[ale] top selling points for linux...? [anti-flame]

[hbbs at mediaone.net]

Let's see if you can work this idea into your presentation somehow.

When I started working in IT management, I had systems that I ran software on
and that was pretty much it.  When I ran VAXen, every so often I'd have a
hardware problem that would require me to call for a tech and every so often
I'd have an issue with VMS or some DEC application software and I'd call up and
have someone talk me through the problem.  We were paying DEC some amount every
year and we got guy-on-the-line service in exchange, but for the most part,
neither me nor anyone I worked with spent a whole lot of time thinking about
the OS or what we wanted to buy next, and no one was really either deliberately
or incidentally trying to sell us anything.  I was primarily concerned about
what I was doing and why and how I could set up my stuff to work better and/or
do more things.

That was ten years ago.  Ten years ago, DEC, Control Data, IBM, Banyan, HP,
Intel, etc. were not running commercials on prime-time TV shows.  Average
people - even average well-to-do people - generally never were even in the same
room with a computer other than a clone or maybe a Mac.  These days, all these
huge publicly-traded companies like IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Compaq, etc. are
fighting for our attention and even the attention of people who couldn't care
less.  If I work in the closed-source, closed-hardware world, I'm basically
just a firehose spraying money and these companies will fight the others like
hell - and even fight me - in order to get the nozzle to their mouths.

By using Linux and other open-source software, I am declaring that I will
consider my IT needs first and not their shareholders'.  I am willing to pay
fair money for fair goods and services, but I don't like being charged
according to senseless arbitrary scales (Oracle's thing about charging by clock
speed) nor do I care for not getting my money's worth (a notion that Linux has
helped to redefine).  I prefer to know that I and the people I hire, if we
choose to acquire and exercise it, have the power to create, modify, and
implement the software we use as we see fit.

When in the company of people who use only closed-source stuff, I often feel
like I live in a neighborhood or apartment building in which I'm the only
person who can drive.  For them, just getting by seems like it's such a burden
- having e-mail means you gotta buy a Dell PowerEdge server, Win2K, Exchange,
Outlook, and client licenses for everything - maybe deal with some account rep
if you're dropping enough green - vs. buy or build a mail server, install and
configure the software you're already carrying in your CD case, and just go!

Working with open-source software means that you don't have to wait for
software to get bought (read:  paperwork to get approved) and as for what all
you can DO with the software - well, dude, the big limiting factor is usually
YOU!  Thankfully, learning opportunities are extremely plentiful but you still
have to take the initiative and do the work.

- Jeff



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