Re: IS MICROSOFT SECRETLY USING OPEN SOURCE?

[Scott A Hughes <sahughes@example.com>]

Hello.  My name is Scott Hughes.  I work for Red Hat, and I am the
"non-tech with a write-once, read-only brain", to whom SL Baur, is
referring. In all fairness to myself, however, I will say that I am in
actuality, not as SL Baur describes.

Having said that, I would like to briefly respond, just once, to the
series of postings that started regarding "Re: IS MICROSOFT SECRETLY
USING OPEN SOURCE?", that somehow called for such a comment by SL Baur
(who I have never met nor spoken with).

On Tue, 19 Jun 2001, Matt Doughty wrote:

> I think the objection comes in the form of How can they bash
'Opensource'
> and claim not to use it at all because it is a threat to companies who
do
> use it when they actually use it themselves and actually use BSD code to
> augment their own products.

I agree. This is the fundamental issue.

> In other words, MS is lying again, and while this
> isn't very surprising it is funny to see them caught in the lie. A bit
of a
> side note, but I have never heard RH claim that they never use any MS
> product.

Precisely. Thank you Matt.

On Tue, 19 Jun 2001, Jack Morgan wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 19, 2001 at 10:28:52AM +0900, Viktor Pavlenko wrote:
> > Would you be amused to learn that RedHat employees use Windows?
> > (in fact, we saw a kind of official mail from one of them on this
> > list recently, remember?)
>
> Point taken, but the poster is new to linux (Redhat employee or not)
>
> It would seem impractical for a business to expect a new employee
> to use linux to do their day to day work when they are effecient
> in another OS. In the long term... Yes it's justifiable.
>
> jack

Thanks for the follow up Jack.  Although I think that what you wrote here
applies in many cases, it so happens that it doesn't apply to mine.

I can use Linux, and I do use it, all the time. I do also have Windows
installed on one of my machines  (amongst the many Linux machines and
servers I have) and it just so happens, by an absolute fluke, that the
email I sent to be forwarded to this list was from a Windows machine.

I use a windows machine at times like when someone sends me their network
map in Visio format (an extreme but clear example), and since Visio (for
Windows) is the only software that I know of that opens Vision documents,
I use my Windows machine to boot it up.

To clarify my stance, let me say that I personally believe that the open
source movement is a great thing, and I really enjoy Linux. It is my
preferred platform for nearly all my work, and the one on which I intend
to continue expanding my career.

On 19 Jun 2001, SL Baur wrote:

> Jack Morgan <jack@example.com> writes in tlug@example.com:
>
> > On Tue, Jun 19, 2001 at 10:28:52AM +0900, Viktor Pavlenko wrote:
> >> Would you be amused to learn that RedHat employees use Windows?
> >> (in fact, we saw a kind of official mail from one of them on this
> >> list recently, remember?)
>
> > Point taken, but the poster is new to linux (Redhat employee or not)
>
> Based on personal experience, I'd say probably not.  He's some non-tech
> with a write-once, read-only brain.  There are plenty of them in any
> company, Linux distributor or not.

I am not one of them.

Regards,

Scott.

--

> > It would seem impractical for a business to expect a new employee to
> > use linux to do their day to day work when they are effecient in
> > another OS.
>
> I disagree with this statement, but plenty of other people do not.
>
> > In the long term... Yes it's justifiable.
>
> Unfortunately, you are correct.  It wasn't this way in the past.  When
> I was at TRW we had no trouble training secretaries to use Unix, vi
> and TeX, etc.  The ones I talked to liked it after they were trained[1].
>
> I find it galling that lusers would prefer mail software from Microsoft
> that severely inconveniences recipients, but that is the current state
> of the art.
>
> Footnotes:
> [1]  And it didn't take very much to train them, either.
>

--