Need to give a presentation on the benefits of Linux

[Arch Willingham]

I am on a committee of a national organization called Associated General Contractors. Our committee is called the Electronic Information Systems committee (http://www.agc.org/page.ww?section=Technology&name=Electronic+Informatio...) and we are getting ready to have our annual meeting.

As background, I am the MIS person for our company. For the last year +- I have been learning to use Linux. I started with Fedora FC4 then went to FC5 and now FC6. I use it on my personal laptop and have probably installed it twenty times and I am sort of getting the hang of it (sort of being the operative word). I know there are other flavors of Linux but have never used them (not enough time in the day). I have read everything I can get my hands on on Linux and really enjoy using it. I have deployed it to one jobsite as sort of a beta test site. The interesting thing there is that the guy had never really used a computer and had no preconceived notion of "that's not the way Windows does it" and the test has been great.

I have to give a brief presentation this Saturday on Linux to my fellow committee members. There are so many resources I am not sure where to start. Would any of y'all have any suggestions? My thoughts are to sort of outline what it is, how many people use it, the issues surrounding the windows fear factor etc. I don't want to get too deep but I'd like to wake up more people to the virtues of the product.

Any help any of you could provide would be welcome and deeply appreciated!

Arch
Parks Construction
www.tuparks.com

[Chitlesh GOORAH]

On 1/31/07, Arch Willingham wrote:
> I have to give a brief presentation this Saturday on Linux to my fellow committee members. There are so many resources I am not sure where to start. Would any of y'all have any suggestions? My thoughts are to sort of outline what it is, how many people use it, the issues surrounding the windows fear factor etc. I don't want to get too deep but I'd like to wake up more people to the virtues of the product.

You can have a look at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Presentations

Chitlesh

Domain Authentication

[Kevin Gutch]

Does anyone know where I can find a tutorial for setting up Domain 
Authentication using Fedora 6 and Samba.

Thanks,

Kevin

Domain Authentication

[Rick Stevens]

On Wed, 2007-01-31 at 17:03 -0500, Kevin Gutch wrote:
> Does anyone know where I can find a tutorial for setting up Domain 
> Authentication using Fedora 6 and Samba.

I HIGHLY recommend buying O'Reilly's book:

"Using Samba"
    Gerald Carter, Jay Ts, and Robert Eckstein
    http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/samba3/

----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     [e-mail] -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-  You know you've landed gear-up when it takes full power to taxi.  -
-                                                -- Chuck Yeager     -
----------------------------------------------------------------------

[Arch Willingham]

Thanks....that will be a huge help! I am also hoping to find some help as part of he presentation showing the increase in Linux sales/market share and some comments to help others over the "its not Windows" hump.

Arch

-----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail]
[mailto:[e-mail]]On Behalf Of Chitlesh GOORAH
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 4:51 PM
To: For users of Fedora
Subject: Re: Need to give a presentation on the benefits of Linux

On 1/31/07, Arch Willingham wrote:
> I have to give a brief presentation this Saturday on Linux to my fellow committee members. There are so many resources I am not sure where to start. Would any of y'all have any suggestions? My thoughts are to sort of outline what it is, how many people use it, the issues surrounding the windows fear factor etc. I don't want to get too deep but I'd like to wake up more people to the virtues of the product.

You can have a look at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Presentations

Chitlesh

[Kam Leo]

On 1/31/07, Arch Willingham  wrote:
> Thanks....that will be a huge help! I am also hoping to find some help as part of he presentation showing the increase in Linux sales/market share and some comments to help others over the "its not Windows" hump.
>
> Arch

[snip]
> On 1/31/07, Arch Willingham wrote:
> > I have to give a brief presentation this Saturday on Linux to my fellow committee members. There are so many resources I am not sure where to start. Would any of y'all have any suggestions? My thoughts are to sort of outline what it is, how many people use it, the issues surrounding the windows fear factor etc. I don't want to get too deep but I'd like to wake up more people to the virtues of the product.

List applications your group members typically use on Windows
platform. Present the GNU-Linux equivalents. Big plus if data can be
exchanged between platforms.
> You can have a look at http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Presentations

[Tim]

On Wed, 2007-01-31 at 21:37 -0500, Arch Willingham wrote:
> Thanks....that will be a huge help! I am also hoping to find some help
> as part of he presentation showing the increase in Linux sales/market
> share and some comments to help others over the "its not Windows"
> hump.

You're now becoming a market leader, a trendsetter, and all those other
buzzwords that mean nothing other than impressing someone else who
doesn't know anything about what you're talking about.

"It's not Windows" is a something to reduce the worries about using
something full of bugs and complying with anti-piracy software audits.

[Craig White]

On Wed, 2007-01-31 at 21:37 -0500, Arch Willingham wrote:
> Thanks....that will be a huge help! I am also hoping to find some help as part of he presentation showing the increase in Linux sales/market share and some comments to help others over the "its not Windows" hump.

----
It's impossible to get a handle on how many people are actually using
Linux since so much of it is never sold or is simply counted as a
Windows sale - for example, we have been buying systems from Dell which
have WinXP home preloaded and are never booted as a Windows system since
the first boot is a kickstart Fedora Core 6 install.

I think the most important things to realize are:
- Windows has some advantages, as does a Macintosh, as does Linux.
- No one OS is the best choice for all users
- The average desktop user isn't going to do much more than basic
e-mail, word processing, spreadsheet, web browsing and the OS is
probably only an issue of familiarity and of little consequence.

In my situation, I have LDAP for user authentication, a home directory
created for each user which is the same home whether the user logs in
via a Macintosh, Windows or Linux, in essence, his home directory,
files, login name and password are the same and the only difference
between the various OS's is the applications available to the user which
in the case of things like e-mail, have to be set up the first time a
user logs in per OS. I have created a 'roaming profile' for all users,
regardless of operating system...it works.

Thus when the options were made available, it became mostly a matter of
cost vs. convenience of the familiar and I didn't have to really push
hard for Linux because the benefits are obvious. Rather than push to
sell it - I found it most effective to put a fully configured Linux
system on the 'boss's and had him use it.

The real issues are the files that you create - the intellectual product
of your organization and the fact is that most businesses blindly use
the proprietary formats commonly known as .DOC | .XLS | .PPS  Does it
make sense to create document after document that is undocumented? These
formats are in their final stage since the newest versions of Microsoft
Office are pushing to use their Microsoft Office XML format which is
incomprehensible for just about everyone (weighing in at over 6000
pages).

These formats (whether MSO XML or .doc/.xls/.pps) are poisonous to the
continuity of any business since they become unwieldy and migrating from
them will be painful. OpenOffice.org (and others) support the ODF (see
http://www.oasis.org for more information) and this format is open,
documented, unencumbered and fully usable by virtually any software that
chooses to use it. This is the ground that must be fought for.

Likewise, things like Exchange Server and Outlook are also used to
create vendor lock-in - the addiction to the Microsoft behemoth that are
so hard to break.

To a business that is on the up and up, maintaining a License 6
Microsoft Windows desktop with Microsoft Office is a pretty costly
system and a Linux system would have to compare favorably for many, many
users.

Craig

[Arch Willingham]

Thanks a million.....that is a huge help!

Arch

-----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail]
[mailto:[e-mail]]On Behalf Of Craig White
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 11:31 PM
To: For users of Fedora
Subject: RE: Need to give a presentation on the benefits of Linux

On Wed, 2007-01-31 at 21:37 -0500, Arch Willingham wrote:
> Thanks....that will be a huge help! I am also hoping to find some help as part of he presentation showing the increase in Linux sales/market share and some comments to help others over the "its not Windows" hump.

----
It's impossible to get a handle on how many people are actually using
Linux since so much of it is never sold or is simply counted as a
Windows sale - for example, we have been buying systems from Dell which
have WinXP home preloaded and are never booted as a Windows system since
the first boot is a kickstart Fedora Core 6 install.

I think the most important things to realize are:
- Windows has some advantages, as does a Macintosh, as does Linux.
- No one OS is the best choice for all users
- The average desktop user isn't going to do much more than basic
e-mail, word processing, spreadsheet, web browsing and the OS is
probably only an issue of familiarity and of little consequence.

In my situation, I have LDAP for user authentication, a home directory
created for each user which is the same home whether the user logs in
via a Macintosh, Windows or Linux, in essence, his home directory,
files, login name and password are the same and the only difference
between the various OS's is the applications available to the user which
in the case of things like e-mail, have to be set up the first time a
user logs in per OS. I have created a 'roaming profile' for all users,
regardless of operating system...it works.

Thus when the options were made available, it became mostly a matter of
cost vs. convenience of the familiar and I didn't have to really push
hard for Linux because the benefits are obvious. Rather than push to
sell it - I found it most effective to put a fully configured Linux
system on the 'boss's and had him use it.

The real issues are the files that you create - the intellectual product
of your organization and the fact is that most businesses blindly use
the proprietary formats commonly known as .DOC | .XLS | .PPS  Does it
make sense to create document after document that is undocumented? These
formats are in their final stage since the newest versions of Microsoft
Office are pushing to use their Microsoft Office XML format which is
incomprehensible for just about everyone (weighing in at over 6000
pages).

These formats (whether MSO XML or .doc/.xls/.pps) are poisonous to the
continuity of any business since they become unwieldy and migrating from
them will be painful. OpenOffice.org (and others) support the ODF (see
http://www.oasis.org for more information) and this format is open,
documented, unencumbered and fully usable by virtually any software that
chooses to use it. This is the ground that must be fought for.

Likewise, things like Exchange Server and Outlook are also used to
create vendor lock-in - the addiction to the Microsoft behemoth that are
so hard to break.

To a business that is on the up and up, maintaining a License 6
Microsoft Windows desktop with Microsoft Office is a pretty costly
system and a Linux system would have to compare favorably for many, many
users.

Craig

[Howard Howell]

On Thu, 2007-02-01 at 08:01 -0500, Arch Willingham wrote:
> Thanks a million.....that is a huge help!

Snip!
> OpenOffice.org (and others) support the ODF (see
> http://www.oasis.org for more information) and this format is open,
> documented, unencumbered and fully usable by virtually any software that
> chooses to use it. This is the ground that must be fought for.
>
> Likewise, things like Exchange Server and Outlook are also used to
> create vendor lock-in - the addiction to the Microsoft behemoth that are
> so hard to break.
> Craig

Hi, Arch,
    Another thing to add about file formats... They change, but when they
are open, tools will be created almost instantly to migrate your data to
remain current, and you have the advantage of retaining the format
document, which means historically you will always be able to retrieve
the original information.  Formats are like hardware storage, and will
age, become obsolete, and so forth.  With an Open format, the
documentation will be available somewhere nearly forever, but with
proprietary formats, you don't even get the documentation.  As your data
ages, it can be non-retrievable,  Not important to end users, but to
corporations and governements, historical records are vital to watching
over the company's or country's property.

ODF means Open Document Format.  Open in this case does not mean
everyone can see the material in the document, only that the standards
are open to public view, so that new tools can be created that adhere to
the standards.  This will become more important as the capabilities of
software and systems continue to grow.  Visualization software, that is
tools to generate different virtual views of data, needs to be able to
extract data from existing formats to utilize it.  When the format is
proprietary, you may not be able to have the same vision of your data
that competitors will.  This can represent a loss of competitive
advantage, or a gain, depending on which side of the edge you are on.

Regards,
Les H

[Evan Klitzke]

On Wed, 2007-01-31 at 16:49 -0500, Arch Willingham wrote:
> I am on a committee of a national organization called Associated General Contractors. Our committee is called the Electronic Information Systems committee (http://www.agc.org/page.ww?section=Technology&name=Electronic+Informatio...) and we are getting ready to have our annual meeting.
>
> As background, I am the MIS person for our company. For the last year +- I have been learning to use Linux. I started with Fedora FC4 then went to FC5 and now FC6. I use it on my personal laptop and have probably installed it twenty times and I am sort of getting the hang of it (sort of being the operative word). I know there are other flavors of Linux but have never used them (not enough time in the day). I have read everything I can get my hands on on Linux and really enjoy using it. I have deployed it to one jobsite as sort of a beta test site. The interesting thing there is that the guy had never really used a computer and had no preconceived notion of "that's not the way Windows does it" and the test has been great.
>
> I have to give a brief presentation this Saturday on Linux to my fellow committee members. There are so many resources I am not sure where to start. Would any of y'all have any suggestions? My thoughts are to sort of outline what it is, how many people use it, the issues surrounding the windows fear factor etc. I don't want to get too deep but I'd like to wake up more people to the virtues of the product.
>
> Any help any of you could provide would be welcome and deeply appreciated!

Arch,

By far, my favorite thing about open source software and Linux is the
quality of the software. The freedom that open source software provides
is great, but as a software _user_ what I really care about is that my
applications work well. Because the software is built as a community
effort, the software developers get a lot of feedback from users, and
users who also happen to be developers sometimes join the effort and
help that way too.

Why is Apache the most widely used web server? It's not because people
are attracted to it ideologically, or because of the price tag. It's
because it's the best web server on the market. It's small, it's fast,
and it performs really well. Same thing with MySQL. MySQL is giving the
big database vendors a run for their money because not only is it free,
but it's incredibly robust and scalable. It's a pattern that you'll see
over and over. Ditto all the other common applications in the LAMP stack
-- they're just the best in class software.

The extensibility of the software is another huge asset. I work at a Web
2.0 startup company. You wouldn't think that we would have a huge need
(or ability, given the small number of employees) to modify any of the
software that we are running. But one of the proprietary backend tools
that we bought from another company required some special mechanism for
receiving audio. Rather than pay for their solution, one of the
developers at work spent a couple days and patched lame to work with the
backend, saving us a lot of money and making things easier to maintain.
We also had a case where we wanted to do some mail filtering (in this
case, removing certain attachments). Sendmail and Postfix have an open
API for developing milters (mail filters), so one day I sat down and
read the API and wrote a milter to meet our needs. This is something
that just couldn't be done with an email server like Exchange.

So to summarize what I'm trying to say here... as a sysadmin, I have
found that the open source software out there is the best. It's fast and
scalable, things are coded to open standards to the software
interoperates well. And in the case that you actually need the software
to be changed slightly, you're free to get in touch with the original
developers of the software and file a bug report, or even make the
changes yourself if you have people with programming knowledge working
for you.

-- Evan Klitzke

[Andy Green]

Evan Klitzke wrote:
> Why is Apache the most widely used web server? It's not because people
> are attracted to it ideologically, or because of the price tag. It's

Another point is that it is MUCH safer to invest time, mindshare and 
money in an open project.  Apache isn't going anywhere, your competitors 
aren't going to buy it, it will work basically the same for at least the 
next few years...  Microsoft can't change the licensing for it once they 
have you addicted and make you pay each year like a trapped animal...

Even projects that might fade away leave you all the bits you need to 
support it internally: if the quality was good, that is not only no 
worse than using internally generated software, but much better because 
it cost you $0 to develop...  If you get into that situation you can 
also offer money to the original devs to maintain it for you...

I'm sure somebody can step up and help me, but I can't think of any 
negatives about using FOSS stuff.

-Andy

Domain Authentication

[Aaron Konstam]

On Wed, 2007-01-31 at 14:26 -0800, Rick Stevens wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-01-31 at 17:03 -0500, Kevin Gutch wrote:
> > Does anyone know where I can find a tutorial for setting up Domain 
> > Authentication using Fedora 6 and Samba.
>
> I HIGHLY recommend buying O'Reilly's book:
>
> "Using Samba"
>    Gerald Carter, Jay Ts, and Robert Eckstein
>    http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/samba3/

Or you can go to: http://www.samba.org/samba/docs/

[Arch Willingham]

How did you do roaming profiles in Linux???

-----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail]
[mailto:[e-mail]]On Behalf Of Craig White
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 11:31 PM
To: For users of Fedora
Subject: RE: Need to give a presentation on the benefits of Linux

On Wed, 2007-01-31 at 21:37 -0500, Arch Willingham wrote:
> Thanks....that will be a huge help! I am also hoping to find some help as part of he presentation showing the increase in Linux sales/market share and some comments to help others over the "its not Windows" hump.

----
It's impossible to get a handle on how many people are actually using
Linux since so much of it is never sold or is simply counted as a
Windows sale - for example, we have been buying systems from Dell which
have WinXP home preloaded and are never booted as a Windows system since
the first boot is a kickstart Fedora Core 6 install.

I think the most important things to realize are:
- Windows has some advantages, as does a Macintosh, as does Linux.
- No one OS is the best choice for all users
- The average desktop user isn't going to do much more than basic
e-mail, word processing, spreadsheet, web browsing and the OS is
probably only an issue of familiarity and of little consequence.

In my situation, I have LDAP for user authentication, a home directory
created for each user which is the same home whether the user logs in
via a Macintosh, Windows or Linux, in essence, his home directory,
files, login name and password are the same and the only difference
between the various OS's is the applications available to the user which
in the case of things like e-mail, have to be set up the first time a
user logs in per OS. I have created a 'roaming profile' for all users,
regardless of operating system...it works.

Thus when the options were made available, it became mostly a matter of
cost vs. convenience of the familiar and I didn't have to really push
hard for Linux because the benefits are obvious. Rather than push to
sell it - I found it most effective to put a fully configured Linux
system on the 'boss's and had him use it.

The real issues are the files that you create - the intellectual product
of your organization and the fact is that most businesses blindly use
the proprietary formats commonly known as .DOC | .XLS | .PPS  Does it
make sense to create document after document that is undocumented? These
formats are in their final stage since the newest versions of Microsoft
Office are pushing to use their Microsoft Office XML format which is
incomprehensible for just about everyone (weighing in at over 6000
pages).

These formats (whether MSO XML or .doc/.xls/.pps) are poisonous to the
continuity of any business since they become unwieldy and migrating from
them will be painful. OpenOffice.org (and others) support the ODF (see
http://www.oasis.org for more information) and this format is open,
documented, unencumbered and fully usable by virtually any software that
chooses to use it. This is the ground that must be fought for.

Likewise, things like Exchange Server and Outlook are also used to
create vendor lock-in - the addiction to the Microsoft behemoth that are
so hard to break.

To a business that is on the up and up, maintaining a License 6
Microsoft Windows desktop with Microsoft Office is a pretty costly
system and a Linux system would have to compare favorably for many, many
users.

Craig

[Les Mikesell]

Arch Willingham wrote:
> How did you do roaming profiles in Linux???

You can NFS mount the whole /home directory, or let the automounter 
mount individual home directories on access.  It's not quite the same 
concept but does what you usually want with a bunch of workstations on a 
  LAN with users logging in anywhere.  Or you can just run your X 
desktop on the server.

[Joe Smith]

Arch Willingham wrote:
> I am on a committee of a national organization called Associated
> General Contractors. ...
>
> I have to give a brief presentation this Saturday on Linux to my
> fellow committee members.
> ...

Contractors? Hmm... why not put it in terms they can identify with (and 
have a little fun--shamelessly stolen from various OS/programming gags):

Microsoft "Saw":

* Comes free with $750 purchase of lumber and acceptance of user license 
agreement. Lumber may only be used with MS "Saw".

MS "Saw" must be activated by calling MS before use. You also agree to 
allow MS "Saw" to contact MS when you're not looking and report on who's 
using it, where and how it is being used, and well, whatever else we'd 
like to know.

* MS "Saw" never needs complicated maintenance or blade replacement. 
Should the blade become dull, you can try "rebooting" MS "Saw" by 
unplugging and re-plugging it. If that doesn't help, you can simply 
purchase an upgrade to the next new release.

* Choose from 128 colors that look just like your kid's crayons!

* MS "Saw" requires no training to use, or complicated plans to follow: 
you just "play around with it until it looks ok." (However, if you lose 
a finger or someone gets hurt on your poorly-built deck, remember: we 
have way more lawyers than you. Ask how you can purchase a "MS Certified 
Sawing Engineer" badge.)

* MS "Saw" (Home Basic) can cut lumber to any size, from 12" to 18" in 
1" increments. To cut longer or shorter sizes, you must upgrade to "Saw 
Premium". To cut lengths more precise than 1", you must upgrade to "Saw 
Extra Precision" (good to 1/4") or "Saw Professional" (1/16").

For arbitrary length and precision, you will need MS "Saw Enterprise 
Edition" and you must purchase a "Contractor Access License" for each 
and every project with such requirements. "Saw Professional" and "Saw 
Enterprise" will refuse to function during evenings or weekends.

What about the Linux saw?

* Completely free, no licenses, no expensive extras. You may have to 
make your own blades--but it's fun.

* Comes with hand-crank power module, good for almost 20 seconds of use.

...

Ok, I got a little carried away; you get the idea.

I guess it would go over like a lead balloon if your audience worships 
Bill Gates, or can't appreciate geek humor. Oh, wait...

Joking aside, you could make a point with something like this (not as 
long of course). As I see it, Linux is a lot like a standard power tool 
that you own and use however you like, no strings attached, to the best 
of your training, imagination and ability.

<Joe

[Craig White]

On Thu, 2007-02-01 at 22:59 -0600, Les Mikesell wrote:
> Arch Willingham wrote:
> > How did you do roaming profiles in Linux???
>
> You can NFS mount the whole /home directory, or let the automounter 
> mount individual home directories on access.  It's not quite the same 
> concept but does what you usually want with a bunch of workstations on a 
>   LAN with users logging in anywhere.

----
indeed - and the users' home directory is provided by LDAP and the
kickstart that I created automatically creates the
nsswitch.conf/ldap.conf/auto.master/ssh-keys, certificates and paths
necessary for the mount points so on first boot, any user can log in and
begin working. Of course (and this will make Les smile), the kickstart
install went from 20 minutes to over an hour because after the install,
a yum-update is performed and many, many packages have to be updated.

Macintosh was a bit trickier because it required an anonymous connection
via afpovertcp (netatalk) and some extra hacks in LDAP that provide the
various paths (recalling from memory) apple-user-homeDirectory
apple-user-homeurl from a rather inane apple.schema and hacking each
Macintosh's Directory Services.

Craig

[Arch Willingham]

Those are great and will be appreciated!

-----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail]
[mailto:[e-mail]]On Behalf Of Joe Smith
Sent: Friday, February 02, 2007 12:26 AM
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Need to give a presentation on the benefits of Linux

Arch Willingham wrote:
> I am on a committee of a national organization called Associated
> General Contractors. ...
>
> I have to give a brief presentation this Saturday on Linux to my
> fellow committee members.
> ...

Contractors? Hmm... why not put it in terms they can identify with (and 
have a little fun--shamelessly stolen from various OS/programming gags):

Microsoft "Saw":

* Comes free with $750 purchase of lumber and acceptance of user license 
agreement. Lumber may only be used with MS "Saw".

MS "Saw" must be activated by calling MS before use. You also agree to 
allow MS "Saw" to contact MS when you're not looking and report on who's 
using it, where and how it is being used, and well, whatever else we'd 
like to know.

* MS "Saw" never needs complicated maintenance or blade replacement. 
Should the blade become dull, you can try "rebooting" MS "Saw" by 
unplugging and re-plugging it. If that doesn't help, you can simply 
purchase an upgrade to the next new release.

* Choose from 128 colors that look just like your kid's crayons!

* MS "Saw" requires no training to use, or complicated plans to follow: 
you just "play around with it until it looks ok." (However, if you lose 
a finger or someone gets hurt on your poorly-built deck, remember: we 
have way more lawyers than you. Ask how you can purchase a "MS Certified 
Sawing Engineer" badge.)

* MS "Saw" (Home Basic) can cut lumber to any size, from 12" to 18" in 
1" increments. To cut longer or shorter sizes, you must upgrade to "Saw 
Premium". To cut lengths more precise than 1", you must upgrade to "Saw 
Extra Precision" (good to 1/4") or "Saw Professional" (1/16").

For arbitrary length and precision, you will need MS "Saw Enterprise 
Edition" and you must purchase a "Contractor Access License" for each 
and every project with such requirements. "Saw Professional" and "Saw 
Enterprise" will refuse to function during evenings or weekends.

What about the Linux saw?

* Completely free, no licenses, no expensive extras. You may have to 
make your own blades--but it's fun.

* Comes with hand-crank power module, good for almost 20 seconds of use.

...

Ok, I got a little carried away; you get the idea.

I guess it would go over like a lead balloon if your audience worships 
Bill Gates, or can't appreciate geek humor. Oh, wait...

Joking aside, you could make a point with something like this (not as 
long of course). As I see it, Linux is a lot like a standard power tool 
that you own and use however you like, no strings attached, to the best 
of your training, imagination and ability.

<Joe

[Arch Willingham]

I just finished giving the presentation about three minutes ago. They were blown out of the water about Linux.

Thanks for all of y'all's comments and help!

Arch

-----Original Message-----
From: [e-mail]
[mailto:[e-mail]]On Behalf Of Andy Green
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 4:08 PM
To: For users of Fedora
Subject: Re: Need to give a presentation on the benefits of Linux

Evan Klitzke wrote:
> Why is Apache the most widely used web server? It's not because people
> are attracted to it ideologically, or because of the price tag. It's

Another point is that it is MUCH safer to invest time, mindshare and 
money in an open project.  Apache isn't going anywhere, your competitors 
aren't going to buy it, it will work basically the same for at least the 
next few years...  Microsoft can't change the licensing for it once they 
have you addicted and make you pay each year like a trapped animal...

Even projects that might fade away leave you all the bits you need to 
support it internally: if the quality was good, that is not only no 
worse than using internally generated software, but much better because 
it cost you $0 to develop...  If you get into that situation you can 
also offer money to the original devs to maintain it for you...

I'm sure somebody can step up and help me, but I can't think of any 
negatives about using FOSS stuff.

-Andy

[Ric Moore]

On Sat, 2007-02-03 at 12:09 -0500, Arch Willingham wrote:
> I'm sure somebody can step up and help me, but I can't think of any 
> negatives about using FOSS stuff.

Documentation can be spotty as heck. But that can be a universal problem
when coders are called upon to become doc writers. A good doc-writer is
not necessarily a good coder, and visa-versa. They are two separate
skills.

User interfaces can be cryptic, but that is a Universal problem as well.
But, Linux has its roots in UNIX/Admin mentality and it shows it's head
at times. Let's face it, the entire reason PC's caught on in the first
place was to get something done sooner without having to kiss someone's
butt to do it. Then Windows arrived and even the Pointy Haired Boss
could deal with a computer, as well as Joe Lunchbucket. So, guess what
gets chosen for company wide use? Something with that comforting M$ flag
waving on it.

Now we're starting to see more and more Mac users, on an Intel platform
using another flavor of UNIX and people seem to love it. I think we
screwed the pooch on this one. That ought to be our market, not Jobs.
He's eating ribeyes off our plates. That's the helluvait is that the
application suites installed on an Intel Mac are not that many in
number, but he wisely focused on Audio/Video. He's kicking Windows in
the butt as well. On the other hand, he didn't have to handle the
drivers for 1,000 different soundcards, either. So, in the traditional
UNIX niche, Linux shines brightly. For a newbie-level user installing
for the first time, their mileage may vary as to the degree of
usefulness actually achieved. That's the minus. Ric