[Cumbria] A manifesto

[Roger Cope]

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

------=_NextPart_000_0001_01C2B065.0508E650
Content-Type: text/plain;
	charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Ho! And it's good to get far enough through my spam to begin to see this
list at last!!

Ian Linwood has kindly just contributed a kind of his-story/manifesto =
and I
thought mine own might also be useful...

Firstly, this mail is being composed in Outlook in Windows XP. Why? =
Because
Outlook is good. Evolution may be better (and I hope to find out in the =
near
future) but I'm too busy to parp around fighting email clients and far =
too
interested in design and graphics to go text only.

My Outlook client isn't connected directly to my DSL (hah!) line though =
- it
runs through my own qmail-pop server hanging off qmail on a RedHat 7.3 =
linux
box in the room next door.

My Windows XP client _thinks_ it's talking to a Windows NT domain but is
sadly misinformed - it's samba 1.x.

I have a linux client but it has only recently (with the release of RH 8 =
and
Mandrake 9) been able to be as productive as my Windows XP box. Even =
now, I
need XP in order to edit firewire based video quickly and effectively, =
so an
XP client won't be going away - I hope to access it from the Linux =
client
using the built in terminal server and rdesktop.

GUI everything is the way to go.. And I speak as one of the few =
remaining
people who can fly a DOS command line well, retains a subscription to =
4DOS
and opens a terminal window on Linux in order to do anything =
substantial.
You cannot expect an 'ordinary' user to do that - you only have to look =
at
the man page for 'ls' to work out why. Give me Konqueror any day...!

My own experience comes from two different directions: pre linux I =
bought a
couple of Coherent licences (reviewed in Byte) to play with and I also =
tried
out Slackware. After dipping in and out over the years I have also =
bought
several RedHat distros and am pretty much persuaded by them. I can't get
interested in the whys and wherefores of whether RH is proper open =
source:
its better that they're not and around than 'pure' and bankrupt.

My other experience comes from the Octal world of MUMPS (M-Technology, =
now
Cache). People who spend all their time arguing about different versions =
of
C based *NIX have _never_ lived through the battles that almost killed =
off
MUMPS in the late 80's.

MUMPS was an ANSI standard, well supported niche product with good sales =
in
several solid markets that didn't add up to a hill of beans in the real
world. Then along came a company called InterSystems with a decent =
marketing
budget and a fairly average set of programmers. One marketing led spree
later they had bought up the other short sighted MUMPS companies, =
changed
the name of the product twice and broken from the standards base pretty =
much
irrevocably. InterSystems' Cache product is still the MUMPS environment =
that
I love under the hood but it has achieved stunning success by disguising
that, adding a decent GUI and relational processor and transforming =
itself
into a 'hot' object oriented database engine.

If Linux stands still it will go the way of SlackWare and Mandrake =
(almost
RIP). If it is possible to take on Microsoft and win - the jury still =
being
out on that - then the RedHat way is the only way. Open source is good =
but
it needs to be packaged in a way that corporates can accept and =
corporations
can support. That means being in control and RedHat 8 is the end result =
of
applying that control.

The Debian and BSD philosophy is all well and good but they release for =
the
hacker community, not the commercial one. You can't take on Microsoft by
doing that and Microsoft aren't frightened by Debian or BSD - they're
frightened by RedHat and Sun...

I also had a ZX Spectrum and am quite proud of it. My brother learned
everything he knows about programming on it and and now makes a better
living than I doing 'real' programming for a low level software company. =
I
get to shuffle paper at BNFL...

Roger Cope
--------------------------------------------
Roj is also available at:=20
http://www.morphaniel.com
roger.cope@bnfl.com

------=_NextPart_000_0001_01C2B065.0508E650
Content-Type: text/x-vcard;
	name="Roger Cope (roger.cope@morphaniel.com).vcf"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: attachment;
	filename="Roger Cope (roger.cope@morphaniel.com).vcf"

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N:Cope;Roger
FN:Roger Cope (roger.cope@morphaniel.com)
ORG:BNF plc
TITLE:Systems Analyst
TEL;WORK;VOICE:019467 71125
TEL;HOME;VOICE:01946 691471
TEL;CELL;VOICE:07092 208355
TEL;WORK;FAX:019467 84963
ADR;WORK;ENCODING=3DQUOTED-PRINTABLE:;;17 Highland =
View=3D0D=3D0ABransty;Whitehaven;Cumbria;United Kingdom;CA28 6HF
LABEL;WORK;ENCODING=3DQUOTED-PRINTABLE:17 Highland =
View=3D0D=3D0ABransty=3D0D=3D0AWhitehaven, Cumbria United =
Kingdom=3D0D=3D0AC=3D
A28 6HF
EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:roger.cope@morphaniel.com
REV:20011115T072156Z
END:VCARD

------=_NextPart_000_0001_01C2B065.0508E650--