Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 10:16:29 +1000 From: Stanley Hopcroft <Stanley.Hopcroft@IPAustralia.gov.au> To: FreeBSD-Questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: How does FreeBSD make a difference in a government context ? Message-ID: <20010920101628.B5729@IPAustralia.Gov.AU>
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Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, I am writing to ask your advice about demonstrating the value of FreeBSD servers (DDNS, DHCP, routers, Samba) in a 'public service'/'Government context'. If this organsiation is typical of 'government' operations then those operations are characterised by 1. dominating personalities driven by self interest. Often stupid, cruel and vindictive. The major visbile aspects of personality seem to me to be complete cluelessness about computing, sycophancy, and lack of integrity. They select people on the basis of their compliancy. The love consultancies/contracts because that makes the consultant beholden to them. 2. predominant use of MS 'operating systems' in 'file-servers' and desktop but Solaris, AIX etc for 'mission critical' applications 3. inhouse application development with MS tools or with an MS centric attitude 4. apart from talk, absolutely __no__ regard for budget or cost. Waste is not a problem for government; efficiency means buying shrink wrapped product. Replacing a FreeBSD service on a 486/P90 with MS NT/2000 on a PIII 1GHz, is viewed as 'an efficiency' (replacing a box bound to fail) Characteristic 1 suggests to me that any installation depending on FreeBSD services is vulnerable to a so called 'manager' 'deciding' to replace FreeBSD services by MS based ones. This can be claimed as an efficiency because clerks can manage NT services (eg DHCP fixed address, DNS changes with the GUI) and <management_voice> "Microsoft technology is the way of the future"</managemen_voice> Please can you let me know how I can defend myself by arguing the quantifiable benefits of FreeBSD infrastructure ? Code Red may be part of the answer since (???) IIS is built into MS Win 2000. Thank you, Yours sincerely -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stanley Hopcroft IP Australia Network Specialist +61 2 6283 3189 +61 2 6281 1353 (FAX) Stanley.Hopcroft@IPAustralia.Gov.AU ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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