[mdlug] A big opportunity for Linux?

[Robert Adkins]

> 
> Nope,  I've used LINUX as a desktop, solely (no dual boot) 
> since RedHat
> 6.2 and AIX before that.  I've administered UNIX & LINUX 
> servers since LINUX kernel 0.99a.  And I've led a LINUX 
> desktop trial project of over 80 machines.  
> 

	Is this project one in which you pushed GNOME and then later
discovered it lacked the key feature (ACL options in Nautilus) that a client
required?

>
> But I don't feel the need to shoo-away or conveniently 
> dismiss real deficiencies in the "product" where I've seen it 
> not live-up to real user needs.  That isn't how you make 
> better software or solutions.  
> 

	This is a Linux USERS Group. 

	As a single group, we have nothing to do with the development models
or practices set forth and observed by any independent group providing a
Linux software solution. All we realistically can do is observe what is
available, comment on other solutions that are available and suggest
alternatives that may suit one's needs better than a particular offering
provides. This is of course ignoring the fact that any single member here
could actually have membership in a group that does provide development work
on product(s) in question. If someone here happens to have such an outside
membership, maybe he/she could/should become involved in working out such an
issue.

	Anyway, with that in mind, we certainly can shoo-away and
"conveniently dismiss real definciencies" (especially in an offering that
never aimed to provide such functions in the first place) and recommend
alternatives that actually do provide the needed functionality. That's what
we are here for, it's just part and parcel of what a LUG is all about.

	If you want to talk to people who aren't supposed to be shooing away
deficiencies, then the best practice would be to take the argument to those
who actually have a stake in the product. (This isn't always the distributor
of the particular Linux OS you are looking at.)

	For example, you dislike GNOME's Nautilus offering lacking ACL
support? Take it to the GNOME mailing list and present your case to the
GNOME Nautilus development group. If they shoo the problem away, then you
can point to them and call them names and or get all disgruntled over what
they are "supposed" to be doing. (Which is work towards providing the best
damn desktop, ever. From what I understand.)

	Going on about such things here, just feels like FUD, regardless of
what you have done for the past 10 to 20 years professionally. This is the
place to discuss solutions and alternatives to niggling issues, not the
place to talk about how an extremely tight set of circumstances somehow
makes Linux unsuitable for the desktop.

	Tight sets of circumstances can be put together to make practically
anything wholly unsuited to a given purpose.

>
> I also don't accept nor will savvy business people, the 
> fanboy mud-slinging and fear mongering of Open Source 
> "advocates" any more than I do from proprietary vendors.  If 
> Windows is as horrible as many of these kinds of threads 
> would leave one to believe then commerce in the United States 
> would be shutting down almost completely on a frequent basis. 
>  It doesn't, because it isn't  (or actually it is, IMO, but 
> some simple solutions band-aid the biggest problems - if 
> someone chooses to pay unholy sums of money for said 
> band-aid, that isn't specifically a Windows problem.).
> 

	I concur.

	Windows isn't so terrible that the business world is mere seconds
away from grinding to a complete halt. That still doesn't make Windows the
perfect gem of an OS that many fanboy mud-slinging and fear mongering
Windows "advocates" put forward. Windows just happens to have the largest
marketshare due to proven abuse of monopoly powers by Microsoft and happens
to be "good enough" to do the job many people need.	

>
> There are many aspect of the LINUX OS and related packages 
> that aren't anywhere near ideal, trying to pooh-pooh those 
> issues will only leave you with a disappointed, or pissed off, client.
> 

	Of course, setting up a client with configurations that are far from
ideal, either by failing to anticipate the needs or wants can go a long way
towards making a client feel disappointed or pissed off.

	...and don't even get me started on that BS that some software
vendors have of changing absolutely everything for no really strong reason
and then ignoring the fact that such changes will cause endless support
headaches as users who were used to one way of doing things suddenly finds
that way impossible or simply missing. (I am looking at MS and their OS
interface changes from Win2K to WinXP and Office 97 to Office 2000 to Office
XP. Those changes caused and sometimes still give me grief here in the
office from the same users time and time again.)

	-Rob