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Technology Stocks : Red Hat Software Inc. (Nasdq-RHAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rupert who wrote (881)	8/29/1999 12:49:00 PM
From: Thomas A Watson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1794

My response to the author of article. Sam, read the article on Linux. The nay sayers on the last two pages don't have a clue. Comparing what's going on today with Linux and things past is... hmmmm, absurd is all I can think of. As in all things mostly the fringe of opinions get more attention as they yell loudest. Where the action is, extremely smart folks just go along and smile. Your last paragraph with the reference to OS/2 is just so funny. I've used and developed and cross ported data and real time apps on vms, unix, dos, and windows system's. A half a dozen different Unixes a few Intel Unixes. I bought OS/2 and the full development kit as soon as it was released. I used it for a few weeks and as at the time IBM also wanted a couple of hundred more buck just for tcp/ip networking, I decided that IBM was out to lunch. My guess is that this choice to charge a rediculous amount for tcp/ip is what really killed OS/2. WHY? Because it just a slightly better windows. But to get the emerging important network capability you had to pay through the nose. Now today more and more network connectivity is an ever increasing factor in the value of an OS. Linux 5 years ago had better more consistant and symmetric networking than anything from MSFT. But unless you program some IP sockets, you can't understand. Because of my need to develop in a Unix/Xwindow environment I tried several Intel unixes. I used solaris X86 for over a year when I was first tried Linux. (cica 1993/4) I did this at home as I could not afford to break my work work station. After a month of Linux, Solaris X86 was wiped. Within a year I virtually used no MSFT anywhere. Oh yeah, I use 4 to 6 hundred dollars of commercial apps on each of my Linux system. I used theses apps for 6+ years. The first were AcceleratedX (www.xig.com)and Crisp (www.vital.com) As soon as it was available I started using applix office suite. (www.applix.com) That was the day that MSFT went away for me. I don't use Linux and have never used Linux because it's free. And in that I paided for SCO and interactive and solaris and OS/2 and dos and 4dos and windows and nt 3.51 and 4.0 and 95 and 98 and most recently 1.99 for Linux, I believe that the nay sayer quoted in your article are full of .... Well lets just say that they are technology and economics challenged individuals. TOM PONTIFICATES ON HOW IT REALLY IS. The highest rule. The speed with which one can process information is currency of productivity. Freedom is the chaos of having thousands of choises. The ultimate parameter PAIN vs GAIN If I two screens of computer data, Can I process twice as much information? Or in many cases is it better than twice? If I can keep organized 20 desktops of information and swich to any in less than a second, can I process more information? Seemlessly move windows across desktops for juxtaposition comparison. If the computer required to do this needs 1/5 to 1/3 the resources in a particular OS is that an incentive? An intangible invisible force. A pain killing drig. So what have I been doing for years? This is a little piece. I love building the tools to do my work. watman.com. Now Linux has always had a superb pain/gain ratio. For me this was mostly so because of the commercial apps I used. There are a lot of smart(IMHO) people like me out there who use Linux. But with all the companies now jumping into Linux, Gain is going up and pain is going down. For more and more people the huge pain/gain ratio difference between Linux and MSFT will become more and more apparent. The pain of Linux is mostly FUD and the gain has always been real. The never ending stories of success will wash the FUD mud from the eyes of many. It's a chain reaction. Currently I am less a BSEE system's engineer and more and more and Electronic Direct Access Trader. And boy the tools that I've built are great for my latest trade. Although I continue to upgrade software, I've frozen hardware at screaming for my apps pentium pros and could free software at redhat 4.2 or any 2 years ago Linux distribution. My window manger fvwm came with the very first Linux I used. So the incredible freedom to be productive in Linux is mistaken for chaos. Still water runs deep. Read Milton Freedman's Free to Chose. Read James Burkes Connections. Understand them and the simplicity of what I say is crystal clear. Tom Watson tosiwmee