[Gllug] Voluntary work

[Christopher Hunter]

On Friday 14 Nov 2003 1:01 pm, Sean Burlington wrote:

> I agree that simple performance may not always be a compelling argument
> - but...
>
> a lot of MS stuff really doesn't work very well

Definately.  Any "operating system" that falls over completely when some 
trivial application misbehaves is a waste of space.

> Notably Outlook/Exchange for email

Exchange Server is a disaster.  It is full of security holes and bizarre 
instabilities!

> I certainly find Word harder to use than Open Office (even though I have
> used Word more)

Though Word is marginally easier to use than Word Perfect (IMHO)!  Word 
redefined the term "wysiwyg" - "wish you'd saved it while you grieve".  I 
couldn't count the number of times I had (l)users whinge that "Word crashed 
and took hours of work with it"!

> FrontPage/IIS are just plain demented

IIS is utterly insecure.  The abuse of some of Microshaft's own "dynamic" 
webpages over the years has been (mostly) very funny.

> and yet these things are still popular

Only because the "operating system" comes "free" with the purchase of a 
computer (in most instances).

> The really odd thing is that people seem to decide if they find software
> easy to use within a few seconds of looking at it (maybe this means KDE
> have the right approach)

Perhaps.  We all have to consider that the average punter hasn't a clue about 
how his computer works, and really doesn't care.

> and in my experience the maintenance of *nix systems is so much less
> time consuming it's silly

Mostly.  It does, however, require a modicum of ability, intelligence and a 
willingness to learn.

> text config files mean the system is almost self documenting  (compare
> that to trying to keep word docs full of screen grabs)

Not really a valid comparison, but I take your point.

> > In fact I went away and learned Linux on my own time. Installing a Linux
> > server didn't become economically viable until I had spent perhaps
> > £50,000 worth of my own time on it.
>
> wow - you turned down 50k to learn linux - that's dedication !

!!!

Chris


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