Re: [SLE] ...and speaking of SuSE / Novell...

From: Steven T. Hatton (hattons_at_globalsymmetry.com)
Date: 11/16/05

  • Next message: Steven T. Hatton: "Re: [SLE] ...and speaking of SuSE / Novell..." 
    To: suse-linux-e@suse.com
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 18:34:32 -0500

    On Tuesday 15 November 2005 01:32 am, Anders Johansson wrote:
    > On Monday 14 November 2005 19:26, Steven T. Hatton wrote:
    > > For one, from working with Novell NetWare Networks in the early '90s. I
    > > just checked my textbooks form college. The text I used in my MIS
    > > cakewalk, ur...uh..., I mean to say course, data from 1991, gives the
    > > definition of a client running on one box and server on another.
    >
    > That's not a definition, just a common configuration.

    I was referring to the glossary entries. Call them what you will.

    > Of course Microsoft didn't use that configuration back then, because they
    > hadn't yet noticed that whole networking thing. It took them a while to
    > catch on.

    It's more complex than that. Bear in mind that Microsoft and IBM were at one
    time very closely intertwined. NT is actually fork of the OS/2 project.
    There was LANMAN long, long ago.

    > A client and server will necessarily run on the same machine if
    > you don't have support for networking

    Be all that as it may. What Micosoft did with WFW and then NT was to change
    the mentality of the industry. What people were calling client/server in the
    halls of academia and the acclaimed thinktanks such as Bell Labs and Xerox
    PARC is really irrelevant to what the average network administrator was
    calling client/server. It's not a question of where the technology
    originated; it's a question of who capitalized on it.

    Novell saw NT coming and tried to head it off with UnixWare. But the UI for
    UnixWare was unfamiliar and inadequate. I really wanted to learn UnixWare.
    But I didn't have time between my college courses and the demand by
    management that I remain "productive". I could learn NT easily because I
    already knew the UI, and it provided an intuitive interface. I didn't need
    to read the man page on ifconfig to get a network card configured.

    I also had existing apps that I could run on NT but not on UnixWare. That is
    going to remain a problem for Linux for quite some time. This in why I was
    infavor of Wine and am grudgingly in favor of Mono and DotGnu. It's also on
    of the big reasons I like Java.

    Do underestimate Micorsoft. Dave Cutler ain't no slouch. They've also bought
    Herb Sutter and Stan (aughta be ashamed) Lipmann.

    > The fact that there was a confusion in terminology doesn't negate the fact
    > that they were still using daemons in exactly the same way as Microsoft
    > used "services". I haven't heard of any machine being singly dedicated to a
    > single task

    You mean like a file server?

    That was Novell's biggest weakness. Their biggest chunk of the market was a
    dog that only did one trick for most people. Sure it could do other things,
    but NT could either do the same, or Microsoft would claim it could. You were
    typically ass-deep in Microsoft products before you discovered that MS/SQL
    distributed DB synchronization was vaporware.

    You can call me overly conservative, but one of the things I want to be sure
    of when I assert that Linux can support something is that I am telling the
    truth. Longterm, that is an irreplaceable commodity.
    Steven 

    -- 
Check the headers for your unsubscription address
For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com
Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com
Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com
  • Next message: Steven T. Hatton: "Re: [SLE] ...and speaking of SuSE / Novell..."

    Relevant Pages

    • Re: How to prevent system from replying to Ping (ICMP Echo) requests?
      ... "Ping of Death" - a ping with an effective size over 64k, ... Microsoft finally managed ... 1500 packets per minute is only 25 per second. ... each 64K long (I'm not aware of any networking protocol using packets larger ...
      (comp.security.firewalls)
    • Re: Cannot connect to Server
      ... As the issue disappeared under Safe Mode with Networking, ... Click the Startup tab, click Disable All and click OK. ... UNCHECK the "Hide All Microsoft Services" box ...
      (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
    • Re: Problems getting some web sites on second PC
      ... Microsoft MVP, MCSD ... Please excuse as i'm new to networking etc. ... > The 'Host' PC has the cable connection and works just fine. ... > I have Formatted the Client PC. ...
      (microsoft.public.win32.programmer.networks)
    • Re: One thing I noticed
      ... > Then networking started and the IT department crept back as network ... "Microsoft has become what it used to mock," says Gabe Newell, a developer on the ... monitoring productivity, and yet we knew they had spectacularly bad productivity. ...
      (microsoft.public.vb.general.discussion)