Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2001 06:44:45 +0000 (GMT) From: Kris Kirby <kris@catonic.net> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> Cc: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>, Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in>, Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>, Chip Wiegand <chip@wiegand.org>, FreeBSD Chat <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Just an observation - MUA's seen in the lists Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0104140628540.16456-100000@spaz.huntsvilleal.com> In-Reply-To: <200104140559.WAA05887@usr05.primenet.com>
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On Sat, 14 Apr 2001, Terry Lambert wrote:
> > That, of course, is why FreeBSD isn't going anywhere in an office. It
> > can't break the monopoly hold that MS has on the desktop.
>
> It's not a monopoly issue. If the training were transferrable to
> FreeBSD, it would be a non-issue.
We certainly know the reverse is true, if the person has been whacked in
the head with an old IBM 101-key PS/2 keyboard long enough. :)
> > I admit I'm a geek, but I still disagree. Once it's installed and
What is this, Geeks Anonymous? :)
> > configured, FreeBSD is perfectly usable by those people. It requires
> > no more training tha MS-Windows does. It is *perfectly* suitable for
> > supporting an MUA; there are no technical, usability or even intuitive
> > issues (but see Raskin on intuition) that make it inferior to
> > MS-Windows. The only problem it has is that finding people who have
> > already drunk the MS cool-aid is easy, whereas finding people trained
> > for some Unix toolset is hard.
My motivation was getting a MUA that wasn't graphical (could be run over a
terminal) and had a smaller {memory|disk} footprint than Netscape's
Communicator.
> People _already_ have training on Windows. You're asking me to fork
> out another $2,500 to train them on a particular application on
> FreeBSD, where the money I spend is flushed down the toilet, because
> it's not transferrable to another application in the same niche that
> runs on FreeBSD (is "F1 = Help"? --- one example).
This is a damn good case for StarOffice. Too bad they don't have a Mac
port... yet. Mac OS X is out, right?
> No, it doesn't. I have to learn the UNIX specific keyboard
> shortcuts. I have to learn how to make the "home" and "end"
> keys do what I expect them to do, in all their standard/ctrl/alt
> glory.
Know much about programming VT100-alike terminals? I've been dying to know
how to get the six keys where Insert-Page Down are to work.
> Really? I can give you Excel and Word 2000 documents that will
> crash both KDE apps and StarOffice, and I'll be damned if, when
> I send you an email with them attached, your Netscape will know
> about opening the right application, until you beat it over the
> head with a shovel.
Can you give me StarOffice documents that will crash Excel and Word in
MS's own native formats? That would be more useful to me in my War against
MS in the office >:-). [Think BOFH.]
> No. In order to do business, you have to pay the devil his
> due, and that means running Microsoft products, and business
> doesn't give a flying whether you like that or not.
Reminds me of my bit of futility when I heard about Napster; I photocopied
a random MS CD and stuck it on the wall. I would suppose that you can't be
sued for software piracy without actually copying the software. The CD
layout itself is probably a different matter. (Look at OpenBSD's CD
situation for the explaination.)
-----
Kris Kirby, KE4AHR | TGIFreeBSD... 'Nuff said.
<kris@nospam.catonic.net> |
-------------------------------------------------------
"Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony."
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