[NBLUG/talk] Linux in offices initiative

Jordan Erickson jerickson at logicalnetworking.net
Fri Aug 29 14:04:09 PDT 2014


On 08/29/2014 01:29 PM, Steve S. wrote:
> Agreed on all points, Jordan!
>
> I'll just add one more point, and expand one...
>
> You wrote, "My clients know that I am the one that
> supports their network, and that is their bottom line."
> I'd expand that to the notion that clients want an
> array of options for support; not to say they aren't
> happy with whatever provider they've got, but most
> businesses like to know that there's always a backup;
> other providers who can step into the breach if their
> current provider goes out of business, larger providers
> who can service out-of-area if they expand, etc etc etc.
>
> There's pretty-much always another shop with more
> MS techs, anywhere they look.  Not so much for Linux,
> so it can take a bit of extra "selling" to show them that
> the downsides are more apparent than real, and the
> upsides are very real indeed.
>
> This veers back toward the OP's point about NBLUG
> discussing "best practices,"  If we all had the same
> few core distro's we preferred, the same few solutions
> to each of the substantive business-challenges (and
> if the Linux world outside the NorthBay agreed with
> our selections) then the linux choice would be much
> easier for businesses to make...

What you're talking about doing is standardizing on a "business Linux"
distro of sorts, one that is uniform across all fronts. This is the
exact opposite of what the Linux ecosystem actually is. That being said,
I don't see that there already isn't "standard practices". What I see
most people are used to thinking is, "This looks different, I don't know
how to use it". But with Linux, what people normally see in a GUI tool
is, many times, simply a graphical wrapper for a shell tool.
Many-a-backup programs are simply based off of tar, rsync, etc. for
example, and in my humble opinion, learning the underlying tools is what
counts when you want to become fluent enough in Linux to be able to
support production environments with it.


> You also called out the MS "ecosystem," by which I think
> you meant the self-sufficient all-MS-product office, without
> need for any non-MS product running on their hardware &
> working without putting effort into "compatibility" between
> two different software packages.

Not necessarily. Most businesses always have the weird, quirky apps that
M$ didn't make. What I meant by the ecosystem is that the core of their
computer network (and many of their business partners as well) is M$
dependent. Need Internet Explorer 11 to log into the new version of your
partners billing site? Well, you'll have to upgrade to Win7 for that.
Can't open that .xlsx file that just got e-mailed to you? Upgrade
Office. In the end, it always ends up that you have to pay Microsoft
$$$. Also, the contrast between how single-purpose utilities are
drastically different when you're talking about M$ vs. Linux ecosystems.
For example, your Outlook .PST file got corrupted? There are LOTS of
options out there, and 90% of them cost at least a couple hundred bucks
from third party vendors. It makes sense - if you've paid a few hundred
for Office, and another couple hundred for Windows, of course you'll
shell out some more to get it working correctly again.

That's what I meant by the ecosystem.


>
> The other issue I see is a b2b-level compatibility.  Most
> businesses want 100% compatibility with whatever their
> customers/clients/vendors/regulators/partners/etc use.
> When they send out a document, they need to know that
> the recipient will see exactly what they saw; when they
> open a document from elsewhere, they want to be sure
> they're seeing it exactly as-written.  In my wife's office, for
> example, there's a problem even with different versions of
> MS-Word (MS-Win vs OS X), which occasionally display
> somewhat differently.  OOo (which they've seen & used)
> is a complete non-starter because it is so very different in
> its output.

I see this as a diminishing issue, at least with document compatibility.
I haven't been in too many situations where people are e-mailing Word or
Excel docs back and forth to people outside their own office for
editing. The norm that I've seen is PDF export, which seems to work very
well, including from OOo. Go figure, Adobe! ;)

Going back to an earlier point, I actually think that standardizing on a
single Linux distro, and congregating around a single set of tools to
accomplish standard business tasks could actually end up hurting what
makes Linux so strong in the first place. I've been around long enough
to see that as soon as you take away the element of choice, you
ostracize the community that would otherwise be helping make it better.
I've seen this with numerous Ubuntu/Canonical initiatives. Not to say
that it isn't a good distro, but there have been a lot of hard feelings
generated when Shuttleworth has layed his iron fist down and told the
community that 'this is the way it's going to be'. He has to remember
that diversity is the key to the success of Linux, as does everyone I
think. When you take that diversity away, problems arise.


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