[Wolves] Re: The Open Source Development Paradigm

[Peter Cannon]

On Thursday 08 December 2005 23:37, Simon Morris wrote:

> I can just imagine you in the back of the ambulance shouting "Don't
> take me to St Peters!!! For Gods sake, they use SUSE!"

Na, no need I carry an MS doner card ;)

> > Open
> > source has a long way to go before I trust it to run a radio isotope for
> > body scanning.
>
> Well - two things here...
>
> 1) The article doesn't say anything about Linux being used to run this
> kind of device at all. It mentions "clinical and non-clinical use".
> Would you object to Open Source software being deployed in areas where
> it is a proven, solid, secure platform? Web serving, Network services
> etc.

Xrays are clinical, its pretty easy really anything that dosent involve 
cutting you is clinical.

> 2) Do you know that radio isotope devices aren't using Linux already?
> I have no idea but it crops up in places you wouldn't expect in
> everyday critical applications and I wouldn't be surprised at all if
> the medical/scientific community have been using it for a while

Actually thats a mute point most of them are Unix based

> That's just opinion. Although there has been turbulence in the company
> since the buyout at the top management level as there invariably is
> with all corporate mergers SUSE existed happily before Novell, and if
> they were sold off now they would still have a sizable business to
> take with them.

Ah but its that 'opinion' that clouds the issue see I get narked when one week 
its "They've sold out! they've gone down the road of propriatery thats it the 
OS is crap" then its "Ooh look see they're using Open Source cos its 
brilliant and its not MS" the 'not MS' being the predominating factor.

> Also Novell have invested a lot of money in new talent at SUSE and the
> kind of exposure that the company has had to a large corporate
> organisation has IMO been great for SUSE.

Many moons ago Novell had a huge market share with the aquasition of SuSE they 
will regain some of that ground however as SuSE user myself, admitidly not on 
a corporate level I'm not totally convinced that its a viable option. Then 
again I'm referring to SuSE Pro/10 for all we know they maybe implementing 
some sort of Novell/SuSE hybrid.

> I've dealt with SUSE before and after the buyout - as a small sales
> office above the shops in Hammersmith and at the Novell offices and
> there is a positive difference.

Oh god yes but thats because its now moved to a differant level in terms of 
acceptance most businesses have experience of Novell so are more likely to 
trust a product from their stable.

> But you are trying to reinforce your point of view by taking an
> obviously negative, emotive point about the NHS and linking it to
> something else that has nothing in common with that point at all.

True but it all goes in the same melting pot for me, don't kid yourself that 
central purchasing thought "Hm this open source stuff is really good and a 
viable alternative to that horrid Microsoft lets jump into bed with SuSE"

Na, SuSE/Novell said "Ere we've got a product that will do the same job we 
wont charge you for the software or the license all you'll pay for is the 
support" given the fact that tonight I had 367 emails from the SuSE mailing 
list (I only belong to one theres lots of them) thats got to be a concern.

> The NHS partnering with Novell has no impact on the standard of food.
> If you are trying to build a link using the fact that the NHS is in
> debt and squanders cash on failing IT projects then fair enough but
> they've managed to do so using all sorts of software from all sorts of
> vendors and most of all greedy incompetent consultancy companies.

Actually you're a bit off the mark there, as an old fart I remember the days 
of Administrators and ward Matron's once the Managers took over it was the 
slippery slope the bigger the department the bigger the budget, if a new 
project starts that immediately means it will need a Manager and a whole 
chain of command because mere mortal workers cannot spend money or make 
budgetory decisions.

Who here remembers the days when you could walk into a doctors surgery and be 
seen at some stage of the day? now you have to book an appointment three 
weeks in advance with a receptionist who wants to know you're most intimate 
details before she will sanction a visit. I usually ask them when they 
attended medical shool? and explain that that sort of conversation is between 
my doctor and I.

But you're right I'm just going off on a tangent.

> If they did this I wouldn't have a problem with it at all. Apart from
> the closed formats for saving files, MS Office is a competent office
> suite. If the NHS can break the addictive bond between MS Office and
> MS Windows that can only be good news.

See thats the one thing I'll never understand? A word is a word whatever app 
its written in be it Wordpad, abiword, Gedit etc etc.

I'm willing to bet MS offer a great deal to government bodies on their 
software and MS Word has been around a lot longer than oOo writer.

-- 
Peter Cannon
peter at cannon-linux.co.uk
www.cannon-linux.co.uk

"If god had meant us to fly he'd have given us wings"