Re: What if the one in a millon chance SCO is right?

From: Bill Campbell (bill_at_celestial.com)
Date: 09/26/03 

Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 18:53:08 GMT
To: Sco Mailing List <scomsc@xenitec.on.ca>

On Fri, Sep 26, 2003, Boyd Lynn Gerber wrote:
>On Thu, 25 Sep 2003, FyRE wrote:
>> On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 <gerberb@zenez.com> wrote:
>
>Fanatical Useless Rehashed Biased Derival (FURBD) removed.

I believe the correct spelling is drivel.

....
>ASSUME ASS U nd ME. Well you must think all customers are MS clones or
>total idiots. I haved used and recommend the best solution for my
>customers based on their needs, not FUD. No are so blind you can not even
>begin to be objective. I used to think you may have bit of insight but
>not any longer. All you do is FURBD.
>
>My customers are well informed and Can and Do think for themselves. I
>have not right to tell them their linux, BSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, OS X, SCO
>OS, ... What ever they are using is being used for specific reasons I can
>to tell their OS AFDASDFQWEQWERQEFASDFQADSFQEQEWRAFSD is wrong for what
>they are doing. They know and understand their needs. They are not
>mindless drones. They know what they need that is why they are were they
>are in their industries.

A major problem with customers today is that many (most) of the end-users
are ill-informed and ignorant, not stupid. They believe what they read in
the popular press (which is dependent on Microsoft and the vendors who
specialize in selling products to clean up after the Microsoft messes), and
are rarely exposed to anybody who knows any different. Add to that, the
huge IT industry that's dependant on insecure and unreliable Microsoft
software for their jobs, and it's difficult to educate these customers.

>An expert knows when to speak, when to listen, when to seek help, when to
>admit their faults, and when they need to learn.

Most of the people I know who I would consider experts probably wouldn't be
calling themselves that. As Dean Acheson said in a commencement address to
our graduating high school class, an Ex is a has-been, and a Spurt is a
drip under pressure.

>I was a lot like you a long time ago (over 20 years). At university in a
>class of over 600 students, I raised my hand and and corrected the
>teacher. What he was teaching was totally wrong. I showed him in his
>printed notes and the text books where what he was lecturing on was
>totally impossible. I proved to the entire class he was a total idiot. I
>was kicked out of the class and could only attend for tests. I had the
>highest score in the class by over 1000 points. I got a C-. I took it as
>far as I could to protest the injustice. What I found out was grades are
>subjective. It does not matter what the printed A-F grades should be a
>teacher has the right to report the grade he/she feels is right.

Been there. Done that :-).

That said, I do believe that SCO's current management has been incredibly
stupid if their real goal is to build SCO's business. They have managed to
kill off their entire educational network along with a reseller channel
that were the main things that Caldera wanted when they purchased SCO.
They've also managed to thoroughly alienate a major part of the ISV and
reseller group who are the ``experts'' that the uninitiated go to when they
are looking for IT solutions to their business problems.

As for the legal issues, the things I've read from Eric Raymond, Bruce
Perens, and various other open source advocates is in line with my
experience in the 21+ years I've been doing Unix based systems and my 37+
years in IT.

Bill 

--
INTERNET:   bill@Celestial.COM  Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
UUCP:               camco!bill  PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way
FAX:            (206) 232-9186  Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820; (206) 236-1676
URL: http://www.celestial.com/
Breathe fire, slay dragons, and take chances. Failure is temporary, regret
is eternal.

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