> 1) First and foremost - OS features make an operating system. As examples:
> good SMP support (scalability), async IO and security are a MUST for today's
> servers. As poorly as those features are implemented in NT, they are practically
> nonexistant in Linux.
Since when did they take the SMP support out of Linux? And security?
> 2) Second is hardware support. Its actually related to #1, since (and lets
> be practical here) most hardware manufacturers are not going to waste their
> time developing drivers for an operating system thats not widely accepted
> by corporate America. NT, on the other hand, has support for just about
> anything thats out there.
Really? We've gone through hell getting NT to run on machines at work
over the last few years due to lack of support. Sure, it's improved a
great deal in the last year, but only because people are buying the hype
and forcing hardware vendors to support it. And only because we go out
of the way to only buy hardware that NT does support.
> 3) Software support is the same as #2. Everyone and their brother is
> writing windoze software for the same reason - NT's CORPORATE ACCEPTANCE.
Because they've bought into the hype, and so they think if they don't,
they'll get left behind. Which to some extent is true. But you forget
that a lot of commercial software is beginning to appear for Linux. It
is only a matter of time till one of the big database vendors realizes
the market potential and does a port, and I think a lot of corporations
will react to that in a positive manner.
> I'd love to see Linux in a corporate environment - but to get the so
> called "snowball of corporate acceptance" rolling the OS has to be on par
> with other server OSs and with that will come corporate, software developer,
> and hardware manufacturer acceptance. There will be plenty of hype after
> that.
I'd say it is almost on par now, and I think the next stable release
will begin to pull ahead. The big problem I find at my company isn't
that people aren't willing to consider it, but that they don't quite
understand it. They like to have support, and someone to yell at when
something goes wrong, and unfortunately the higher ups who make the
decisions like the perks of dealing with large companies. You know,
golf, lunch, more golf, dinner, tickets to sports events, more golf...
Now, how are they going to get that from a Linux vendor?
This doesn't really belong here, but I couldn't help it. Any followups
please post to comp.os.linux.advocacy...
Cheers,
Chris