From: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr) Subject: Re: Is this becoming comp.linux.advocacy? Date: 9 Aug 1993 13:15:05 GMT
In article <CBH3w0.3Bt@telly.on.ca> evan@telly.on.ca (Evan Leibovitch) writes:
| What this is saying is that Linux is better at running commercial MS-DOS
| software than it is at running commercial Unix software.
|
| Aren't some priorities screwed up here?
No, one of the prime objectives of many Linux developers is getting
people off DOS.
| It's important for a reason. Allowing to Linux to run only trivial
| UNIX software is hardly a capability at all to a business user who
| *does* need the important stuff.
Linux is a great solution if you have the right problem. If your problem
is "I need to run commercial app X," I agree it's not useful. If your
problem is "our secretaries need email and access to calendars, fax
capability and to be able to share files and have common backup," the
answer is yes. Linux really does seem reliable enough to use for
commercial apps, as long as you don't feel the need to upgrade. SLS 1.02
(with a patch or two) has been dead solid for everyone I've helped get
on it, and it works well here in a mixed SCO and V.4 net, with many PC's
using NFS. It works on another net with Sequoia, rs6000, and three or
four other boxes. If you don't need what it doesn't have, it's great,
particularly when the need is a color Xterm with local processing.
| This really amazes me. Considering all the costs of a Unix system,
| including the design, hardware, applications, documentation, systems
| software, networking, installation, administration and especially
| training, the cost savings of Linux (as opposed to, say, SCO) is
| proportionally very small, maybe a few percent of the total. If the
| lower cost of Linux is balanced by higher administration costs, inability
| to find Linux training courses, poor documentation, smaller choice of
| hardware and other issues, the cost savings may be even less.
No, on that one you've done the number dead backward. In a business,
with full time system admins doing the caretaking, the incremental cost
of a single new machine is hardware plus software plus a tiny slice of
the net and admin overhead. Once you have a bunch of systems in place,
SCO can cost more than the machine on which it runs! So the saving can
be considerable.
|
| I believe that many people underestimate the cost of free software.
On that we agree! The urge to tinker with this feature or that is very
seductive, and can take a lot of time away from the job.
Linux is like anything else, you can use it in some places and make a
good business decision, and use it in others and be really sorry.
Choosing an O/S on the basis of liking the vendor (or hating the vendor)
is not good policy.
--
Bill Davidsen, davidsen%sixhub.uucp@uunet.uu.net
TMR Associates, +1 518-370-5654
C programming, training, data gathering, porting to open systems,
heterogeneous environments, computer controlled housing, custom software