QwikSand,
Well, I like rudedog and I enjoy having his commentary
on the thread. It does lift up the level of discussion
beyond the ordinary, and that, at least to me is very
beneficial to everyone, including me.
That being said, however, I do believe that it is important
to distinguish between opinion and fact, especially opinion
masquerading as fact. Perhaps we're all guilty of it, at
least to some extent, but I think it's important to point
out the differences between the two when it occurs.
Why? Well, I am of the opinion that playing fast-and-loose with the details, especially in a technical context, can easily turn into dis-information. Dis-information is the
bane of these chat rooms and we don't need it, especially
if information serves the purpose of influencing potential
investors.
For example, If I were to say "SUNW has only 2 competitors
in the internet server market: IBM & HWP, all the others
don't count." That's definitely my opinion, take it or
leave it. But if were to say "SUNW has only 2 competitors
in the internet server market: IBM & HWP because SUNW has
a 60% share of the market & IBM/HWP have the rest, so
there's no room for anyone else." That's NOT an opinion,
but a conclusion based on a "fact". Even if I hadn't used
the figure "60%" but instead used "lion's share" or "majority" it would still indicate some statistical base
for my conclusion.
In that case someone would (should) say: "Quote your sources". That would be the proper response, I think
everyone would agree with that.
There is a way for discussions to creep into this murky
area of "fact" masquerading as opinion. Sometimes it's
kind of a grey area. When rudedog declares that NT is
the equivalent of Solaris except for the "fact" that
M$FT can't seem to control their configurations and
as a result some of their own software, as well as that
of 3rd party vendors, is the only (or main) reason why
NT isn't as stable as Solaris, that demands an explanation.
Unfortunately, such an explanation is, of necessity, going to be very technical in content. But, what else can you
do?? Someone may read that post then hear from another
source that M$FT has a new certification program to insure
all software running under NT is stable before it is
released. They may then conclude that NT is ready to
compete on enterprise systems with Solaris, and it plainly
is NOT. That's dis-information and it does a disservice
to anyone not knowledgeable enough to understand what
goes into making an O/S useful and robust. It may also
influence investment decisions, though it is plainly not
intended to do so (at least I hope not).
All opinions are welcome.
cheers,
cherylw |
