[mdlug] OT: Microsoft Monopoly

[Jonathan Billings]

On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 08:27:05AM -0400, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
> IMO, what it really means is they-are-right.  I'm an Open Source
> advocate and a UNIX/LINUX admin for ~15 years.  And I have no problem
> admitting this in many regards.  The Open Source communities' insane [or
> just lazy] addiction to the-txt-config-file is a serious hold-up for
> LINUX deployment;  it means all admin tools, to the point that they even
> exist, essentially *suck* and will eventually trash your config [acting
> as anti-admin tools].  Fortunately with XML configuration, XDG, D-Bus,
> etc... we are *finally* starting to move beyond the
> idiot-who-thinks-sysadmin-is-proficiency-in-vi.

Actually, I'm not sure that's a huge step in the right direction.
The windows registry shouldn't be held up as an example of the proper
way to centralize configuration.  At least with plain text, you can
put the configuration into proper version control and use a
configuration management tool to manage things centrally.

Perhaps I have "...[t]he Open Source communities' insane [or just
lazy] addiction to the-txt-config-file", but I find it easier to
manage centrally using current tools.  I don't believe it's insane or
lazy, that just comes off as elitist.  It's just the product of the
UNIX community it was spawned from.

I agree that it is annoying that every tool has it's own
domain-specific language (you hear me, sendmail?), but I'm not won
over by the Windows Registry.

> <rant>
> Heck, even adding a CA certificate to a LINUX host's openssl [or is it
> gnutls?] configuration is a stupidly arcane exercise.  So most LINUX
> hosts I find [yes *most*] communicate either in-the-clear or with
> certificate verification disabled.  All the while their "administrators"
> jabber on about how much more secure LINUX is that Windows.  And the
> response to the criticism is usually that interanet traffic is trusted.
> Wow! [But do you need 802.1x authentication just to plug any laptop into
> a switch?  Ha, no, you'll just get an address from DHCP.  Oh, right,
> 802.1x would require a working PKI configuration.... back to square
> one].
> </rant>

I'm annoyed that it's difficult to add a CA to the OS and make it work
universally.  It probably requires more of those insane, lazy text
files. 

> > > wilds of the job market that are "knowledgable" about Administrating Windows
> > > than Linux systems. It has absolutely nothing to do with the actual
> > > configuration or maintaining of the resulting systems.
> > >   Modenn Linux distros are in many ways as easy or easier to setup and
> > > configure than comparable duty Windows servers/systems.
> 
> And implied in the statement "in many ways as easy or easier" is the
> statement "in many other ways as hard or harder".  Inherently these
> kinds of statements negate themselves - they have no meaning, IMO.

In many ways, your comments make sense.

-- 
Jonathan Billings <billings at negate.org>