Re: What is the maximal length of usernames on Solaris?

From: Josh McKee (jtmckee_at_rm-bogus-ac.net)
Date: 12/28/03 

Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2003 21:52:52 GMT

On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 13:18:54 -0800, "Michael Vilain
<vilain@spamcop.net>" wrote:

>In article <is6uuvogs95tvam1v3tre5qp60j3dke01n@4ax.com>,
> Josh McKee <jtmckee@rm-bogus-ac.net> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 12:56:54 -0500, grog <greg@or.y> wrote:
>>
>> >In article <4m3uuvsjaudagsiligcd3rdi90t80ip8pi@4ax.com>, jtmckee@rm-
>> >bogus-ac.net says...
>> >> On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 11:53:14 -0500, grog <greg@or.y> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >In article <ko1uuvk77av3h7b6i4rg18be320v5agg40@4ax.com>, jtmckee@rm-
>> >> >bogus-ac.net says...
>> >> >> The choice was not to use UNIX but instead to use Windows. Thus the
>> >> >> reason for my comment that people prefer Windows because it meets
>> >> >> their needs, no matter how trivial, better.
>> >> >
>> >> >Have fun with those viruses,
>> >>
>> >> They haven't been much of a problem.
>> >
>> >Now I -know- you're a troll.
>>
>> Yeah...imagine that it's a small office of less than a handful of
>> users/computers which makes it easy to keep up to date on patches and
>> anti-virus software.
>>
>> >> >and don't forget to defrag the hard drives every week or so.
>> >>
>> >> Haven't had a problem with it.
>> >
>> >Yep, most definitely a troll. No doubt about it.
>>
>> What problem should I be having?
>>
>> >> >And when somebody cries because they got paged in the
>> >> >middle of the night to reboot a system, just laugh and shake your head.
>> >>
>> >> Haven't had to reboot the system. It's been pretty rock solid.
>> >
>> >It's a well-established fact that viruses (and worms and such), periodic
>> >disk defragmenting and reboots are major features of the Windows world.
>>
>> I'll give you the viruses. But I fail to see why I should be having a
>> problem because the disk hasn't been defragmented. Perhaps you would
>> be so good as to explain what problem I should be having by not
>> defragmenting the disk? As for reboots...well, sorry to disappoint you
>> but I haven't had a problem with having to reboot.
>>
>> >If you deny that, then you are either stunningly ignorant or you are a
>> >troll. Or perhaps you're both.
>>
>> Or perhaps I know what I'm doing?
>>
>> >> Josh
>> >
>> >Goodbye, troll.
>>
>> Copout.
>>
>> Josh
>
>Josh's point that 'the customer comes first' only really works if
>there's not others who would be affected by it.

I am saying that to succeed one should listen to the customers wants
instead of telling them what they need.

IBM did this with the PC and ended up losing. They told the customer
that the MCA bus was what they needed. But what they wanted was a low
cost, royalty free bus. Even though ISA was clearly inferior to MCA
the ISA bus won because it offered what the customer wanted.

Microsoft made billions by giving the customer what they wanted (ease
of use, low cost) even though their OS was technically inferior to
other offerings. Microsoft listened to the customer and gave them what
they needed.

You can deny this all you want but if you're not meeting the customers
needs *and* wants then you're not being very smart.

>That's why Richard's argument about UNIX standards (which are possibly
>older than Josh) makes sense.

His argument about not changing the existing standard makes plenty of
sense. My question is why not create a new, backwards compatible
standard? Why is this such a problem for so many people?

>Since MacOS X isn't UNIX, they can change some of the things
>that Richard mentioned without a problem and only affect MacOS X
>users--usernames, hostnames, UNICODE filenames.

OS X is UNIX.

>However, those very same standards allow lots of PD and GNU freeware
>to configure, make and compile on MacOS X without any problem.
>
>Josh wants to affect the entire install base of existing UNIX
>applications and say "Fix them to run against this _new_ standard".

Why not? Isn't this what Sun did when they moved from 32 to 64 bits?
What about the migration from NIS/NIS+ to LDAP?

>Must be nice to be god in your own universe. Can't and won't happen in
>the one I inhabit. It's happening less so in M$'s:
>http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=13350

As I said in an earlier post:

"If anything is going to be the downfall of Microsoft it's going to be
that they're not listening to their customers wants."

And this article supports this position quite well. Microsoft has
changed from listening to the customers wants and is now telling them
what they need. Microsoft is telling customers they need licensing 6.0
when in fact many people do want it. Microsoft is telling them that
they need a closed system when customers are saying they want open
systems. Microsoft has lost sight of the low cost software model that
made them so successful. In short that article supports what I have
been saying.

>If this argument was about a car and that some users want the steering
>wheel to be on whatever side the driver wants, we could argue that our
>North American standard is we drive on the right-hand side of the road
>so the steering wheel should go on the left side for safety. It's
>possible to drive a right-hand drive car on our streets, but there the
>higher possibility of accidents.
>
>So Josh can move to where he wants and drive whatever kind of car he
>wants. Now let's just poink him and end this discussion.

Why end the discussion? Because you don't like what I'm saying? I am
amazed that people don't want to have rational discussions and instead
just want to plonk me because my views differ from theirs. That's
fine...those of us that listen to the customer will be successful.
Those of us that do not will continue to complain about those that
succeed.

Josh

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