This, IMHO, severely hampers the widespread placement of Linux in Business, since most office related applications have to be developed separately. There has been significant progress in these areas (with Applixware, StarOffice, etc.), but it would be a large gamble for companies to abandon Windows entirely at this point, or perhaps in the near future. While Linux does many things better, there are still many questions about its future. At present it seems that companies would need to support Linux for certain applications, e.g. webserving, file-serving, etc, and go to Windows based things for many applications. As Windows NT becomes more mature, this causes considerable concern for the future of Linux. If companies such as Insignia could be encouraged to port SoftWindows to Linux, then I think it would be very good for Linux. I would encourage all interested parties to contact Insignia (Oracle wouldn't hurt either) to port their applications to Linux (and to offer to buy them if provided at a reasonable price). -sen From popmail Tue Oct 21 00:01:01 1997 Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 22:25:53 +0100 (MET) From: Leif Erlingsson To: Bobnhlinux@aol.com cc: linux-biz@lege.com, JT Subject: Convince business (in my case, government, & non-profits) to use Linux MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 20 Oct 1997 Bobnhlinux@aol.com wrote: > I suspect that much discussion moved to the > Red Hat discussion lists, BUT, since I don't belong to a company which > qualifies for the Red Hat NDA, I can't join them. This list is the only > business oriented list I know of. There is some interesting HyperNews, see below... > As for an agenda for this list, my main interest is how to convince > business (in my case, government, & non-profits) to use Linux. > As in the discussion on total cost of ownership, the most important > point isn't the cost (which is less), but the fact that Linux is better. > > Bob Sparks: Linux fan, user, promoter On HyperNews, http://www.ssc.com/HyperNews/get/certification/1/2.html, chiodi@hotmail.com wrote that... > As a Linux user who has done all of the below, but not on the job. On > the job, I have experience with microsoft (dos, win 3.1, win 95 and win > nt) oses. I have extensive experience installing, configuring, training, > repairing and maintaining hardware and software for these oses. my Linux > experience is solely on my home network. Certification would make me > legit so to speak. I would love to apply my linux knowledge and skills > in the real world and actually get paid to do it! I would hope that > potential employers would take my Linux experience more seriously with > certification. > > I would like to see a Linux certification where the person demonstrates > 1) an ability to install the software, 2) get X11 up and running, 3) > reconfig the kernel, 4) update files via RPM or patch, 5) perform some > admin fuctions such as set up a line printer, change IP address, add > users, 6) find some core files (droped into place by the examiner) and > remove them, 7) read the messages file and explain what is in the file, > 8) read a random man page from the 1st or 8th sections, 9) explain the > file system, and 10) be given a task such as report all SUID files on a > system and printing out the list. > > 1. Certification versus actual experience by Robert > Hart, 10/16/97 In response to the article "Certification: A two edged sword", also on HyperNews. I'd like to add that it is important to be able to give out a Linux certification based on an individuals abilities knowledge- wise that 1. Doesn't cost a whole lot of money 2. Doesn't depend on what support organisation the individual belongs to -- because these things can change once there is customer interest but that only aims at confirming the individuals skills in the area. Nothing else. If it should turn out that commercial certification programs fail to meet these criteria, we need some weighty organisation to provide these Linux certifications, based on individuals abilities knowledge-wise and nothing else. It is important for small start-ups and not yet started companies. __________________________________________________________________ Leif Erlingsson Tel +46 8 604-0995 DATA LEGE Fax +46 8 605-2551 Glavagatan 33 URL http://www.lege.com 123 71 Farsta, Sweden Email mailto:leif@lege.com __________________________________________________________________ I remember the past. I am not doomed to buy Microsoft products. From popmail Tue Oct 21 00:01:20 1997 Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 15:42:49 -0500 (CDT) From: "Kendall G. Clark" To: "Sheldon E. Newhouse" cc: linux-biz@lege.com Subject: Re: wabi replacement (Softwindows) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sheldon, et. al., You are exactly right in this. Softwindows is a pretty cool product. I e-mailed the Insignia people about 3 months ago requesting that they consider a Linux port; or, at least, specify conditions under which they \would\ consider a Linux port. I sent this message, professionally and calmly composed, to several contact addresses at Insignia. To date, I haven't received a SINGLE answer or even an acknowledgment that my e-mail was received. In my opinion, this is the kind of thing that Linux International ought to be organizing and getting out in front of. That organization is ineffectual except for trade show appearances. The Linux community desperately needs some kind of mechanism to organize these kinds of 'activist' efforts. Best, Kendall Clark, President North Texas Linux Users Group On Mon, 20 Oct 1997, Sheldon E. Newhouse wrote: >As many of you know, Insignia has a product (SoftWindows) which will >allow many unix workstations to run Win 95 applications. It is >available for most unix platforms, but not for Linux. > > >This, IMHO, severely hampers the widespread placement of Linux in >Business, since most office related applications have to be developed >separately. There has been significant progress in these areas (with >Applixware, StarOffice, etc.), but it would be a large gamble for >companies to abandon Windows entirely at this point, or perhaps in the >near future. While Linux does many things better, there are still many >questions about its future. > > At present it seems that companies would need to support Linux for >certain applications, e.g. webserving, file-serving, etc, and go to >Windows based things for many applications. As Windows NT becomes more >mature, this causes considerable concern for the future of Linux. > >If companies such as Insignia could be encouraged to port SoftWindows to >Linux, then I think it would be very good for Linux. I would encourage >all interested parties to contact Insignia (Oracle wouldn't hurt either) >to port their applications to Linux (and to offer to buy them if >provided at a reasonable price). > >-sen > -- Linux is free. Life is good. -- ``This is Linux: we have an infinite number of monkeys.'' --Todd Graham Lewis From popmail Tue Oct 21 04:02:56 1997 Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 17:48:43 -0400 (EDT) From: Michael Stutz To: linux-biz@lege.com Subject: Re: wabi replacement (Softwindows) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > As many of you know, Insignia has a product (SoftWindows) which will > allow many unix workstations to run Win 95 applications. It is > available for most unix platforms, but not for Linux. The question I have is to what capacity do people want Linux supported in business -- just the Linux kernel, or the entire spectrum of free software that comes with and runs under Linux. I would like to see more efforts in making free software available that could be used in business (say, a credit card reader interface, a database app for small businesses like video stores, a free alternative to softwindows, etc) rather than more commercial, non-free applications being ported to the Linux platform. While no doubt a daunting task, is it reasonable to think that many kinds of businesses can (now or in the near future) run only free software? email stutz@dsl.org Copyright (c) 1997 Michael Stutz; this information is free and may be reproduced under GNU GPL, and as long as this sentence remains; it comes with absolutely NO WARRANTY; for details see . From popmail Tue Oct 21 04:04:28 1997 From: evan@telly.org (Evan Leibovitch) Subject: Re: wabi replacement (Softwindows) To: stutz@dsl.org (Michael Stutz) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 19:15:41 -0400 (EDT) Cc: linux-biz@lege.com Content-Type: text Michael Stutz writes: > > As many of you know, Insignia has a product (SoftWindows) which will > > allow many unix workstations to run Win 95 applications. It is > > available for most unix platforms, but not for Linux. I personally believe that Windows-emulation products are of very limited value in the Linux world. The greatest advantage of SoftWindows is that it allows Windows apps to run on non-Intel boxes such as SPARCs and PA-RISC. If someone has Intel hardware and wants to run Windows software (that isn't available for Unix/Linux), I can't see many business users willing to settle for emulation -- most will just load the Windows. Wabi serves a very specific purpose -- to answer those organizations who simply won't consider a system that won't/can't run certain apps such as MS-Word. Wabi allows Linux to satisfy that requirement, but I don't think the numbers of people who actually use Windows apps on Linux systems (or even those who want to) is staggeringly high. I usually find that the following 3-part rule is true 99.99% of the time: 1) The need determines the choice of applications; 2) The application determines the choice of operating systems; 3) The operating system determines the choice of hardware. Going in the opposite direction of this order (for instance, buying the hardware before choosing the OS) usually leads to headaches. But it also means that people buy the OS to suit the application, not vice versa. Linux is very strong in Internet apps, but weak in other areas. Emulation is a poor band-aid answer -- just because Linux can run the SCO version of Oracle binaries doesn't mean anyone's going to move their business-critical Oracle DB onto a Linux box. That just isn't the reality of business computing. > The question I have is to what capacity do people want Linux supported in > business -- just the Linux kernel, or the entire spectrum of free software > that comes with and runs under Linux. I'm not sure I understand your question. Linux needs good business apps. It not only needs accounting, it needs a dozen accounting packages so that users have a choice of approaches and points on range of the range of ease-of-use/flexibility tradeoffs. One of the BIG philosophical differences between commercial software and free software is that the former is created to satisfy the wishes of the end-user, the latter to satisfy the wishes of the programmer. What programmers want, we get lots of excellent freeware. What end-users want but developers don't, we see very little. That's why we have almost a dozen very-high-quality window managers and text editors and widget sets for Linux, but not a single freeware POS app. And from a business viewpoint Linux needs a Quicken clone or a Notes client far more than it needs AfterStep. It's going to be a reality that commercial software is needed in this world, to give programmers an incentive to write things they would not use themselves. With the notable exception of PostgreSQL, there is very little freeware that one could call true business/productivity apps. (and even Postgres is a general purpose engine that needs business-specific apps writen for it, and there are very few of those). > I would like to see more efforts in > making free software available that could be used in business (say, a credit > card reader interface, This is likely a no-go, because the cheapest way to do this is with a keyboard wedge that makes the magnetic stripe look like keyboard input. The "interface" is just a way to parse the barcode data, and lots of freeware tools (such as perl) could do that. > a database app for small businesses like video stores, Won't happen. See above. Freeware will never replace commercial in these areas, but the use of Linux and freeware foundations will certainly reduce the overall costs of such projects. Of course, the unlikely *could* happen, if a programmer is part of a family that owns a video store for example, but this is the exception rather than the rule. > is it reasonable to think that many kinds of businesses can > (now or in the near future) run only free software? No. Except for ISPs, or systems used primarily for Internet services or software development (which is still a darn big niche), there won't be many uses for Linux systems which can avoid commercial apps. The amount of customization and hand-holding needed at the end-user level makes the freeware-only scenario almost impossible in most "conventional" business computing situations. Unless you can find a manner besides monetary incentive to get programmers to write applications they would never use themselves, this isn't likely to change anytime soon. Fortunately, with the recent support of two very popular (if unsexy) database engines for Linux (BBx and Pick), there are now thousands of business apps available for Linux using one of those DB systems. For a price. -- Evan Leibovitch, Sound Software Ltd, located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario Supporting PC-based Unix since 1985 / Caldera & SCO authorized / www.telly.org When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem comes to look like a nail From popmail Tue Oct 21 04:05:45 1997 Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 17:30:10 -0700 (PDT) From: Michael Dillon To: linux-biz@lege.com Subject: Re: wabi replacement (Softwindows) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 20 Oct 1997, Evan Leibovitch wrote: > don't think the numbers of people who actually use Windows apps on Linux > systems (or even those who want to) is staggeringly high. Using native apps like Aplixware has its advantages. For instance, the Save dialog boxes include checkboxes for file permissions. > Emulation is a poor band-aid answer -- just because Linux can run > the SCO version of Oracle binaries doesn't mean anyone's going to > move their business-critical Oracle DB onto a Linux box. That just > isn't the reality of business computing. In my current position I recommended we buy a SPARC SOlaris box to run the Progress database even though I know that many people are running Progress SCO binaries on Linux. This database is absolutely critical to the business and we can't risk it on unsupported systems. > for Linux, but not a single freeware POS app. And from a business > viewpoint Linux needs a Quicken clone or a Notes client far more than > it needs AfterStep. Agreed. And a commercial software developper could do well by selling such an app with a copy of linux bundled for free. > Fortunately, with the recent support of two very popular (if unsexy) > database engines for Linux (BBx and Pick), there are now thousands > of business apps available for Linux using one of those DB systems. > For a price. SOLID looks pretty good too. I almost used it instead of Progress but the decision ended up hinging on the time to build our applications and I have 10 years of Progress experience so that was the faster choice. Michael Dillon voice: +1-415-482-2840 Senior Systems Architect fax: +1-415-482-2844 PRIORI NETWORKS, INC. http://www.priori.net "The People You Know. The People You Trust." From popmail Tue Oct 21 06:00:49 1997 From: evan@telly.org (Evan Leibovitch) Subject: Re: wabi replacement (Softwindows) To: michael@memra.com (Michael Dillon) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 21:43:18 -0400 (EDT) Cc: linux-biz@lege.com Content-Type: text Michael Dillon writes: > In my current position I recommended we buy a SPARC SOlaris box to run the > Progress database even though I know that many people are running Progress > SCO binaries on Linux. This database is absolutely critical to the > business and we can't risk it on unsupported systems. Indeed. We have a number of installations where the database runs on a UnixWare/AIX/HPUX system, but all Internet-related services run on an adjacent Linux system. They complement each other nicely. Linux isn't going to be supported by the big DB vendors for a couple of reasons (according to them): 1) DB vendors are trying to *reduce*, not expand, the number of environments they must support. 1a) Usually when an OS vendor wants a big database vendor to support the new platform, they'll pay the DB vendor big bucks to to it. Big bucks that most Linux folk don't have. Could this be a project for Linux International? 2) It has yet to be proven that users who get their OS for free (or really cheap) are willing to shell out the six-figure prices regularly charged by most DB vendors. Even ADABAS, at $3,500 for unlimited users, has attracted complaints for its price. > > Fortunately, with the recent support of two very popular (if unsexy) > > database engines for Linux (BBx and Pick), there are now thousands > > of business apps available for Linux using one of those DB systems. > > SOLID looks pretty good too. I almost used it instead of Progress but the > decision ended up hinging on the time to build our applications and I have > 10 years of Progress experience so that was the faster choice. Linux has no shortage of quality DB development tools and database engines (Solid, ADABAS, Empress, msql, Faircom, Postgres and more). it's just short of vertical apps written for/by these tools. My company has been working with Progress ten years, but their constant boosts in pricing and stupid user/machine licensing has pushed me to the edge. Add this to the company's unwillingness to make a version for Linux, and I some months ago we started looking for an alternative. It'll most likely be Postgres and its good variety of well-integrated tools (RAD, ODBC, JDBC, tcl, perl, etc.) Anyone interested in co-operating on a freeware accounting package based on Postgres? Hell, even a commercial one? -- Evan Leibovitch, Sound Software Ltd, located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario Supporting PC-based Unix since 1985 / Caldera & SCO authorized / www.telly.org When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem comes to look like a nail From popmail Tue Oct 21 06:01:49 1997 Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 22:15:08 -0400 From: Thomas Griffing MIME-Version: 1.0 To: linux-biz@lege.com Subject: Re: wabi replacement (Softwindows) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sheldon E. Newhouse wrote: > As many of you know, Insignia has a product (SoftWindows) which will > allow many unix workstations to run Win 95 applications. It is > available for most unix platforms, but not for Linux. > > This, IMHO, severely hampers the widespread placement of Linux in > Business, since most office related applications have to be developed > separately. There has been significant progress in these areas (with > Applixware, StarOffice, etc.), but it would be a large gamble for > companies to abandon Windows entirely at this point, or perhaps in the > near future. While Linux does many things better, there are still many > questions about its future. I think you're partially right ... running Windows applications onLinux would be nice. But it's not a "make or break" issue. Linux performs many server functions very well at no additional cost. The ability to run Windows applications is only important for end-user workstations or for servers for Network Computers. If you're heard, Micro$oft has recently announced a new NT server extention called "Hydra" that serves up Windows applications for Windows Terminals. I don't know how compatible the Windows Terminal specification is with that of the Network Computer, but if I know Micro$oft, it isn't (anybody know for sure?). That would introduce a problem, though ... How will Micro$oft address all those Network Computers being sold? But it will be a while before that becomes significant. Meanwhile, it's SMB file and printer service, web service and network routing. This is a BIG part of what servers do these days. And it does it quite well, I might add. ( Have YOU visited the Samba web site lately? http://samba.anu.edu.au/pub/samba/ ) Another thing that is getting more and more important is tape management software, providing backup/restore and archival service for PC's and servers. There's some good software for this called Amanda that I plan to evaluate soon. One big missing item is a GUI interface to all of this wonderful software. Most of the references I see to Unix/Linux say that it is "hard" to use compared to Windows. Red Hat is making great strides in this with their control-panel and all of its utilities, but there's still a lot of room for more. Consistancy always makes a GUI easier to understand when switching from one app to another. > At present it seems that companies would need to support Linux for > certain applications, e.g. webserving, file-serving, etc, and go to > Windows based things for many applications. As Windows NT becomes more > mature, this causes considerable concern for the future of Linux. That's IF they are able to maintain their dominance in Windowsbinary applications. They're doing everything they can to alter the course of Java, but they're losing ground. Pure Java applications have no need for NT. It is just one of many operating systems that can serve up Java applications. > If companies such as Insignia could be encouraged to port SoftWindows to > Linux, then I think it would be very good for Linux. I would encourage > all interested parties to contact Insignia (Oracle wouldn't hurt either) > to port their applications to Linux (and to offer to buy them if > provided at a reasonable price). Now, Oracle is a biggie that I would really like to see embrace Linux. In fact, I was on the phone just a few hours ago with Oracle support. I asked if they had any plans for Linux, and the lady I was talking with hadn't heard of Linux. At least she knows now. :^) +----------------------+----------------+--------------------------+ | Thomas L. Griffing | |~~\ /~~\ ~|~ | Dallas Softworks, Inc. | | Life is good. | | | `--. | | "making technology work" | | Linux is free. :^) | |__/ \__/ _|_ | http://www.dsworks.com | From popmail Tue Oct 21 06:02:14 1997 Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 23:22:32 -0400 From: Thomas Griffing MIME-Version: 1.0 To: linux-biz@lege.com Subject: Re: wabi replacement (Softwindows) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Anyone interested in co-operating on a freeware accounting package based > on Postgres? Hell, even a commercial one? I'd rather get behind a bigger picture (from one of Evan's previous posts):> The 86open project> ------------------ > > A group which includes some of the key developers of Unix operating > systems on Intel architecture computers have agreed to work on a > common programming and binary interface. > > At a meeting held mid-August at the head office of SCO, participants > achieved consensus on a way to create software applications which would > run, without modification or emulation, on the Intel-based versions of: > > - BSDI > - FreeBSD > - Linux > - NetBSD > - SCO OpenServer > - Sunsoft Solaris > - SCO UnixWare Rather than ask one vendor to port to one platform, I would rather see all Unix-Intel software vendors port to all Unix- Intel platforms. +----------------------+----------------+--------------------------+ | Thomas L. Griffing | |~~\ /~~\ ~|~ | Dallas Softworks, Inc. | | Life is good. | | | `--. | | "making technology work" | | Linux is free. :^) | |__/ \__/ _|_ | http://www.dsworks.com | From popmail Tue Oct 21 13:03:14 1997 Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 12:13:34 +0200 (SAT) From: Dr Evan Summers To: linux-biz@lege.com Subject: opera MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Colleagues, Opera software have initiated an interesting approach, for evaluating (commercial) interest in porting their browser to Linux et al, and at the same time funding the port. http://www.operasoftware.com/alt_os.html The deal is they are asking people to "order" copies of Opera for Linux for instance, in advance, where that revenue goes into a trust for the port. By the way, people using Opera (under Windows) seem to love it, and use it as their default browser rather than Netscape or IE. Regards Evan ----------------------------------------------------------------|-----|-- Evan Summers, PhD Eng Tel +27 11 728-5742 Symphony /|\ /|\ Linux systems integration http://sr.co.za Research { } { } Johannesburg, South Africa mailto:evan@sr.co.za (Pty)Ltd {___} {___} From popmail Tue Oct 21 14:00:47 1997 Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 12:35:15 +0200 (SAT) From: Dr Evan Summers To: linux@operasoftware.com cc: linux-biz@lege.com, LPA Forum Subject: Opera for Linux MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hello, I'll order 2 copies for Opera for Linux @ $50 each. I encourage everyone who wants to see software vendors port high-quality commercial software to Linux and support Linux versions of their products, to support your endeavour to port the Opera browser to Linux as described on http://www.operasoftware.com/alt_os.html. Regards Evan ----------------------------------------------------------------|-----|-- Evan Summers, PhD Eng Tel +27 11 728-5742 Symphony /|\ /|\ Linux systems integration http://sr.co.za Research { } { } Johannesburg, South Africa mailto:evan@sr.co.za (Pty)Ltd {___} {___} From popmail Tue Oct 21 18:02:11 1997 Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 09:15:45 -0400 From: "Sheldon E. Newhouse" To: Dr Evan Summers Subject: opera CC: linux-biz@lege.com Unfortunately, I don't think this will work. Just as the 'Opera' people set their Windows version as shareware, they will have to provide a free version of their program for Linux first. If people like it, they will buy it and support its development. -sen Evan Summers writes: > Dear Colleagues, > > Opera software have initiated an interesting approach, for evaluating > (commercial) interest in porting their browser to Linux et al, and > at the same time funding the port. > > http://www.operasoftware.com/alt_os.html > > The deal is they are asking people to "order" copies of Opera for Linux > for instance, in advance, where that revenue goes into a trust for the > port. > > By the way, people using Opera (under Windows) seem to love it, > and use it as their default browser rather than Netscape or IE. > > > Regards > > Evan > > ----------------------------------------------------------------|-----|-- > Evan Summers, PhD Eng Tel +27 11 728-5742 Symphony /|\ /|\ > Linux systems integration http://sr.co.za Research { } { } > Johannesburg, South Africa mailto:evan@sr.co.za (Pty)Ltd {___} {___} > > From popmail Tue Oct 21 21:01:48 1997 Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 09:48:11 -0700 (PDT) From: Dwight Johnson To: Linux-Business Subject: Re: opera MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Dr Evan Summers wrote: > By the way, people using Opera (under Windows) seem to love it, > and use it as their default browser rather than Netscape or IE. I used Opera on Win95 and Win3.1. It is small, quick and capable. Red Baron (<--Spyglass<--Mosaic) from Red Hat fits this bill for Linux. I really like Grail (Python), but until Python has a compiler, I don't think it can deliver snappy performance. Arena--I have not checked in the last six months, but last I looked it was not a browser I would want to use. Netscape is suffering from feature bloat. dwj From popmail Wed Oct 22 04:04:26 1997 From: LinuxBoy@aol.com Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 21:20:10 -0400 (EDT) To: linux-biz@lege.com Subject: Re: opera In a message dated 97-10-21 10:55:06 EDT, sen1@math.msu.edu writes: << Unfortunately, I don't think this will work. Just as the 'Opera' people set their Windows version as shareware, they will have to provide a free version of their program for Linux first. If people like it, they will buy it and support its development. >> I think it will work. I personally have pledged myself to at least 1 copy. If they get a Linux version anywhere as near as good as the Windows version, it is sure to be a hit. From popmail Wed Oct 22 06:01:45 1997 From: evan@telly.org (Evan Leibovitch) Subject: Re: opera To: dwj@aaronsrod.com Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 23:01:08 -0400 (EDT) Cc: linux-biz@lege.com Content-Type: text > > By the way, people using Opera (under Windows) seem to love it, > > and use it as their default browser rather than Netscape or IE. May be, but putting down money (not just a deposit, but the whole amount!) before you have product in hand is IMO dumb. If people want to do it, go ahead, but it's not going to give the company an indication of the market. And it's an awful move for the would-be purchaser. I don't get it -- everywhere else in the software industry, software developers introduce products, not knowing whether the marketplace will take to them or not. Why is such risk acceptable in the Windows, Mac, AIX, AS/400 and Sony Playstation worlds but not in Linux? When was the last time you paid for *anything* in full, in return for just a promise -- maybe -- that you'll get what you paid for? Who keeps the interest on that money between the time you give it and the time the product is delivered? Do they pay a penalty if they take your money and decide a year from now, not to do a port anyway? What if the company goes out of business sometime before a Linux version is produced? Is your "trust" protected from secured creditors? Fat chance. Sorry, but as good as Opera might be, this scheme has me reaching for ten-foot poles. > Netscape is suffering from feature bloat. What's wrong with the relatively lean 2.X and 3.X Navigators shipping with Caldera products now? Oh, and don't forget Lynx... -- Evan Leibovitch, Sound Software Ltd, located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario Supporting PC-based Unix since 1985 / Caldera & SCO authorized / www.telly.org When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem comes to look like a nail From popmail Wed Oct 22 07:00:49 1997 From: LinuxBoy@aol.com Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 19:26:16 -0400 (EDT) To: linux-biz@lege.com Subject: Re: opera In a message dated 97-10-21 14:19:51 EDT, dwj@aaronsrod.com writes: << Red Baron (<--Spyglass<--Mosaic) from Red Hat fits this bill for Linux. >> Well, Red Baron isn't bad.. but its RED HAT.. one vendor.. I run Debian.. and prefer not to deal with Red Hat's stuff... I still think we should have more than 1 GOOD choice of software to run in a particular application. This is what corners us into 1 vendor. Take WINDOWS for example.. it started out as the only thing to use, now we are stuck with it. From popmail Wed Oct 22 07:52:31 1997 Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 21:57:26 -0700 (PDT) From: Michael Dillon To: linux-biz@lege.com cc: pegleg-list@ssc.com, lust@li.org Subject: Re: Maybe I should sit down and shut up? Nah! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Thomas Good wrote: > >> Emulation is a poor band-aid answer -- just because Linux can run > >> the SCO version of Oracle binaries doesn't mean anyone's going to > >> move their business-critical Oracle DB onto a Linux box. That just > >> isn't the reality of business computing. > > >In my current position I recommended we buy a SPARC SOlaris box to run the > >Progress database even though I know that many people are running Progress > >SCO binaries on Linux. This database is absolutely critical to the > >business and we can't risk it on unsupported systems. > > Hello, I'm a Johnny-Come-Lately to your dialog - a friend mailed it to me > knowing I couldn't butt out of this one... > > The dissemination of incorrect information (albeit unintentional) provokes > a knee-jerk reaction from those of us who run under emulation - quite > successfully I might add. I guess we're hyper-sensitive types! > > >This database is absolutely critical to the > >business and we can't risk it on unsupported systems. > > Hmm...I've heard that one before...I suggest, Sir, you file it under > `famous last words'. No offense intended but I run mission critical apps > written in Progress 4GL under emulation (7.3C16 on both 2.0.27/ibcs2-960610 > and 2.0.30/ibcs2-970513). But the fact is that our database is absolutely critical to our business and we cannot risk it on unsupported systems. > The fact is, they run better under emulation. Less bugs, more speed. I find less bugs real hard to believe. As for speed we just buy a system with the performance specs that we need. The Sparc 5 that we have now meets our needs just fine. > Imagine running your apps faster under emulation, being able to deliver > your mail, upgrade your system for free, use modern day peripherals > (for example, did you know that your progress binaries will fit on one > zip disk? Why on earth would I care about this!?!?!?!? I have 6 gigs or more on the database server and I don't need a zip drive. > onto a tape drive...) and get support for free? Have you tried to get > coherent support from SCO? (Any port in a storm, I suppose, but SCO is > more like Sterno than Port...) Yes I have run SCO servers in the past and have been able to get reasonable support from them. But the SPARC is supported by someone else and so far it hasn't needed any support at all. > 1.) The OS is smarter, faster, leaner, easier to install & configure > and has far less downtime. The apps run better. Marketing fluff. I have 20 years of UNIX experience. I run Linux systems and I know what they are good at and what they are mediocre at. Spare me the FUD. > 4.) If you upgrade hardware, you don't have to pay (or wait) for software > support. With Linux, wait a week. Someone will write a driver. I've been waiting three years for a Mylex DAC960 driver. It just ain't so. > you can pay them to fix it. Or use Linux to compile a coherent .cf > This is necessary because SCO did not include the m4 header files. I wrote my own .cf files for SCO using the sendmail book. Of course I wanted to do stuff that the m4 header files can't do... Michael Dillon voice: +1-415-482-2840 Senior Systems Architect fax: +1-415-482-2844 PRIORI NETWORKS, INC. http://www.priori.net "The People You Know. The People You Trust." From popmail Wed Oct 22 07:52:35 1997 Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 20:18:31 -0700 (PDT) From: Dwight Johnson To: Linux-Business Subject: Re: opera MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Evan Leibovitch wrote: > What's wrong with the relatively lean 2.X and 3.X Navigators shipping > with Caldera products now? Actually, nothing IMHO. But I hope you haven't tried to download one from Netscape lately. If you had you would find that Netscape considers them obsolete. dwj From popmail Wed Oct 22 08:36:43 1997 Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 08:01:28 +0100 (MET) From: Ariel Mazzarelli To: linux-biz@lege.com Subject: a million bucks a day, is that a big fine? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII [Mon, 20 Oct 1997 15:36:41 -0700] Janet Reno just announced that the Department of Justice will fine microsoft $1 million/day until they stop being such jerks. Or words to that effect. I almost fell off my chair when I heard about this. I thought Billy #1 had paid the bills to put Billy #2 in his pocket... Ariel From popmail Wed Oct 22 14:01:01 1997 Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 12:31:17 +0200 (SAT) From: Dr Evan Summers To: Evan Leibovitch cc: dwj@aaronsrod.com, linux-biz@lege.com Subject: Re: opera MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > I don't get it -- everywhere else in the software industry, software > developers introduce products, not knowing whether the marketplace > will take to them or not. Why is such risk acceptable in the Windows, > Mac, AIX, AS/400 and Sony Playstation worlds but not in Linux? Free software in general and Linux in particular, is a major paradigm shift, and I don't know what the best approach is to encourage vendors (ultimately the likes of Oracle and Informix) to port to Linux and more importantly support their products under Linux. We all tell vendors that if they port, we're sure they'll find a market out there ready and willing to buy their products. Yes, probably they should believe us and go for it. But no one really understands the Linux market yet, so everyone's a bit nervous of investing time and effort in a port. What they're thinking is, "These guys have a free-software fixation, and will never pay for software of any sort." I think the Opera approach (which I can see is initiated by someone at Opera who more than anything wants to convince his colleagues that they should port to Linux) is novel, although yes, paying in advance of a port is also novel! Regards ----------------------------------------------------------------|-----|-- Evan Summers, PhD Eng Tel +27 11 728-5742 Symphony /|\ /|\ Linux systems integration http://sr.co.za Research { } { } Johannesburg, South Africa mailto:evan@sr.co.za (Pty)Ltd {___} {___} From popmail Wed Oct 22 19:00:49 1997 From: evan@telly.org (Evan Leibovitch) Subject: Re: opera To: evan@sr.co.za (Dr Evan Summers) Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 11:00:03 -0400 (EDT) Cc: evan@telly.org, dwj@aaronsrod.com, linux-biz@lege.com Content-Type: text Dr Evan Summers writes: > > I don't get it -- everywhere else in the software industry, software > > developers introduce products, not knowing whether the marketplace > > will take to them or not. Why is such risk acceptable in the Windows, > > Mac, AIX, AS/400 and Sony Playstation worlds but not in Linux? > Free software in general and Linux in particular, is a major paradigm > shift But it's not total. Experience with the freeware world indicates that certain kinds of software will be in high supply and others are scarce. We a have dozens of widget sets and text editors, but no accounting packages or GUI spreadsheets. The reality of freeware development is, as I have said, that it produces fine software, as long as it's what programmers want to use. We just don't see much freeware in categories that developers wouldn't use themselves -- the profit incentive is *required* to bring the public these other kinds of programs. Phenominally successful software such as sales-lead tracking and business charting will likely never be suitably addressed by freeware. Therefore, for any future I can foresee, the best approach will involve a hybrid of free and commercial components. The evolution of freeware has indeed caused a major change in the software world, but don't expect the need for commercial add-ons to go away anytime soon. This is why I like the approached of Red Hat and especially Candera. (While one could argue that I like Caldera's approach because I sell their products, it's actually the other way around -- I chose to work with Caldera, having looked at other distributors, because I preferred its approach to Linux.) > I don't know what the best approach is to encourage vendors > (ultimately the likes of Oracle and Informix) to port to Linux and more > importantly support their products under Linux. The 86open project is trying to create an environment by which Oracle (let's say) can produce a single binary distribution that will run (and can be supported) identically on all Intel-Unix platforms from Linux to SCO to BSD to Solaris. This approach would allow Oracle to sell to the Linux market without having to produce a separate Linux package. Likewise, it would allow companies such as StarDivision to sell a single package to both Linux and SCO markets, rather than having to concentrate on one port at a time (right now they have nothing for SCO, a market which is smaller than Linux's but *is* willing to pay for good software). I've already spoken to people at Progress who say they have no objection to Linux, but they absolutely refuse to create and support any more binary distributions than they now do. Companies like this would *love* the extra installed base of a binary that could run identically (without emulation) on all Intel-Unix systems, and that is just what 86open is trying to do. > We all tell vendors that if they port, we're sure they'll find a market > out there ready and willing to buy their products. > > Yes, probably they should believe us and go for it. Note the (rather respectable) list of those who have done so already: Applix Appgen Basis Corel Metacard Netscape Novell OpenLink Pick Systems Raima Software AG StarDivision > But no one really > understands the Linux market yet, so everyone's a bit nervous of investing > time and effort in a port. The biggest problem is actually counting the Linux installed base. With users being able to download the whole OS, or buy multiple CDROM versions 'cause they're so cheap, researchers can't count 'sales' or 'licenses' like they can with conventional vendors. When/if a proper survey of the actual size of this user base ever gets done, many ISVs will take notice. The Red Hat presentation on this subject given at this years' Linux Expo is already out of date. > What they're thinking is, "These guys have a free-software fixation, > and will never pay for software of any sort." Tell that to Caldera. > I think the Opera approach (which I can see is initiated by someone at > Opera who more than anything wants to convince his colleagues that they > should port to Linux) is novel, although yes, paying in advance of a port > is also novel! No it's not. When Motorola came out with its 88000 processor and companies like Data General wanted to use it in Unix servers, they needed the backing of some major software vendors. They paid the big DBMS vendors big $$$$ to port to the 88K, money that all the Linux distributors together probably couldn't scrape together. This practise, of new platform developers paying the big database makers to do ports, is not unusual. It's also very expensive. Linux users need not (and should not) pay such ransom to any ISV. We have the installed base. If we get success from 86open and a reasonable survey of the size of the LInux base, we will have what we need to entice ISVs without the need for up-front ransoms. -- Evan Leibovitch, Sound Software Ltd, located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario Supporting PC-based Unix since 1985 / Caldera & SCO authorized / www.telly.org When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem comes to look like a nail From popmail Wed Oct 22 22:01:01 1997 Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 09:19:52 -0700 (PDT) From: Michael Dillon To: linux-biz@lege.com Subject: Re: a million bucks a day, is that a big fine? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 22 Oct 1997, Ariel Mazzarelli wrote: > I almost fell off my chair when I heard about this. I thought > Billy #1 had paid the bills to put Billy #2 in his pocket... Maybe Billy #3 has something to do with this.... seen on a Silicon Valley bumper sticker: And icon of a hand with the forefinger pointing upward and the slogan "Where do you want to go tomorrow?". Underneath it says Billy Graham's Silicon Valley Crusade, San Jose arena, Oct 11,1997 cute, eh? Michael Dillon voice: +1-415-482-2840 Senior Systems Architect fax: +1-415-482-2844 PRIORI NETWORKS, INC. http://www.priori.net "The People You Know. The People You Trust." From popmail Wed Oct 22 22:02:44 1997 Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 10:43:27 -0700 (PDT) From: Michael Dillon To: linux-biz@lege.com cc: pegleg-list@ssc.com, lust@li.org Subject: Re: Maybe I should sit down and shut up? Nah! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 22 Oct 1997, Agus Budy Wuysang wrote: > > > written in Progress 4GL under emulation (7.3C16 on both 2.0.27/ibcs2-960610 > > > and 2.0.30/ibcs2-970513). > > > > But the fact is that our database is absolutely critical to our business > > and we cannot risk it on unsupported systems. > > Two questions Sir, if say your "commercially supported" system crash and > corrupt > your database, do you really expect the commercial company folks will: > > 1. automagically recover your database within the given time & money > constraint? You don't know about Progress, do you? When the system rarely damages the database unless there is a hardware problem. And with the after-image logs backed up across the network every 15 minutes, nightly tape backups and the roll-forward recovery abilities of Progress, it is very straightforward to recover with no data loss even if the main database is lost in the crash. But if there is a bug in Progress and/or Solaris that makes it difficult to run Progress on Solaris, the two companies will fix it before most of us know it even exists. That's what a supported O/S means. > These are my thoughts before I decided to run Progress 7.3C08 under > Linux > SCO emulation for 2 of my company's central database servers. Yes this > is > the critical database servers for US$3 billion (est. asset) company. So far all you guys who claim to be running critial database functions on Linux are NOT doing so. So far I hear that you and another fellow are running some of your Progress servers on Linux. You have SCO servers there too. But in my company we have *ONE* database server and it is missioncritical to the company's business. We can't afford the time to play with testing SCO binaries on a Linux server and we can't afford the risk. We don't want half a dozen flavors of UNIX here so we picked two. SPARC/Solaris is the commercial one and we use it for mission critical stuff. Linux is the non-commercial one and we use it for less important jobs especially where Linux is strong like our mail server, etc. But the commercial database, Progress, runs on the commercial OS, Solaris, because that is supported and therefore is least risky for the company and for the decision maker's career. > > > The fact is, they run better under emulation. Less bugs, more speed. > > > > I find less bugs real hard to believe. As for speed we just buy a system > > with the performance specs that we need. The Sparc 5 that we have now > > meets our needs just fine. > > You would never know if you haven't tried. I've run Progress under Solaris and SCO. Bugs are rare. I don't see how running a SCO binary on Linux could reduce the number of bugs in the SCO binary. I happen to be a skilled systems analyst and applications developper with 20 years experence so I know how software, systems and hardware are built and how the components work. The claim that moving a binary to a different OS will reduce bugs sounds like black magic to me. > > > 4.) If you upgrade hardware, you don't have to pay (or wait) for software > > > support. With Linux, wait a week. Someone will write a driver. > > > > I've been waiting three years for a Mylex DAC960 driver. It just ain't so. > > That's too bad, some companies will only release programming info under > non-disclosure agreement, but that should not be the case for Mylex > since they had helped Linux Buslogic developers, or is this only true > before they merged with Buslogic ??? Then you agree with me. Commercial OSes often have more and better support for device drivers than Linux. Michael Dillon voice: +1-415-482-2840 Senior Systems Architect fax: +1-415-482-2844 PRIORI NETWORKS, INC. http://www.priori.net "The People You Know. The People You Trust." From popmail Thu Oct 23 00:01:21 1997 Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 15:46:48 -0400 (EDT) From: "Juan A. Pons" To: linux-biz@lege.com Subject: Linux and Netscape Poll page MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hello, I am trying to rally support from Netscape for porting their server products to the linux platform. I have had a few conversations with Eric Hahn, their newly appointed CTO, on this subjet and he is supportive. I have set up a page that talks about this and has a section to guage reponse from the linux community via a poll page. I ask your assitance in this endeavor buy taking the poll at the website: http://www.webjack.com/linux/ Thank you, - -J - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Juan A. Pons WebJack.com jpons@webjack.com http://www.webjack.com Internet Services and consulting. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBNE5YKtqaX6JUisQRAQEyogP/Z/BFZRsxJcO5aVHOO6eZvEqkcBS1H+2c SpWdspIE8Z1K1QHnkuOb4JcD55kenLp2W+OjRGZtOPIIMKllvHx6Goaqy+JzTOG8 EW3aBKygYVj+h/hVegjHXaynbK8Wn8TZuuPJW02hf1BPHezhX2Eisv6lqcku46Gh hSmrI2G8YEA= =pG/L -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From popmail Thu Oct 23 00:02:15 1997 Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 16:48:42 -0400 (EDT) From: Evan Leibovitch To: "Juan A. Pons" cc: linux-biz@lege.com Subject: Re: Linux and Netscape Poll page MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 22 Oct 1997, Juan A. Pons wrote: > I am trying to rally support from Netscape for porting their server > products to the linux platform. You mean like FastTrack? Too late, it's already done. Is there a significant market for Netscape's Commerce and Proxy servers? I wonder... - Evan From popmail Thu Oct 23 00:03:05 1997 Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 14:34:16 -0600 From: Evelyn Mitchell To: "Juan A. Pons" Cc: linux-biz@lege.com Subject: Re: Linux and Netscape Poll page Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii With Apache and Stronghold such good choices, why would you want to get a Netscape server? Regards, Evelyn Mitchell efm@tummy.com On Wed, Oct 22, 1997 at 03:46:48PM -0400, Juan A. Pons wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > > Hello, > > I am trying to rally support from Netscape for porting their server > products to the linux platform. I have had a few conversations with Eric > Hahn, their newly appointed CTO, on this subjet and he is supportive. I > have set up a page that talks about this and has a section to guage > reponse from the linux community via a poll page. > > I ask your assitance in this endeavor buy taking the poll at the > website: > > http://www.webjack.com/linux/ > > Thank you, > > - -J > > - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > Juan A. Pons WebJack.com > jpons@webjack.com http://www.webjack.com > Internet Services and consulting. > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: 2.6.3a > Charset: noconv > > iQCVAwUBNE5YKtqaX6JUisQRAQEyogP/Z/BFZRsxJcO5aVHOO6eZvEqkcBS1H+2c > SpWdspIE8Z1K1QHnkuOb4JcD55kenLp2W+OjRGZtOPIIMKllvHx6Goaqy+JzTOG8 > EW3aBKygYVj+h/hVegjHXaynbK8Wn8TZuuPJW02hf1BPHezhX2Eisv6lqcku46Gh > hSmrI2G8YEA= > =pG/L > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From popmail Thu Oct 23 00:03:16 1997 Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 15:16:48 -0600 (MDT) From: Idan Shoham To: Evelyn Mitchell cc: "Juan A. Pons" , linux-biz@lege.com Subject: Re: Linux and Netscape Poll page MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII One reason to use Netscape is to use Netscape-compatible certificates, from shops like Verisign. Netscape fasttrack server _is_ available for Linux. (Calendar, LDAP and other servers are not, yet). However, only the export-grade version is available. This caused us to reject it on a recent project .. which is too bad because it's a very high profile project, to build an Internet banking system. Oh well... TTYL, -- Idan Shoham, M-Tech idan@m-tech.ab.ca http://www.m-tech.ab.ca On Wed, 22 Oct 1997, Evelyn Mitchell wrote: > With Apache and Stronghold such good choices, why would you want to > get a Netscape server? > > Regards, > Evelyn Mitchell > efm@tummy.com > > On Wed, Oct 22, 1997 at 03:46:48PM -0400, Juan A. Pons wrote: > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > > > > > Hello, > > > > I am trying to rally support from Netscape for porting their server > > products to the linux platform. I have had a few conversations with Eric > > Hahn, their newly appointed CTO, on this subjet and he is supportive. I > > have set up a page that talks about this and has a section to guage > > reponse from the linux community via a poll page. > > > > I ask your assitance in this endeavor buy taking the poll at the > > website: > > > > http://www.webjack.com/linux/ > > > > Thank you, > > > > - -J > > > > - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Juan A. Pons WebJack.com > > jpons@webjack.com http://www.webjack.com > > Internet Services and consulting. > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > > > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > > Version: 2.6.3a > > Charset: noconv > > > > iQCVAwUBNE5YKtqaX6JUisQRAQEyogP/Z/BFZRsxJcO5aVHOO6eZvEqkcBS1H+2c > > SpWdspIE8Z1K1QHnkuOb4JcD55kenLp2W+OjRGZtOPIIMKllvHx6Goaqy+JzTOG8 > > EW3aBKygYVj+h/hVegjHXaynbK8Wn8TZuuPJW02hf1BPHezhX2Eisv6lqcku46Gh > > hSmrI2G8YEA= > > =pG/L > > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > From popmail Thu Oct 23 01:00:55 1997 Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 17:19:33 -0400 (EDT) From: "Juan A. Pons" To: linux-biz@lege.com Subject: Re: Linux and Netscape Poll page MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- FastTrack server is a watered down version of of the Netscape enterprise server. In addition, Netscape has many other offerings that would be of great benefit to the linux community, like the LDAP server, Certificate Server, Mail Server, News server, Compass Server, and others. Also the current existing version of FastTrack for Linux is bundled with an especific Linux distribution, not very compatible with other distributions, and it is also a revision behind (2.01 VS 3.01), this is of course because the port has been done by a third party and not netscape itself. - -J On Wed, 22 Oct 1997, Evan Leibovitch wrote: > > > On Wed, 22 Oct 1997, Juan A. Pons wrote: > > > I am trying to rally support from Netscape for porting their server > > products to the linux platform. > > You mean like FastTrack? > > Too late, it's already done. > > Is there a significant market for Netscape's Commerce and Proxy servers? > I wonder... > > - Evan > - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Juan A. Pons WebJack.com jpons@webjack.com http://www.webjack.com Internet Services and consulting. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBNE5t59qaX6JUisQRAQFiwwQAiFsoH+GJdeNgwpLwrkYJnds6rrSkqjKE K+j+AkebVHozZS8QEaCm+2k++qory0v0601+OVny55mEqXN809y0kwDZ33F9sFmz pmTysSkEEtSZWZlZSt6NneSqh0t19Y51O2hp4uKw6IkDuRoMs5Fsc5mw4x2RN9Kq zPy4axHXP0g= =QT9N -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From popmail Thu Oct 23 01:01:47 1997 Subject: Re: opera Distribution: local Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 21:59:39 GMT From: Ambrose Li To: linux-biz@lege.com In article , Dwight Johnson wrote: >On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Evan Leibovitch wrote: > >> What's wrong with the relatively lean 2.X and 3.X Navigators shipping >> with Caldera products now? > >Actually, nothing IMHO. But I hope you haven't tried to download one >from Netscape lately. If you had you would find that Netscape considers >them obsolete. Netscape 4.03 has much less inexplicable `bus errors' than Netscape 3.x (even 3.04, which AFAIK was released *after* Netscape 4.03). This may be the reason why they think 3.x is obsolete. -- Ambrose C. Li Programmer-analyst (sysadmin) Toronto EDP, Ming Pao Daily News +1(416)321-0088 1355 Huntingwood Dr Scarborough ON Canada M1S 3J1 [<- work ] [ home ->] From popmail Thu Oct 23 01:01:55 1997 Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 18:09:40 -0400 (EDT) From: "Juan A. Pons" To: "W. Reilly Cooley (Wil)" cc: Evelyn Mitchell , linux-biz@lege.com Subject: Re: Linux and Netscape Poll page MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- My point exactly. - -J On Wed, 22 Oct 1997, W. Reilly Cooley (Wil) wrote: > On Wed, 22 Oct 1997, Evelyn Mitchell wrote: > > > With Apache and Stronghold such good choices, why would you want to > > get a Netscape server? > > Doesn't really matter; I took the poll and answered 'yes' anyway. Having > big companies like Netscape supporting Linux validates Linux in the minds > of those who don't know any better, i.e., those who hire and pay those who > do. ;-) > > > > Wil > -- > ------------------------------------------------------------- > W. Reilly Cooley, Esq. Schöner Götterfunken > cooleyw@reed.edu wcooley@navi.net > > - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Juan A. Pons WebJack.com jpons@webjack.com http://www.webjack.com Internet Services and consulting. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBNE55ptqaX6JUisQRAQHKAwQAgTJVVhhTPpDUMeC75c+EDadBq8VsJeac 6rOJaK+f2VnrE9a9U/NOccBicMtTlhRv/YJ3iszkzdFiJeEFqYVtuVyV9FekGCRg svDCpth72jKtfPQnbfyCZBHFN/A2n7AW9G/VNI9etorAfIf5Su3Fd2+RPFB4QrYi ZKIRXj/csXo= =Qqll -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From popmail Thu Oct 23 01:02:04 1997 Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 14:52:27 -0700 (PDT) From: "W. Reilly Cooley (Wil)" To: Evelyn Mitchell cc: "Juan A. Pons" , linux-biz@lege.com Subject: Re: Linux and Netscape Poll page MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On Wed, 22 Oct 1997, Evelyn Mitchell wrote: > With Apache and Stronghold such good choices, why would you want to > get a Netscape server? Doesn't really matter; I took the poll and answered 'yes' anyway. Having big companies like Netscape supporting Linux validates Linux in the minds of those who don't know any better, i.e., those who hire and pay those who do. ;-) Wil -- ------------------------------------------------------------- W. Reilly Cooley, Esq. Schöner Götterfunken cooleyw@reed.edu wcooley@navi.net From popmail Thu Oct 23 02:39:50 1997 Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 01:51:30 +0100 (MET) From: Leif Erlingsson To: Michael Dillon cc: linux-biz@lege.com, pegleg-list@ssc.com, lust@li.org Subject: Re: Maybe I should sit down and shut up? Nah! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Michael Dillon wrote: > I wrote my own .cf files for SCO using the sendmail book. > Of course I wanted to do stuff that the m4 header files > can't do... > > Michael Dillon voice: +1-415-482-2840 > Senior Systems Architect fax: +1-415-482-2844 > PRIORI NETWORKS, INC. http://www.priori.net > "The People You Know. The People You Trust." There is nothing the m4 header files can't do if you are willing to patch the cf/m4/proto.m4 file (and possibly other files in that directory, though I only ever needed to patch cf/m4/proto.m4). If you don't believe me, study my patch at http://www.lege.com ! __________________________________________________________________ Leif Erlingsson Tel +46 8 604-0995 DATA LEGE Fax +46 8 605-2551 Glavagatan 33 URL http://www.lege.com 123 71 Farsta, Sweden Email mailto:leif@lege.com __________________________________________________________________ I remember the past. I am not doomed to buy Microsoft products. From popmail Thu Oct 23 04:01:02 1997 From: evan@telly.org (Evan Leibovitch) Subject: Re: Linux and Netscape Poll page To: jpons@webjack.com (Juan A. Pons) Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 20:27:12 -0400 (EDT) Cc: linux-biz@lege.com Content-Type: text Juan A. Pons writes: > the current existing version of FastTrack for Linux is bundled with > an especific Linux distribution, not very compatible with other > distributions, and it is also a revision behind (2.01 VS 3.01), this is of > course because the port has been done by a third party and not netscape > itself. Don't you just love myths that pass themselves off as fact? Fact 1: Netscape can be purchased separately from any distribution, and works just fine on distributions other than Caldera. I believe the only requirement is that the distro supports RPM. Fact 2: All of Netscape's Linux ports are done by Netscape. Caldera has assisted with feedback but only Netscape has the source. If you have information to the contrary, please indicate the source. Please, folks. Linux is the target of too much FUD and misinformation from conventional vendors. We don't need this kind of stuff internally. -- Evan Leibovitch, Sound Software Ltd, located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario Supporting PC-based Unix since 1985 / Caldera & SCO authorized / www.telly.org When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem comes to look like a nail From popmail Thu Oct 23 10:01:34 1997 Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 11:56:05 +0700 From: Agus Budy Wuysang MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Michael Dillon CC: linux-biz@lege.com, pegleg-list@ssc.com, lust@li.org Subject: Re: Maybe I should sit down and shut up? Nah! Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Michael Dillon wrote: > > On Wed, 22 Oct 1997, Agus Budy Wuysang wrote: > > You don't know about Progress, do you? When the system rarely damages the > database unless there is a hardware problem. And with the after-image logs > backed up across the network every 15 minutes, nightly tape backups and > the roll-forward recovery abilities of Progress, it is very > straightforward to recover with no data loss even if the main database is > lost in the crash. But if there is a bug in Progress and/or Solaris that > makes it difficult to run Progress on Solaris, the two companies will fix > it before most of us know it even exists. That's what a supported O/S > means. I can not comment on Solaris, but Progress requires us to pay just for minor bugfix upgrade (and this is their own mistake/bug!), say 7.3A01 -> 7.3C08. The Progress 7.3C08 was SCO COFF binaries, & this means that it was written for SCO prior to OS5. We have it crashed once on SCO ODT3 (max partition size 2Gb) due to unknown problem and lost the entire partition. Luckily this was on early trial & testing stage. The SCO representative here said it was Progress bug, and Progress dealer said it was SCO bug, now who am I suppose to trust/blame? Next we tried it with Novell Unixware 2.01 (claimed to be backward compatible with SCO COFF binaries), same partition size limitation exist, but runs slightly more stable but slower. When SCO released OpenServer 5.0, we tried it too. It was quite reliable, but most of our users complains it was getting slower each day as our database size & number of users increases. SCO rep had helped us with the kernel tuning & even add another CPU (read: add another $$$ for each CPU license), but the users are still complaining. At the last resort we tried Linux 1.3.x, the Linux SMP was not compatible with our ALR SMP machine, so we run it as single CPU kernel with ibcs emulator. The result was really surprising as it was much faster than a SCO with 2 CPU, no user was complaining about the speed until now. > So far all you guys who claim to be running critial database functions on > Linux are NOT doing so. So far I hear that you and another fellow are My company have 4 servers, 2 of them are the main database servers running Linux 2.0.x SMP, the other 2 are Netware fileservers (soon to be replaced with mars netware emulator ;) for bootless client, cc:Mail & old Doze applications. 2 database servers: 1 for developing new progress app (non-SMP), the other one is the real server (SMP). Both running Linux 2.0.x. > running some of your Progress servers on Linux. You have SCO servers there > too. But in my company we have *ONE* database server and it is No we don't, however we have that SCO CDrom & Licenses cluttered somewhere in the dusty closet. > missioncritical to the company's business. We can't afford the time to > play with testing SCO binaries on a Linux server and we can't afford the > risk. We don't want half a dozen flavors of UNIX here so we picked two. > SPARC/Solaris is the commercial one and we use it for mission critical > stuff. Linux is the non-commercial one and we use it for less important > jobs especially where Linux is strong like our mail server, etc. No pain no gain as in real life. We have to restore our database quite few times in Linux but it was due to our programmers error, not system crash or hw fault. > I've run Progress under Solaris and SCO. Bugs are rare. I don't see how > running a SCO binary on Linux could reduce the number of bugs in the SCO > binary. I happen to be a skilled systems analyst and applications > developper with 20 years experence so I know how software, systems and > hardware are built and how the components work. The claim that moving a > binary to a different OS will reduce bugs sounds like black magic to me. It's no magic, consider people are getting smarter nowadays and they can implement a better system call/