Linux Should Be Shunned 467
esimp writes: "In the August issue of CFO magazine, their tech report on servers goes on to say,
"Linux has a passionate following among the tech-savvy, and mainstream support from such hardware and application vendors as IBM,Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, SAP, and others. But not everyone is a fan. Meta Group Inc. analyst Peter Firstbrook goes so far as to say that 'Linux should be shunned. It should not be a part of the business process.' Firstbrook objects to the very feature that most tout as Linux's number one asset--the fact that anyone can tweak the code--because it creates a situation in which an IT staffer may
make changes that no one else knows about, and that probably go undocumented." That's right, because if someone you hired doesn't have proper documentation skills, it's all Linux's fault.
Re:At least one person knows about the chage (Score:2)
emacs httpd.conf
cvs ci -m "Fixed the problem with the foo.bar.com virtual server." httpd.conf
How do you do that in Windows???
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
Trusting your own people. (Score:2)
Translation:
Hiring someone to build and maintain a custom system requires that you trust them. Better to keep your programmers like your software and hardware -- untrusted and disposable.
Well, at least he's honest about his values.
Re:What were the rest of his comments? (Score:2)
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
Re:Tinkering with software should be banned? (Score:2)
I would go with RTF, rather than HTML, but [HT|X]ML is definitely the way Word itself is going (with a few proprietory extensions so MS can embrace and extend of course). The real bugbear though is MS's "Html mail" which is the worst idea I have ever seen - how to modify email to encapsulate the worst excesses of web browser bugs, make your machine hang for minutes if you read email offline, and generally make the most open, standards based communications system on the internet dependent on using an MS client.
--
CFOs and tech industry analysts should be shunned (Score:3)
- Their tech staff is boldly irresponsible
- Their tech staff is generally against the company
- The smarter an employee is, the more dangerous s/he is
- It makes you sound smart if you say "Linux should not be a part of the business process," as opposed to saying something simpler such as "Don't use Linux."
- Giving employees tools that they prefer causes them to "tinker" instead of developing interesting new methods to improve your business
- Finding the best tool to solve a problem is less important than finding one that keeps your employees at bay
- The "cool" factor is inherently a negative
Now... who put these assholes in charge?--
Just 'cause it's cool? (Score:2)
Anti-Linux comments or not, if Firstbrook is nervous because he's got someone in his emply with the ability/skillset to work on the Linux (or any OS) kernel, then there's some significantly wrong with Firstrbooks value system. In my world, talented people like this are often sought after and not considered a liability.
"Linux is out there and people are using it, but it is mostly because of the cool factor."
Being an IT person, I don't install anything [at work] just because it's cool (or at least not by the definiton of "cool" that Firstbrook uses). I install technology because I have a goal to be made, and I want the tool(s) that perform the job best, with the lowest allocation of resources. When I deploy Linux, it's because it's the best tool for the job. Same for the OpenBSD, Solaris, and NT boxen I've deployed. I suspect my motivations aren't all that unique among other IT staff across the globe. I take offense to Firstbrook implying that my motives are anything different than trying to do the best job for my customer.
Based on the snippit CFO magazine gave, I believe this Firstbrook person from MetaGroup really has no idea on why intelligent people are valuable to business, nor how an IT group works. This would make me think Mr. Firstbrook no business advising CFO's, and I'm curious as to why CFO magazine would pick someone this backwards to quote in their article.
Re:TCO vs. Truth (Score:2)
For instance, compare supporting a Samba server running off a Linux box serving 1,000 users to a Windows 2000 solution doing the same thing.
Well that's hardly fair... SMB is native to Windows and a shittier protocol would be hard to find. Samba is reverse engineered and pasted onto unix like a big clown's nose.
NFS might be a better comparison since it is an open protocol... I'll bet on linux being easier.
"Free your mind and your ass will follow"
RedHat support (Score:2)
Re:So tell me about CP/M? (Score:2)
I wonder if they even talk about ISAM, hash tables and B+ trees in Computer Science these days.
No we don't study those algorithms anymore... they're all patented so we're not allowed to have them in our textbooks, or even think about them. Isn't the industry wonderful?
No really, we don't study that stuff we just skip from "hello world" to advanced AI studies... those old algorithms are out of style. I wouldn't be caught dead with a B+ tree, I mean really.
Who cares about CP/M anyway? I mean you can't expect people to know that shit. It's like expecting them to know how to use punch cards to code with. DOS is still used in production environments, and it's not that much of a stretch to expect a "Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer" (what did you say? engineer? you mean you went to college? no? oh i must have you confused with those other engineers... you must mean engineer like on the railroad) to be able to fscking install DOS. Anyone who can read and switch floppies can install DOS 6.22.
I take that back. Apparently not anyone.
"Free your mind and your ass will follow"
Re:Not that anyone's reading this late anyway... (Score:2)
Additionally, Firstbrook fretted that Linux sys admins tend to spend too much time "tinkering". This implied that he sees tinkering as a bad thing. The alternative to tinkering is following vendor-supplied instructions, which in turn implies calls to support.
Can you tinker with a Microsoft system? Sure. Can you learn a lot and become expert on it through tinkering? Sure. Does that mean that open-source is worse? No. Firstbrook's attitude appeared -- to me -- to be, "Anyone who actually enjoys and understands this is a threat". I'm not sure what we're a threat to: perhaps the bottom line, perhaps the "business model", perhaps to his own sense of worth and accomplishment.
But his arguments were just specious. Firs tof all, it's not at all clear that the ability and inclination to "tinker" actually lowers one's productive worth. In fact, I think the evidence is exactly opposite. Second, tinkering is not restricted to Linux. It can happen in MS, too. Indeed, because so much of MS is opaque, a lot of MS tinkering is "try this, oops, didn't work, try this instead". I believe that this sort of tinkering is more likely to be poorly documented and non-recoverable. After all, you can always just keep old versisons of the source for Linux...
Re:I unfortunately agree... (Score:2)
I went for an interview with Chase Manhattan (sp?), the job was to provide programming support for traders. I didn't get the job (up too late the night before, brain wasn't working for the IQ tests...doh!) anyway, at the presentation when I asked about the tech they were using, they said that they normally stay about 2 years behind the bleeding edge. The interview was last year, and they were only just considering Java...
I now work in mobile telecoms, and the OMC (Operation and Maintenance Center) systems all run Solaris 2.5.1, yeah it's shit old, but when the job is mission/revenue critical, you need to go with something tried and tested.
Although that said, were moving to NT....doh!
Bill Gates should not be screwing with my OS. (Score:2)
"Linux is out there and people are using it, but it is mostly because of the cool factor," he [Peter Firstbrook] says. "Having somebody who can screw around with my operating system would make me very, very nervous," he says.
I concur, letting Bill Gates and his crew of morons screw around with windows is a very bad thing and I wouldn't trust an OS like that, not for a second. Thank god you can read the source code of Linux to find out exactly what's going on. It's great having an OS where the question of whether or not can trust the manufacturer is not even an issue.
Windows zealots. (Score:2)
Am I joking? You decide...
on rogue sysadmins (Score:2)
That's right, because if someone you hired
doesn't have proper documentation skills, it's all Linux's fault.
That's not what he was talking about, Taco. That's the second time this week I caught you missing the point of a statement in a news article.
He was referring to the fact that a sysadmin running Linux could more than easily backdoor any or all of the systems they supervise. Of course, while they call this crap security, we call it job security.
This isn't as easy to do with an unopen OS... you can open up certain services that only you know about, but the first thing the next admin is going to do is go over all the config files and running daemons to get familiar with the system and shut down anything that doesn't look right. On a closed OS, it might also be possible to patch a few binaries, but that's not quite so easy as throwing a few extra lines into something like
I would have to agree with Firstbrook that this is a risk that can mainly be attributed to open source operating systems, but you need to go back to the old question, Do the benefits outweigh the risks?
In the case of Linux, *BSD, and others I think they certainly do.
Re:Possible right conclusion, definite wrong reaso (Score:5)
I would be very interested to see a documented case of Microsoft or Sun being sued and having to pay consequential damages for a bug in their software. Every license and contract I have seen from these folks SPECIFICALLY excludes responsibility for such.
At least one person knows about the chage (Score:5)
That's OK. a quick re-installation of the OS should clear up the problem.
To: Peter Firstbrook, Guess what ?! (Score:2)
All changes made by Microsoft to the source code in Windows products (Windows NT, Windows98, Windows200, etc.) are TOTALLY UNDOCUMENTED!!!!!
BECAUSE Microsoft products are closed source!
We almost never know what changes are being made in new versions and even updates of Windows.
Stephen Nodvin
Why not (Score:2)
What a moronic statement that was, thats like blameing Chevrolet because your car can run out of gas.
CFO - The next step... (Score:2)
All the CFO like people I have worked with in large corporations can't even use their address book in email, much less have any real understanding about how software works, or what should be used.
This is one wall which linux will most likly bump up against for a little while, much like it did against the IT managers two years ago. Chances are linux will break through that wall once IT managers, who now are starting to accept it, go a step further and start to preach it to their highers ups.
Anyone who has worked in large business envirnments should not be suprised by the lack of knowledge this displays. Also, based on my experience with beancounters, it is not uncommon for them to see things as a completly black and white matter, which they claim to understand based on some "things they have heard," even if it _is_ from some "expert" on the subject, who probably can't use his own address book either.
-Pete
I unfortunately agree... (Score:3)
In a financial firm, you care about reliability. You don't care about cool. You don't care about saving OS costs. You're dealing with large sums of money, and the risk of a system going down is huge.
This isn't a NT/Linux thing. It is a pick your OS thing. No financial firm puts important things on NT. Their financial stuff (ya know, the core business) is based on a mainframe. They probably have some Unix servers that do some number crunching by connecting to that mainframe. The NT Servers store people's profiles and handle printers, maybe Exchange. The Windows or NT workstations run Microsoft Office, and more important, a 3270 emulator.
These companies shouldn't want to risk running anything on a box where the tech could have been playing with recompiling the kernel to get a tweak that broke something that he didn't know about.
You buy a reasonable package with a good support contract, and your techs keep the things going.
Can a tech screw up an NT or Solaris machine? Absolutely. Is it as likely as screwing with a Linux box? Not even remotely.
Your Linux admin is much more likely to play with settings, recompile the kernel, and do other major things. The source availability is part of it. The culture of Linux is another.
You can't risk that. If the NT machine is screwy, redoing the installation actually isn't such a bad option. If you have reasonable documentation, you can get the box back up in an hour. Good luck keeping as good docs with a Linux box. I use both systems in my company, and it is impossible to keep a Linux doc, you make too many changes. A NT box is really straightfoward and has less tweaking.
This is a REAL issue. Whining about NT's problems doesn't fix it.
However, why do you care? Does your ability to enjoy Linux depend upon banks and traders print servers running on Linux instead of NT? These are the most conservative companies in the world. That is a good thing. I'd HATE to think that banks were using leading edge machines with the problems. They need reliable systems.
Ripping on NT techs, the usual response to anything critical of Linux staffing, is immature, rude, and irrelevant. If you are hiring bad MCSEs, then fix your staffing problems. Tell HR to look for experience, not courses. Interview people. Having your MCSE certification doesn't mean that you are stupid. In fact, I think you would NOT find a negative intelligence correlation with certification, in fact, it is probably a positive one.
I make a lot of hiring decisions where I am. I few coursework (MCSE classes, Perl classes, etc.) as a negative point. However, I view certifications as a positive. I want people that poke around and learn, not need a $3000 class to learn a new skill.
Studying on your own for your MCSE exam is a good thing. Learning the material (I used the resource kit, not study aids) is a good thing and helps you learn the OS.
The fact that NT has problems doesn't mask Linux's. Furthermore, the choice is never only between NT and Linux. There ARE other OSes, and companies that deal with billions of dollars and depend on IT don't really care about the cost of a Solaris box.
Blame poor process not linux (Score:2)
Sure, it is a weakness if you have no process and change control plan on modifiying software within your environment, but the weakness is not Linux, it is your process that is weak!
Re:TCO vs. Truth (Score:2)
In my experience, the only reason the NT TCO can be less than the UNIX/Linux TCO is because of scenarios like the following:
The NT file server is not responding. MCSE spends 5 minutes taking a look at the hosed server and says, "Let's try rebooting." Twenty minutes later the server is back up and operating. The MCSE records the event as "Fixed file server, 30 minutes".
This is not how we fix things in the UNIX/Linux world. We try to figure out what actually happened and make sure it doesn't happen again. While it does cost the IT department less money to pay a monkey to reboot the box than to buy a brain to think about what happened in the first place, the entire company loses much more money in employee time.
other operating systems can be tweaked too (Score:5)
Re:TCO vs. Truth (Score:2)
The only involvement that the HR dept. has been left with in the hiring processes at the last two companies I've managed was simply offer letters and benefits coordination. They don't even interview the person as a rule. You get a better class of people at a better price that way.
Over here we let HR interview people, but their role is solely to make sure we don't hire a technicaly compitant but worthless person. Ie, HR makes sure the person we have in for an interview today isn't going to become an axe murder while here. Okay, so that is a bit extreem, but you get the idea. Not that we always let them interview, but sometimes. They don't know technical subjects, but they are supposed to be able to detect people lieing about their abilities/expirence.
We agree though, HR doesn't know technical people. (That is us technical people and HR here) They do however know people in general, and technical people are a lot closer to normal people than you might think. ;)
Re:My thoughts about Peter Firstbrook (Score:2)
I dunno, I think a lot of the success of Windows can be attributed to peer pressure.
Better idea... (Score:4)
How about don't waste time suing in the first place? It seems a rather naive idea, not coming from someone in the business world, but I wonder whatever happened to the concept of "fix the problem, buck up, and move the fsck on." Losing money for various reasons is a fact of life that individuals deal with their entire lives, and unless that money is illegally taken from them, most people don't go to court to get it back. It doesn't surprise me that a corporation doesn't work this way, but that doesn't make me feel any better about the reality.
Want to really show the offending company/programmer your displeasure? Write 'em a nice letter explaining why you won't be using any of their software and/or going with a competitor's solution in the future.
Assuming that companies do try to sue for faulty software...I wonder how much cheaper it would be to forgo a legal route, send the bloody letter, and spend time making up for lost money rather than pissing more away in the courtroom whining about "lost profits". I can see where a small, struggling company might want to go this route in the event of a great disaster, but don't most licenses preclude legal action, anyway?
In any event, the suing angle is a straw man. In open source, you fix the bug - or get the programmer to - because you have the source.
Just tell your boss "...and if it fails, we can fix it right away and get back on our feet in short order. We don't have to bother threatening the programmer, because his code is right here for us to fix ourselves." Eh, it's worth a shot.
Purchased Linux support (Score:4)
Re:TCO vs. Truth (Score:3)
As for different depts running better, if yours is running better, good training and management are responsible for that as well, so compliment intended. If people want good techs, there is no reason they should not be able to grow and train their own. Nobody wants to invest in someone's training anymore it seems. When the employees finally take the steps to train themselves, they are often forced to leave to get "experience". I agree completely about cookie cutter technicians. I'm not even saying that there is a lower TCO one way or another (Something I think is impossible to qualitatively determine).
What I am trying to say is that no tech is "better" than another because they specialize is Sun, NT, Linux or whatever else. To compare a 14 year industry veteran who runs the unix boxes to a 3 year NT admin is never going to a fair comparison. You need to compare based on total experience. I would like to see some of these companies that are complaining about a lack of technicians do something about it.
PS, time to get the HR dept out of the hiring process.
Re:At least one person knows about the chage (Score:3)
Case in point:
Lets make our webserver require authentication for certain directories.
IIS: click a few buttons, done, 10 minutes
Apache: change a config file (10 minutes if you know what you are doing, 60 if you don't)
The point of this illustration is that it requires thought, knowledge AND foresight to make the appropriate modification of a configuration in Linux. In Windows a few random buttons get clicked and some text entered into little boxes.
On what system do you think IT staffers are more likely to make undocumented changes, the one with lots of pretty little buttons or the one with flexible and powerful and occasionaly daunting text-based configuration? On what system is that IT staffer more likely to make documentation as he goes? I think Linux.
Spyky
evil linux... needs people not contracts (Score:2)
Lack of Documentation and communication skills (Score:2)
I can relate to that. I work at a place where we have a computer guy who installs Windows solutions everwhere; unfortunately, his communication skills are mute. It works both ways.
In this case, it is even worse, because the underlying operating system is full of undocumented holes and not designed for hacking. No one can really grasp why the hell his software fails often because the debugging tools are not there, but expensively licensed on one machine.
Re:I unfortunately agree... (Score:5)
i work at a telco/financial company. most of our major money making systems have a linux component - in fact in several cases they're all linux. our admins understand the need for 24x7 uptime and the need for planning ahead when things go wrong (disk on fire for instance). our linux boxes, admined incorrectly could fuck us over. which is why we use rcs for config files, kickstart for box installs, documentation for inhouse software and mailman based mailing lists for communication. because the power that allows one to do bad things also allows us to do great things if we're responsible and keep our heads out of our asses.
scalpels can kill people, safety scissors probably can't. what do you want to see in a surgeon's hands?
Securing Binaries (Score:2)
Have a physically/network secure computer sit with copies of all the binaries on all the computers. Only one port needs to be open - your verification protocol, and it dosen't have to answer queries, only make them.
<p>
Every so often, it challanges a server: give me a MD5 checksum of a group of binaries, concatanated together and append this random filled file I am sending you (to make it more difficult for people to fake the response by just storing MD5 signatures they see travel on the network... not that this shouldn't be done via SSL anyway).
<p>
Even better security would be to do the same, only use a partition for
<p>
Of course, that just makes sure that the binaries *you* made are there... everybody remembers Dennis Ritchie's tainted C compiler that inserted it's own viral code into newly compiled C compilers, *even if the code wasn't in the source*, right?
<p>
There are valid reasons for having a compiler source that is religiously open (Thank GNU).
<p>
--
Evan
Re:Better idea... (Score:2)
Or perhaps the software vendor should deliver what their salespeople are promising. If you say your software will do something, then it had better do it, and do it right.
Re:So tell me about CP/M? (Score:2)
There's lot's of arcane knowledge in this world. Just because someone doesn't know it doesn't make them stupid.
That is true. However:
How would you create a new bootable floppy disk?
SYSGEN
How do you copy file.doc from A: to B:?
PIP b:=a:file.doc
How do you tell how much free space is left on your floppy?
STAT n: (where n is the drive letter)
At what memory address were programs typically loaded from disk?
0100H
The point? I did one Google search and the answers appeared before my eyes. It wasn't hard. Surely, if it was job related, I would have tried harder and answered the rest of the questions. Surely, one of the 5 guys could have taken a little initiative and TRIED!
Re:What were the rest of his comments? (Score:2)
On the other hand, you could treat people with the respect they deserve and you might learn a thing or two in the process. Works for me, when talking to these "idiots" who don't know a token ring from an ethernet.
Re:What were the rest of his comments? (Score:2)
While it would be nice for every executive at every tech company to know at least enough about their own technological infrastructure and products to be able to pay attention at meetings with the production and IT departments, it's not realistic. What bugs me about the statements made in the article is the gall of the CFO quoted to even attempt to make technology-related advice. That's why there are CIOs, or even just plain low-level managers. Unless they're really just a bunch of geeks in suits, the executive-level management of a company shouldn't try to concern itself with decisions like what server OS to run, because it usually indicates they aren't paying enough attention to their own job.
Undocumented tinkering a problem? (Score:2)
They are really stretching hard to find something to hate about Linux.
-Jordan Henderson
Re:My past experience with MSCE's (Score:2)
Microsoft is doing to software what MacDonald's did to food. Both are financially extremely successful, and both are ultimately neither tasty nor good for you.
Re:NTFS C: drive is stupid? (Score:2)
In fact, your response is pretty characteristic of why NT is such a bad deal: you need zillions of commercial third party packages for all sorts of eventualities, and you get nickled-and-dimed to death, not to mention all the time that is wasted on this stuff.
Re:Why not (Score:2)
As near as I can tell, they are talking about IT staffers making "internal tweaks" to free software used in mission critical aplications and not telling anybody, not potential bugs or undocumented features of stock software.
Obviously anybody in the business of using tweaked versions of any software (free, or commercial with source avaiable) internally should set up a CVS repository for this purpose (or whatever VC system they use).
People who actually know what they are talking about (as opposed to CFOs, a clueless lot all around) realize that no company should rely on software without source if they can avoid it at all. I don't know how many hours I have spent on the phone, or preparing test cases for HP to get them to fix bugs that I could have probably fixed in an hour, given the source. Same with Oracle, except that at least it is possible to relink all of their software, so you can strip out a broken function and replace it (I have done this, and 3 weeks later am still wating for an "official" patch from Oracle).
Summary (Score:5)
1) Linux has source, so you can change the source, and recompile without documenting it. On the other hand, when you use OSes like Solaris and Windows, changes you make to the system are magically written down in your logbook, without you having to ever lift a finger.
2) Software itself doesn't cost that much compared with labor. And since we all know that Linux admins are all clueless bastards who spend most of their time wondering what the su utility does, while MCSEs are all highly-trained professionals with impeccable credentials and a top-notch knowledge base, using linux means hiring hundreds of admins to administer a cobbled-together, bloated OS running on excessive hardware, while using NT means hiring only a tiny handful of well-trained Microsoft puppets to run that lean, mean, tidy OS.
3) Did I mention how NT admins are invariably well-trained? And highly knowledgeable? While most Linux and other Unix admins are still dithering over the difference between "Enter" and "Return" on their keyboards?
Oh wait, that _wasn't_ what he meant? I'd love to hear what he
Trust employees? WHEN??? (Score:4)
Since when does a classicly-organized company ever trust its employees? How many organizations have you worked for that tracked your telephone usage, your hours (even for salaried people), your attendence every day?
Ever work for a place that didn't require a "weekly report" or equivalent, even at the manager, director, and even the VP level?
How about expense reports? I was once gigged for "spending too much" when I picked up the tab for a dinner for 12 where the publisher of the magazine I worked for splurged on wine -- the tab went on my AmEx card, and the publisher red-flagged the expense until he was "reminded" about who really made the charge...
Ever get screwed out of compensatory time off because the manager that offered it at the time the "overtime" was necessary to meet schedule goals "wasn't authorized to offer comp time?" I got nailed with that twice (in two different companies) before I learned to check with the policy people before accepting the tradeoff.
Speaking of time, I have yet to see any in-house IT project come on time, on target, and on budget. Indeed, in the early days my consulting business was built on implementating the disasters that an IT department (it wasn't called IT back then) spawned. What amazed me was how simple it was to bring in what the bosses wanted, dumping the frills that IT layered on that weren't on target to the job.
Reminds me of a very old story: a car company's data processing department had screwed up an order generation program that takes car orders and determines when and how much of parts need to be ordered to build the cars on the schedule. A consultant was hired, and he wrote the program on the plane on his way to Detroit. He had the thing keypunched, and it ran right out of the box, at a rate of one car order per second. The MIS department said "Well, our program can run at 150 cars per second." The consultant said "OK, I can beat that" and wrote a 10-line program that read order cards as fast as the card reader would feed them. "But, but, but, that program doesn't do anything!"
The consultant responded, "but neither does yours -- that's why I was hired."
What more to say? (Score:2)
(emmett said:) That's right, because if someone you hired doesn't have proper documentation skills, it's all Linux's fault.
Well, heck! No point in posting any comments now!
Actually, I just have one small comment.
The biggest benefit from the freedom to modify source code, to me, has never been the fact that I can tweak it to do what I want. Typically, if the software doesn't do what I want, I'll just keep hunting for something that does.
No, I usually find the benefit of open-source (or free software, whatever) is that you can take a peek, and see exactly what a piece of software does. In this regard, sometimes, the source code is worth more than all the documentation in the world.
Re:Securing Binaries (Score:2)
Not sure why I'm replying to an AC on this issue, but the reason there have been several otherwise intelligent people posting with HTML in their code (at least for some of them) is because Konqueror, the KDE2 browser, causes the dropdown to reset to Extrans. Very annoying - it caught me twice.
--
Evan
Re:TCO vs. Truth (Score:2)
For instance, compare supporting a Samba server running off a Linux box serving 1,000 users to a Windows 2000 solution doing the same thing.
Actually this message is being typed on a box that does just that, as well as serving the same directories to MAC users via atalk. For completeness sake, Pharlap here serves about 60 gigs of data daily.
Re:NTFS C: drive is stupid? (Score:2)
Freely available source code isn't new (Score:3)
Does this guy realize that the entire internet runs on software that has had source available for eons before Internet Explorer even existed? Sendmail, BIND, etc. have always come in source form.
Somehow, the internet grew despite the threat of freely-available source code for the software that power it. Amazing.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Re:I unfortunately agree... (Score:2)
You paint a picture of a sys admin as a cowboy, not much more responsible than a teenage hacker.
A sys admin is responsible for uptime. The ones that I have met and hired do not fit your description. A production server is a locked server, if there's a problem, it's fixed. If there is no problem it's maintained, it's not tweaked. A server that is being tweaked is a server being built.
If one of my staff on any of my projects ever did something as stupid as tweak a kernal on a production machine they would be dismissed. There is no excuse for that level of incompetence from a person at that level of responsibility. Period.
Sir, either your logic is flawed, you have not met responsible competent sys admins, or you have spent way too much time outside of a real business environment. I refute your arguement and your logic for it and I can only hope that not too many other people view the sys admin in your light.
Documentation Skills (Score:2)
That's right, because if someone you hired doesn't have proper documentation skills, it's all Linux's fault.
Regardless of an employee's documentation skills, this is indeed one of the problems with the development model that the open source community has embraced. Furthermore, most open source applications are poorly documented; both internal and external documentation are simply pathetic. Why do you think there has been such a push for the Linux Documentation Project?
Re:Ok, so let's take the author at his word... (Score:2)
So yes, for RPM and dpkg based distros (at least), which covers most of them (other distro users, please chime in and say if you can check or not...) you can readily verify whether or not the files on disk match the checksums on the package.
Of course, if said IS person made a package with their changes without including some documentation (at least a note in the package changelog!), the checksum would still match (as the files on disk *do* match the package). The solution to this is to check against the checksum of the package on ths CD (debsums can do this, assume RPM can), or to make bloody sure that your IS people don't do that sort of thing without documenting it
Idiots that get into print (Score:5)
First, this is a human issue, not a technical issue. The same can (and should) be said for any other operating system. One is able to tweak NT's registry, or Novell's set parameters, and fail to document the changes.
Second: This supposes that one did not make a full image backup of the system. As an administrator, I would discharge anyone that did not take this elementary and common precaution. . This is a trivial exercise in Unix, almost impossible in NT, and somewhat difficult in Novell.
I timed initiating a complete restore for the following systems:
1. AIX - 15 minutes (mostly waiting for the tape to finish booting) Extra software purchase required at unknown cost.
2. SCO - 5 minutes (2 diskettes to boot, insert tape, press 1) Extra software purchase required at $300 US per system
3. Linux - 20 minutes to configure partitions and format, then restore Used native software only at no extra cost
4. BSDi - 20 Minutes to configure partitions and format, then restore Used native software only at no extra cost
5. Novell - 1 hour 50 minutes to load OS and restore application software. Extra software purchase required at $1000 US per system Full restore from backup not possible because some files were open during backup and not backed up. Some manual intervention was required during the restore process.
6. NT - over a day to load OS and restore software, configure same. Not able to completely restore tape as some files were open and not backed up, system repeatedly locked up during restore. Manual intervention during restore process needed many times. Extra software purchase required at $1000 US per system.
NOTE: Only time spent actually completing tasks to start the backup is included in these times. This also included the time needed to configure the restore software, add the restore media device to the OS including drivers and software. The time required to actually complete the restore is not included as this is a function of the amount of data on the system and the speed of the restore media device, drivers and hardware.
Third: Gartner Groups analysis of NT shows that it takes 33% more time to administrate NT as opposed to Novell and Unix system, requiring more administrator time and cost.
Firstbrook also takes issue with Linux's most famous feature--the fact that it is free. "Our analysis says that the cost of the operating system is only 3 percent of the total cost of ownership of the server," he says.
And I suppose that once you buy a car, one never need buy gas? Only a complete idiot thinks that the purchase is the end of expenditure of any item.
Labor is a far more significant proportion of IT costs, and the very cost that is likely to be affected if employees spend time tinkering with Linux.
Or playing Quake, or Arena, or Flight Simulator. My experience is that my peers tend to tinker at home, where interruptions are at a minimum. Again, this isn't an issue of the operating system, this is a management issue. Bad management is possible in any operating system environment.
"Linux is out there and people are using it, but it is mostly because of the cool factor," he says.
And it's likin' to be seein' the survey that got those numbers I'd be.
As a class, systems people tend to ignore hype and look to the heart of the matter. "Is this the appropriate technology? Will it do what I need? Will the total cost be reasonable? Is it dependable, and will it run on equipment we can maintain?" are all questions my peers and I ask of any product being deployed. Mr. Firstbrook implies that my peers and I are idiots and will use any cool tool that comes along. My response is that most of us choose the tool best suited for the task as best we're able and given to understand that task.
A survey of over eighteen million web sites by www.netcraft.net [netcraft.net] shows that Linux is running 35.73%, Microsoft is running 21.32%.Source: www.netcraft.net/survey [netcraft.net] Further, studies show that Linux/Apachie are gaining market share from almost everyone.
"Having somebody who can screw around with my operating system would make me very, very nervous," he says. --T.R.
Mr. Firstbrook must live in terror or only hire incompetent help. It is possible to "screw around" with all operating systems more complex than the one to run a toaster, and even that has an adjustment for how brown you want your toast. NT has registry settings, configuration files, and so on. Novell has it's set commands, configuration files, .NLM's. Unix has programming, configuration
files, and many many other ways to "tweak" it.
My suggestion to Mr. Firstbrook is that he look for another line of work, as he is ignorant of how and why computers work, what it takes to run them, and how to choose what to run.
huh? (Score:2)
Number of cases where an IT professional caused trouble by messing with the source code on windows = 0
Therefore messing with the source code is a bad thing?
Huh?!?!
Re:TCO vs. Truth (Score:3)
People are lazy. The defense for HR when they hire an incompetent is "Well, he was an MCSE...".
I work in a backward industry for a company that does not have the resources or savvy to only get the best... There are companies around here that have much better pay and benefits and they get the best techs. But I'm also sure that many companies are the same.
Perhaps I should say that a "Unix Professional" is generally of a higher caliber than an "NT professional" of like station. I'm not sure that this is my point.
The point is that the media will have you believe that the cost to maintain a *nix is prohibitive. This is not the case. The cost to run an IT infrastructure depends on your ability to recruit able staffers which is something that every department has trouble with at every business.
The current cookie cutter become an NT professional in 2 weeks system will be the downfall of NT much as it would be if a similar program was started for Linux, Solaris, etc... The testing for an MCSE is based more around knowing the new features than knowing how to operate a server.
I got my MCSE about 3 years ago, and will not update for 2000. The certification has been made a mockery of by the company that is supposed to guarantee it's sanctity.
I'm not looking for sympathy, only refuting the too often touted TCO that always gets tossed into the fray by journalists that make assinine comments like this one. And our companies hiring policies are the very same ones that hired our *nix group. Why the disparity? Even in management, they were hired to manage.
But hey, if the sucess of our *nix group is due to good training and management, I accept the compliment.
~Hammy, A.K.A. "Boss man"
people can do good or bad regardless of OS (Score:2)
the "tech-savvy" admin set a checkbox incorrectly in the backup configuration.
End result: 6 mos. of data lost, requiring several temps, a few weeks, and about $40K in costs to recover from offsite record storage.
Don't try to sell me that "windows people and windows software are immune to configuration errors" crap. it's a lie.
this was the second time in a year that a major work stoppage occurred due to the NT side from failed backups that were recorded as complete. the unix side had a grizzly unix hound that never lost a single file the whole time.
IMHO, i'd trust a person who rejects MS to do something right, and verify that it's right, much more than someone who thinks MS has a "natural right to dominate". it's just the philosophy of the individual and their character that makes the difference.
BTW, this article is just trolling for hits, i didn't bother reading the article.
Windows shouldn't be shunned? (Score:2)
Ohh it appears that somebody enabled the undocumented "run fast, like it should" key in the registry....
I wonder who didn't document this change to the systems configuration... All windows should be shunned since nobody documented their changes.
Ho hum .. (Score:2)
So I guess Mr. Firstbrook is claiming that Linux is the only operation system that can be "screwed around with." Perhaps some kind soul should direct him to REGEDIT.EXE?
The fact of the matter is this: Linux is widely-deployed in both homes and businesses around the world, and it has been for some time. Mr. Firstbrook's "concerns" are only legitimate he can produce any evidence that his predictions have actually come to pass. Can he (or anybody else, for that matter) demonstrate that the ability of Kowboy Koders to modify the OS source code has resulted in systematic, wide-spread outages and downtimes? Of course he can't, for a very simple reason: he's wrong.
Firstbrook and his cronies can run around shouting "The sky is falling!" until Kingdom Come. But until they're able to document their claims with hard evidence, they should not be surprised that nobody is looking up.
Re:Finally an article with some sense (Score:2)
-russ
A grain of truth (Score:4)
Firstbrook's objection is mostly crap, but not entirely. One of the problems with the Linux community is that it does tend to undervalue aspects of software engineering besides straight-out coding. People who concentrate on writing good code rather than more code, or who test the hell out of their code, or who do a good job of documenting what they've done, get a lot less recognition than the people who crank and crank and crank, even if what the people in the latter group crank is mostly garbage. This "bad culture" is directly related to the bad example set by Linus himself, who has some attitudes that most serious software engineers would regard as eccentric at best (e.g. his well-publicized disdain for debuggers). The net result is a huge number of people who think they're hot stuff because they've learned a few nifty tricks, but who lack any deep background or self-discipline because they've never been rewarded for those things.
Which brings us back to Firstbrook. Many people have suggested that the problem is not with Linux but with the lack of things like change logs, but my point is that they're not unrelated. People who have become steeped in Linux knowledge have also been steeped in Linux tradition, and that's a tradition that devalues some of the things that matter in a mission-critical environment. That puts employers and customers in a bad spot if they rely on Linux systems, with the most technically savvy people often being professionally "immature" and often too arrogant to admit that the customer's modus operandi may be valid even if it's not "the Linux way". Employers and customers get tired of that BS real fast, and may well find themselves longing for the days when the people who knew the most about their OS weren't obnoxious little punks.
What has made Linux a very good OS is the amount of youthful enthusiasm that has gone into its development, but in a way that's also what prevents Linux from being a great OS. The Linux community is inseparable from Linux itself, and the skewed reward system in the Linux community has revealed the dark side of youthful enthusiasm - hubris, lack of discipline, and a large dose of "Not Invented Here" syndrome.
Ok... (Score:2)
Re:A grain of truth (Score:2)
My co-workers and I gripe about the same thing: lack of quality and discipline in Linux. Sure, it's a good OS that has many good merits, but it is seriously mared by it's flaws. Here's an example: two weeks ago I had to train a half dozen non-unix people (all from a software testing lab) in installing RedHat. After explaining how the installer in 6.2 won't partition the hard drive correctly (forcing us to install 6.1 then upgrade), then explaining how X had to be configured after installation because the configurator built into the installer doesn't treat the mouse correctly (an Intellimouse), then explaining how to edit
This is were BSD will win. It may not be as flashy, but it is quality. Each release is integrated from the start and well tested. It is written by software engineers and computer scientists with strong philosophy of quality before quantity. Many, many proposed features in each project have been axed becuase either the risk to stability is too high, or that the feature was not consistent with the whole, or that the result was poorly architected and/or buggy. Yes, there is a bit of a snobish attitude in BSD. That's because the measure of quality is higher than in Linux. The goal is not to take over the world with cool things, it's to provide a quality, dependable, coherent OS.
"I shoulda never sent a penguin out to do a daemon's work."
Idiot with a chain saw (Score:2)
IT staff who make changes to production systems without proper records, tests etc. are always going to be a liability. At least an open source OS gives companies a chance of fixing things themselves when they really have to.
Why aren't the same people who claim that Linux puts power in the hands of the technically inept complaining about VB Sript and the Windows Scripting Host? That's a lot easier to mess with than Linux and can really screw things up.
I wonder if the author would like someone to take all the sharp objects out of his house, just in case the potential for accidents overwhelms him.
Re:I unfortunately agree... (Score:3)
>Your Linux admin is much more likely to play with settings, recompile the kernel, and do other major
things. The source availability is part of it. The culture of Linux is another.
So, you know people at your job sites who recompile kernels just "because it's there"? Amazing!
> it is impossible to keep a Linux doc, you make too many changes.
???.
On my planet, people install Linux, configure it, and then ignore it, unless they need to install security updates. It's trivially easy to find antiquated versions of Linux at the workplace, since it manifestly does not need lots of attention.
--
Ok, so let's take the author at his word... (Score:2)
Do RedHat/Debian/SuSe digitally sign their distros, and how easy is it to verify the authenticity of those signatures?
Yeah, like MS doesn't have 'undocumented features' (Score:2)
Yeah, and when installing just standard <insert favorite distro here>, you don't have this problem.
Unlike with Micro$oft, where you have undocumented 'features' in about *every* program I know of (not even talking about bugs, just stuff you can't find anywhere in the documentation)
not a drawback, a feature! (Score:2)
---
Re:My past experience with MSCE's (Score:2)
http://www.microsoft.com/trainingandservices/de
Basically, they say they would like MCSE's to have one yr experience, with 5 to 150 physical locations, etc. Hell, I don't meet the multisite recommendation. MS left the program slide, but I think their forced recertification on everyone for win2k is a sincere effort by them to revalue the cert.
ostiguy, mcse
Re:I unfortunately agree... (Score:4)
Your Linux admin is much more likely to play with settings, recompile the kernel, and do other major things. The source availability is part of it. The culture of Linux is another.
You can't risk that. If the NT machine is screwy, redoing the installation actually isn't such a bad option. If you have reasonable documentation, you can get the box back up in an hour. Good luck keeping as good docs with a Linux box. I use both systems in my company, and it is impossible to keep a Linux doc, you make too many changes. A NT box is really straightfoward and has less tweaking.
This is a REAL issue. Whining about NT's problems doesn't fix it.
It would appear that you are holding a biased view here; The same problem as in the article. A tech making unauthorised changes to a production environment is not the fault of the software, hardware or any other inanimate object. It is a people issue. The solution is Change Control. It amazes me that people who are ostensibly professionals make this kind of fundamental error. Then again, it's why I have a job.
And why on earth is it more difficult to document one particular OS vs. another? Unless you decide to document one in esperanto and the other in ancient hebrew, I don't see the problem. Documentation needs to be done no matter what the system. If you're changing things so much that you can't keep the documentation up to date, then you're making too many changes. Change Control again. Documenting changes is part of the process.
This comment was simply more anti-Linux FUD. More disturbing is the insight it gives into the mind of the author. I shudder to think of someone like this being let loose in an HA environment, because they have no appreciation for the processes required. Actually, no... They have an appreciation, but only know enough to be dangerous. The 'culture' you refer to above is not limited to linux. I see it everywhere. They're called cowboys and companies spend a lot of money on people like me to clean up after them.
Re:Possible right conclusion, definite wrong reaso (Score:5)
The same people you sue when you run commerical software; You sue no one.
I have never heard a case where some one sued a software company because the software had bugs. This is what the EULA is for, protection of the software maker.
Corporate Logic (Score:2)
And then later on - "Having somebody who can screw around with my operating system would make me very, very nervous," he says.
Fine then, hire people who don't have a clue how to manipulate the operating system. (Toungue-In-Cheek): I guess that explains the proliferation of MCSE's.
Native version control needed? (Score:2)
---
Re:Why can't we have (-1, !FUNNY)??? [nt] (Score:2)
Never underestimate the power of ignorance (Score:2)
Business procedures and well trained, and respected staff, are the key to efficient well structured and SAFE operations. What you are advocating is based on a level of understanding of business practices that would grant you a fail result in any first year Diploma Business topic. This is really quite appalling from a person in your position.
Steve
Lecturer/Program Coordinator:
Quality Management Program
Douglas Mawson Institute of Technical and Further Education
Re:My past experience with MSCE's (Score:2)
If MS didn't care about the value of the cert, they wouldn't be trying so many new things, like adaptive testing and simulations (both new for MS).
MS does a lot of stupid stuff (repackage some form of windows 9x every year; office 97, bob; their legal dept; etc), but this aint one of them. MS can be taught the error of their ways: they were going to dump the MVP program (honorific cert given to people whose continued service on newsgroups on msnews.microsoft.com deserves recognition) because they felt they needed to have MS staff officially participate in the newsgroups (previously they only did in the password protected beta NGs) because some idiot end users who didn't read the posting guidelines expected there to be so. TOns of people, myself included, wrote MS to request them not to do something so foolish. The majority of MVPs are MAJOR LEAGUE consultants and/or systems admins who have amazing knowledge, and for MS to pull their freebies was ridiculous. MS changed their minds, and the MVPs remain on the newsgroups, offering unparalled advice.
matt
Re:My past experience with MSCE's (Score:2)
A Dick and a Bush .. You know somebody's gonna get screwed.
Re:Peter Firstbrook, gun for hire (Score:2)
"The market for an Internet infrastructure solution that could free Web transactions from their TCP-connection dependencies is potentially huge," said Peter Firstbrook,research analyst, Meta Group. "High-traffic Web sites and hosting providers could immediately benefit from performance improvements and reduced infrastructure requirements resulting from these devices, without rearchitecting."
Assuming he used the non-word 'rearchitecting' in a sensical manner, I don't see how this could be done. As far as I know, most webserver use their own TCP code (or stuff from an API, that would be linked in). Even if you could use the same server-code, I don't see how this would speed things up much, For interactive sites, most of the information is going to be coming from custom scripts or other server-side code. Not much of the CPU time is going to be spent crunching TCP/IP stuff. And any average PC can serve billions of static pages in a day nowadays, so we know its not that much of a load...
We don't know how bad things are in north korea, but here are some pictures of hungry children. -- CNN
Crap (Score:2)
The two reasons why the commentator hates linux (1) doesn't trust his own tech guys (2) thinks linux will have higher labor costs than NT.
Part one is frankly his problem. Your tech guys don't have to screw with your system but they can if necessary. This is a plus not a minus. You have more options than with NT. Get good tech guys.
I would assert that linux is easier to administrate not more difficult. Linux is designed to be administrated over a network unlike NT. This means that one tech may cost more (since linux has a steeper learning curve than windows), but he can effectively administrate many more servers. Total cost should go down not up for most applications.
If your going to go after linux, compare it to freebsd in terms of downtime (why yahoo etc. uses BSD). Or compare it to NT in terms of usability (not an issue for servers though). Or possibly talk about security issues you have with it...
Re:NTFS C: drive is stupid? (Score:2)
Format floppy under NT command window.
You need from C:\
ntldr
ntdetect.com
ntbootdd.sys
boot.ini
There might be a disk driver or such missing from above list.
Primary reason for FAT16 C: partition is that in extreme duress you may be able to recover something using DOS utilities.
One thing I've found that does seem to help. When the system is messing up or going screwey, kill the power, without logging off or shutting down.I've lost systems from shutting down, but never from killing power.
Windows should be shunned (Score:2)
Microsoft can and do make changes in the system that go undocumented. Maybe by mistake or by intention.
On the other hand the SysAdm who is the only one who really needs to know how the system works can make changes no one else knows about. Security by obscurity is posably the worst form of security but isn't that the single most populare system in busness?
No a manager dose not need to snoop over a SysAdms sholder every second. That is micro managment and is very ineffecent.
The effecent manager knows the job but leaves it to the employees. He dose not need to know every code change just that the SysAdm is doing his job. So the SysAdm can add a feature the secures the system in some obscure way no one else knows about. Great then a cracker can waist his time attacking the system at it's strongest point.
There is only one issue an expert in finnances should address when dealing with technology: COST!!!
Linux is free and becouse it's source open tech experts such as SysAdm do not need tech support from someone who is basicly below him on the technical food chain.
Windows however requires tech support due to poor documentation, poor design and no easy solutions for the SysAdm.
Under Windows a SysAdm can not do his job.. keep the machines running.. Instead that must be handled by technical support personel at additional cost.
Linux is free.. upgrades are fee documentation is free and support comes from the on site techs who you hired to support your hardware... believe it or not that is the job they do.
If you want a more busness intigrated operating system. One more in touch with the burrocacy then use BSDi. BSD is the operating system of the Internet.. Linux being in effect it's child. BSDi is the commertal version of BSD. With technical support etc BSD can handle the whole process.
What happends if say.. something horrific happends to BSD.. say a cort ordered break up.. The FBI creeps in and says "Oh sorry you gotta add this so we can read users e-mail" to BSD or worse a compeating company pays BSD to add trojen back doors.... FreeBSD... the free counterpart to BSDi.
That dosn't sute you?
Solarus.. the totally compertal Unix. Solarus provides what I would call the Tech support death squad. If Sun provided more tech support they'd be supplying your SysAdm... They allmost do it allready...
Sun trains and certifys Solarus Sysadm better than Microsoft.. better than anyone...
Linux hobbyests are better trainned than MSCE...that is unless your MSCE is also a Linux hobbyest...
And thats not saying much... There is a reason the tech industry dose not consider the term "Hacker" the stamp of quality it is in the hobby domain.
In the end you need something better than a hobbyest not someone who is basicly certifyed to know how to set up a box. You need someone who knows the system inside and out.
Unix thats doable. BSD and Linux it's easy.. Sun leaves nothing to chance and makes sure your people are trainned in rewriting Solarus from ground up using a manual rom burnner (those stupid boxes that let you enter the rom image by hand then burn the rom... not around anymore)
You may not know it but I dispise Sun Microsystems. But the reality is reality... Sun provides the best busness side and tech side right now.
I don't think very highly of Suns addatude or Suns software.....
Not that anyone's reading this late anyway... (Score:3)
Firstbrook frets that labor is
Indeed -- since Linux people spend less time on the phone waiting for Microsoft to tell them to re-install, they get more done. And since Linux people have, in general, a much better handle on what their systems are actually doing (because they "tinker" all the time), they can fix problems faster and better. All in all, the labor cost for a Linux system is almost certainly lower than a proprietary one.If you took your car to the auto shop, would you be happier if the place was clean and ordered -- and the mechanics stood around waiting for someone to open the car for them and replace the black boxes -- or if the place was a bit messy, perhaps a bit disordered, but the mechanics obviously knew their stuff because they couldn't help "tinker" with engines, figuring out what was going on?
Firstbrook is essentially a corporate droid. Like all corporate droids he can't understand how anything can be free (in either sense). What he can't understand, he instinctively fears.
Luckily, perhaps, the market is a ruthlessly efficient beast and, as they say, the truth will out...
A tail of Windows NT incompetence (Score:2)
So the source code of Linux can be changed and not documented by an incompetent member of the IT staff. This may happen in rare cases, but so may all manner of other sorts of incompetence.
When I started my current position, I inhereted, among other things a grossly misconfigured Windows NT 4.0 server. I won't go into too many details but, for example, *everything* was on one partition -- applications and data. The rest of the drive was unpartitioned free space.
The moral of the story is that incompetence and sloth don't require open source. In fact, since a closed source OS like Windows NT/2000 requires little knowledge to use and to network -- it is more likely to be done in a half-assed manner.What were the rest of his comments? (Score:5)
As little respect I have for the financial community when it comes to making technical statements, I have to assume that he has more reasons that the two listed for feeling that Linux should be shunned.
Both of his arguments are completely illogical at any rate. They are both functions of a poor IT staff rather than a poor OS. He states that "undocumented tinkering" is a drawback of Linux. I've worked at a great many Windows shops in which "undocumented tinkering" was a huge problem. It's the staff, not the OS.
He also says that a problem is the expensive IT staff "spending time playing with the OS because it's cool" makes Linux cost-prohibitive. That's rediculous. The staff that does that would be just as likely to do so with Windows or anything else. They'll be the ones "playing" with routing tables, "playing" with the registry, or "playing" with software settings. They'll be the ones running TweakUI on their PDC to make it faster, killing it in the process. This isn't a Linux problem, it's a staffing problem.
I hope that either these were just two of the more idiotic comments from a larger frame of good comments. If not, I'd hope that any relatively intelligent IT manager would understand the flaws in the argument.
Re:What were the rest of his comments? (Score:4)
A Dick and a Bush .. You know somebody's gonna get screwed.
Re:TCO vs. Truth (Score:2)
I was going to stay out of this conversation, but I have to chime in here...goodbye karma *sniff*
Well, the truth is that for what we pay, and this is the pay that they base TCO's on, we get techs of comparable experience. Are you suggesting that our HR department be better? If so, this has to be figured into TCO.
One point here. You should take most of the hiring away from the HR department. They don't know IT. They don't know a great many things. The only involvement that the HR dept. has been left with in the hiring processes at the last two companies I've managed was simply offer letters and benefits coordination. They don't even interview the person as a rule. You get a better class of people at a better price that way.
Perhaps I should say that a "Unix Professional" is generally of a higher caliber than an "NT professional" of like station. I'm not sure that this is my point.
I would hope that's not your point, because it's an inherently flawed point. To say that would be as baseless as saying that black people are better than white, white are better than hispanic, or men better than women. The choice of OS is in no way a gauge of the caliber of professional. I see a great many very poor Linux/Unix/HPUX professionals. I see a great many very poor NT/2000 professionals. Each side has their wheat and their chaff. To say one is better than the other is rather biased and ignorant.
I got my MCSE about 3 years ago, and will not update for 2000. The certification has been made a mockery of by the company that is supposed to guarantee it's sanctity.
I must agree that the MCSE is a joke now, which is why it's not a criteria upon which I base my hiring. I treat it like any other certificate from a seminar, it's nice, but that's about all. I prefer people that are reasonably intelligent, seem personable, have proven manageable, and can answer a few reasonable questions. Relying on the MCSE will doom your hiring to failure, and cull out some potentially brilliant candidates before you'd even met them.
To hop semi-on-topic for a brief moment in closing; it's been my hiring experience that truly competent NT professionals are less expensive than truly competent Linux professionals, but not by too great a margin. Not so much that I'd alter my server OS for cheaper labor.
Re:Possible right conclusion, definite wrong reaso (Score:2)
My question is, which idiot IT or management staffer do you fire once you figure out that you can't sue anyone over software, paid or free? It should be you, my dear FUD-slinger.
Unless you have a specific contract allowing you to seek damages, you can't. The Big Boys probably have huge legal departments that would make any compensation effort not worthwhile. Unless they make a product for a highly regulated industry, you're out of luck.
Re:on rogue sysadmins (Score:2)
Emmett is an open source game develuper, an open source advocate and a really nice guy. But he dose not and never has gone by the name "CmdrTaco".
Back doors have a long history in closed source and is the very reason companys have been willing to cough up the big bucks for access to the source code.
If you can not trust your own SysAdm to not install a back door then you are toast sence such a thing can run in visual basic, Dos batch, Bash, perl, C, home made virus, etc etc etc... You need to source code to spot and remove back doors.. you don't need it to put them in...
The history of back doors has been that of closed source... piriod...
But to someone who isn't a tech the back door issue might be real. He certenly isn't the first to voice it.
The reality is source code is the ultimate documenation. You can spot and remove a back door about as easly as you can remove a roage VB script.
A virus... thats annother issue... open or closes source those things are nasty...
Re:Possible right conclusion, definite wrong reaso (Score:2)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 14, @12:05AM EDT (#373)
Secondly, I can pretty much guarantee that if a nice sizeable Fortune 500 gets whacked hard just once, there will be a suit. They will win.
The Fortune 500 company for which I work had its entire email infrastructure whacked for a week due to problems with MS Exchange. A trivial misconfiguration at one site spread like a virus (and don't get me started on the Outlook viruses with which we are also afflicted) to the rest of the email servers worldwide, halving productivity for a week. Not only is there no suit against Microsoft, the CIO in describing the failure wouldn't even mention Microsoft by name as the source of the problem. MS is not getting whacked; instead we are throwing more money at them for Exchange 2000, and migrating away from the few remaining SMTP servers (which remained functional throughout the Exchange collapse).
I wish your guarantee of a suit for shoddy software were true, but in my experience that has not been the case.
- Anonymous, out of necessity.
Re:Native version control needed? (Score:2)
I've been forced to use VMS this summer, and that version control crap is a huge pain in my arse. The version control in VMS eats up my quota so fast that I have to purge often...purging often destroys any intended version control.
If you want version control run a cvs server..and implement good backup procedures to keep system file corruptions from crippling your system for long. Don't force version control into every file by default. It's a huge waste of storage space, and is incompatible with quota limits.
-jef
Apple, under the UCC. (Also UCITA) (Score:4)
Apple was sued some time ago for dropping software support for the Lisa. As I understand it, the case was settled out of court. Whether the settlement included consequential damages, I don't know. The settlement wasn't exactly top news.
Which points up a critical fact: there have been, to the best of my recollection and the limits of my research capabilities, no viable software vendor hauled before a judge because of non-support because no company is stupid enough to let the situation get to that stage. Software vendors knows that it's far cheaper to pay money on technicians, developers, gurus, and consultants to fix the problem than it is to pay lawyers even more money to dismiss the complaint. The fix-the-problem route usually results in a satisfied customer, while the fix-the-law results in a pissed-off customer.
Besides, it's rather easy to see who has the $100,000 required to press such a suit, and sidetrack the legal action. Joe Six-Pack won't have that kind of money, and District Attornies have a high enough case load without taking on "petty problems."
The real problem is not with lawsuits, but the underlying statutes that regulate commercial transactions. The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) doesn't work well with software and data collections. So there is a push to create a UCC-like statute in the 50 states that does for software and data what the UCC does for tangible products. Unfortunately, the proposed model statute (liked only by the SIIA, formally the Software Publishers Associaton, and hated by a long list of others) is flawed; see CPSR's fact page [cpsr.org] for more details. From the horse's mouth, the summary by the Uniform Acts Commissioners [nccusl.org], as well as a Q&A page on the NCCUSL site. [nccusl.org]
Re:Not that anyone's reading this late anyway... (Score:2)
Yes, there's the culture/social aspect. Perhaps some managers think there's advantages in running an operation with the lowest possible employee skill level. This makes employees easily replaceable, which gives the manager more power.
Linux may be seen as not only a system that can be super-expertly administered (and hence be the breeding ground of guru/priest/powerful employees), but also it may be seen as a system that people know only because they _enjoy_ learning it. Ie. they do it for the love of it, rather than for the money only. And on some level, this conflicts with the "work is meant to be hard" ethic that some people/managers have. So they may think that "people who use Linux are tinkerers, and as such are people who are enjoying it, and hence should _not_ be paid -- that they will be tinkering instead of doing the hard work of running the business systems".
Perhaps this is what some people may think, without realising it (ie. its a belief), and given that its not something that can be rationally supported (ie. its a belief) then the man's comments can only allude to this belief, by giving some pseudo-logical "reasoning" as to why linux is bad coz. people will tinker "undocumented changes".
TCO vs. Truth (Score:5)
When people talk about the higher price of kepping Linux maintained, this makes me cringe. Low-level NT techs are not much cheaper to hire, they generally got their MCSE from a 2 week cram course that did not cover Event Viewer, and do stupid things like put an NTFS C: drive on a print server.
Low-level linux techs on the other hand are generally people who like to tinker with computers (that's why they got linux in the first place), learned their skills from trying to get work done on their computer, and do stupid things like over-partitioning their hard drives.
The last three MCSE's that our companies hired honestly did not know what Event Viewer was. Mind you, we are not one of the better paying industries, but... We have also hired in an ex-photographer who was learning Linux, after 2 years he is one of our best employees. (And one of our better NT techs)
The hidden cost of deploying NT is the cost of hiring unqualified people to maintain it. We have almost three times the staffing for NT as we do for *nix and NT is used as a file server and print server only. Unix does DB hosting, app hosting, achiving, etc.... We have 34 more *nix servers than NT servers as well. Three times the staffing.... *sigh*
The sad truth is that our *nix department experiences better uptime by far, is better run, is better documented, and runs for less doing more. Our NT department always looks busy at least... when they're not over here asking us to take a look at something.
~Hammy
"Windows 2000, based on NT technology"
NT = New Technology (really)
"Windows 2000, based on new technology technology"
So bloated they have to say technology twice!
Re:Trust employees? WHEN??? (Score:3)
When your accountent isn't trustworthy you get embeselment. When your managment isn't turstworthy you get mismanagment. When your techs aren't trustworthy you get back doors. When your asembly line workers arn't trustworthy you get sloppy work.
Even fast food needs to turst it's employees. If Taco Bells people aren't turst worthy they will not be able to asemble the food orders very fast at all. As it is Taco Bell prides itself (internally) on speed. It hypes it to the staff. They compeate with other Taco Bells.
But managment gets paranoid the more complex and sensitive the process gets. They start micro managing.. they start snooping in on staff. They start saying "No tinkering with the source". They start setting tech policy when they have no busness doing so. They become paranoid. Paranoia will distory ya...
Looking at all the DotComs that die off and it's no wonder... if the managment can't trust it's own technical experts then where dose managment turn when it needs technical expertise? A software companys sales staff? Oh yeah thats really gona help....
You need to trust your staff. What keeps your accountent from embeslment? You trust him.. what keeps your security staff from stealing secrets? You trust them. Yet... yet.. embeslment and industreal theft happen... a lot...
Techs don't back door employers very often and when they do they don't need source code.
Windows, Back Oraface.... Unix: Hidden account... MacOs: Trojen... Os/2... Trojen
Usually a trojen will do the trick.. if your using a multiuser operating system then a hidden acount works (easyer to discover but it dose provide more access if set up correctly.. like an alternet root)
If you don't trust your techs.. toss your equipment....
Trojen = You accually have to write one. Windows allready has off the shelf trojens such as BO for you to use. It dosn't really ammount to a hill of beans of diffrence in the real world. Trojens are SOO easy to make and deploy... Unix may have an easyer alternitive (hidden account) but it's not that much easyer...
And this intersects real life how? (Score:3)
One, you don't need the source code to cause this kind of problem. Ever come in one morning to discover the sysadmins - with the blessings of management - changed the server software during the night? Yeah, sorry your CGIs no longer work, we switched from Web Site Pro to IIS, didn't you get the memo?
Two, the other extreme: some places you can't make ANY unauthorized changes to production code without fifteen signatures. Touching the kernel on a production server would be a firing offense.
In short, if this is likely to be a problem, the IT department has bigger problems - like an inability to control their machines. Seems to me that's a management problem, not a software one, and if the sysadmin is tinkerhappy and won't leave a paper trail, the sysadmin will be tinkerhappy whether he has source code or not. Do you need the source code to make a mess of a running NT server?
So don't leave vmlinuz world writable.
Possible right conclusion, definite wrong reasons (Score:5)
(Before I start, I want it made clear that I'm a Linux user, and prefer Linux and OpenBSD to proprietary operating systems of any stripe: MacOS, Windoze, BeOS, AmigaDOS, HP/UX, Ultrix -- you get the idea.)
From the non-technical business perspective, Peter Firstbrook does have some legit concerns here, even if he dances around the core of the complaint. A businessperson "betting the farm" on technology either has to have a great deal of trust in his/her technologists or in the vendors supplying the infrastructure software.
For the Fortune 5000, trust in support technologists is hard to find -- even in those companies that sell technology, such as HP and IBM. Remember, revenue-generating technology is monitored by a pyramid of management and a gaggle of process, while non-revenue technology doesn't have the same money thrown at it. Frankly, IT-based development for internal use just doesn't have the management oversight that a vendor would provide, and the business people know it.
That's why there is a tendency for business to buy infrastructure solutions from vendors who have "thrown money" at the management of technology, and is willing to take responsibility for the gaffs and fix them. (The fallacy here is that the erring vendor -- think Microsoft -- will indeed fix the problems right and right now.) As a side benefit, repair and upgrade costs can be controlled and predicted, with the vendor taking the risk. The business person will pay for 24/7 if s/he feels that level of support is necessary, but wants a definite cap on the costs. That's why service contracts are such an easy sell to Fortune 5000 types -- the contract may be expensive, but it represents a known expense that can be factored into the financial model.
Contrast that with the unknowns with in-house solutions. They may be cheaper to start, but the chance for "surprises" is very high, very frustrating to business types, and makes for an unworkable financial model for the company. How many projects have you worked on that came in on time and under budget?
Now consider the Open Source model. On the one hand, you have a peer review of the code that can't be equaled in proprietary software -- everyone who uses the system can look under the covers and see what's going on. Something not right? Either fix it and provide a patch, or report the problem and let someone else (on their own time) figure out a fix and patch.
In open source, who do you sue when the bug loses you money? There isn't just "one place" you can aim your lawyers to recoup the lost revenue when something goes very wrong. Even Red Hat [redhat.com] isn't a very good target, because they just package Linux, they don't take responsibility for bugs in the kernel.
How about that "tinkering" argument? I believe the argument is in fact a red herring, another boogieman to scare non-technical types. Yes, it can happen. In reality, most IT types don't have the background to even attempt it, let alone make it work. The very few that can pull it off may in fact improve matters, if they are supervised properly. So, let's drop that lame claim.
It's not a question of feasibility, or of "goodness."
It's a question of responsibility, of fixing the blame.
Re:Be reasonable (Score:3)
No, you can't say the same thing about MS Outlook and viruses. That would be a valid comparison if someone else could modify the code for your linux machines... MS Outlooks main security problem is that scripts can set themselves up to automatically attatch themselves to all outgoing mail. Other than that, you could do the same type of viruses in bash that people could run using pine. If your administrator changes something (be it code, software versions, configuration files, or even a registry entry on an NT box) and doesn't document it or tell people who need to know, the problem is with the administrator. I don't see any difference in tweaking code as setting a registry entry. Sure, they are two different things, but in either case all the administrator is doing is changing things to suit his needs. The product is not at fault for allowing customization. The administrator is at fault for not following whatever policies are set by his company for documenting it.
OS changes without knowledge are easy to do (Score:4)
1. Find file/program/data file you wish to "modify"
2. Get past the header information and say get into say the half way mark of the file
3. Bang randomly on the keyboard
4. Save
5. Run and Hide
6. Wait for the screams and swearing
Re:OS changes without knowledge are easy to do (Score:3)
Re:What were the rest of his comments? (Score:3)
Eric
Re:NTFS C: drive is stupid? (Score:3)
The only reason to configure the system drive on an NT machine as NTFS is if it contains sensitive data that you would not want accessed by a boot disk. But then you would also most likely argue that it should be NTFS on RAID 5....
But then some folks don't mind wasting 500 MB of disk space for their "Paralell Install" of NT...
Your responding to this negates your lame dig at the end.
~Hammy
"Never underestimate the power of stupid people with 90% market share"
P.S. The point of the thing is that print servers are trivial.
Re:TCO vs. Truth (Score:4)
Low-level NT techs are not much cheaper to hire, they generally got their MCSE from a 2 week cram course that did not cover Event Viewer,
Why are you hiring techs that went through a 2 week cram course? Would you hire a *nix tech who went through a 2 week cram course?Low-level linux techs on the other hand are generally people who like to tinker with computers (that's why they got linux in the first place),
And people who are MS techs don't? Come on, what are you thinking? I think it is very safe to say that the /vast/ majority of *nix techs started out with MS. Certainly the vast majority of Linux techs. There are certainly a few technicians that have started out directly, with *nix. And chances are that they also started in the industry 15 years ago.
The last three MCSE's that our companies hired honestly did not know what Event Viewer was. Mind you, we are not one of the better paying industries, but...
Again, why are you hiring technicians that don't know something that basic? This is a problem with the hiring practices of the company. The company that is doing the hiring should do things like reference checks and their own skill tests.The hidden cost of deploying NT is the cost of hiring unqualified people to maintain it.
Why are you hiring unqualified people? More to the point, if they are unqualified, and your paying them a salary consumerate with this fact, why aren't you training them? Why not train your own people internally? If your not paying a salary, work environment, and beneifts that are going to draw qualified technicians, that is nobodies fault but your companies. I don't care who you are, at one point /you/ too were also unqualified.
The sad truth is that our *nix department experiences better uptime by far, is better run, is better documented, and runs for less doing more.
Sounds like a management problem. When people don't document, or run things as well, this is a problem that only comes from the top. Documention is a skill and process, and has nothing what-so-ever to do with the OS at hand.
Our NT department always looks busy at least... when they're not over here asking us to take a look at something.
Are your techs more experienced than theirs? Do you have a better manager? If they are constantly reacting to problems, putting out fires, that is a managerial problem, and has nothing to do with the OS at hand.
I am not saying that MS is better than *nix, or that *nix sucks are any such thing. But comments like yours garner no sympathy at all. This is no different than buying a used packard bell and complain when it breaks. If your going to complain, complain about your companies hiring practices, training policies, and management. At least than you won't be calling the kettle black.