[Gllug] Voluntary work

[Sean Burlington]

Bernard Peek wrote:
> In message <p0521060cbbda4fd54ee5@[192.168.216.2]>, Gordon Joly 
> <gordon.joly at pobox.com> writes
> 

>>
>> Samba 3.x outperforms Windows Server 2003 by 50%, reported elsewhere.
> 
> 
> Yes, that's the sort of argument I was getting tired of. I understood 
> the argument and accepted that as a fact. It still didn't justify 
> putting in a Linux system.
> 
> I had one web server. If I needed to add 50% more horsepower I could 
> have installed Linux. Or I could buy another server. The cost of a new 
> server was approximately the same as my daily charge-out rate. So if it 
> took me more than a day to learn and install Linux and copy the web-site 
> across then I couldn't justify it.

I agree that simple performance may not always be a compelling argument 
- but...

a lot of MS stuff really doesn't work very well

Notably Outlook/Exchange for email

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

FrontPage/IIS are just plain demented

and yet these things are still popular

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)

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

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


> 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 !


-- 

Sean


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