Asked our UNIX SA to install vim on 11i box

Post #178,949 by deSitter 10/12/04 7:31:20 PM Reply	Asked our UNIX SA to install vim on 11i box "We don't install free software on our boxes. No support." True or no, this is the prevailing attitude among job-having UNIX SAs. Is the lesson here clear? You can't win with "free the software" Stallmanism. Now I may still get vim installed, by being persistent and by personal interaction with the SA. I definitely won't accomplish Jake Shite by pushing Debian and the GPL. -drl
Post #178,977 by pwhysall 10/12/04 9:07:30 PM Reply	You're confused If the internal policy is "No free software" tell 'em to deinstall BIND, and Apache, and Perl, and all that other shite. NOTHING to do with Debian and EVERYTHING to do with the wankery that is the proprietary UNIX mindset. Peter [link\|http://www.debian.org\|Shill For Hire] [link\|http://www.kuro5hin.org\|There is no K5 Cabal] [link\|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org\|Home]
Post #178,980 by deSitter 10/12/04 9:13:42 PM Reply	And lo, Trevor proves my point WE know that - THEY may even know that - but they SAY IT ANYWAY and the BOSSES believe it so it MAY AS WELL BE ETCHED IN STONE. And these guys are pretty loose, comparatively speaking (e.g. I could create havoc with sudo if so inclined). -drl
Post #178,978 by daemon 10/12/04 9:11:25 PM Reply	Re: Asked our UNIX SA to install vim on 11i box ya got root? can ya get root? binarys are at the hp utah link I gave you. He sounds like an HP hack, hp ships vim on the install disk, tell him to install the HP provided software. Timeservers, regards, daemon
Post #178,981 by deSitter 10/12/04 9:14:25 PM Reply	Re: Asked our UNIX SA to install vim on 11i box I provided him with a link directly to HP's website. It's an HP-hosted, HP-packaged depot - no matter. It's free, no support, no go. -drl
Post #179,078 by jb4 10/13/04 10:53:34 AM Reply	How much "support" does vim really need, anyway? (ObSmackInTheviUsersFace: Besides supporting the users, that is? [/me ducks and runs for cover]) Amazing mindset...or, an exposure of raw incompetence. (that might be an inclusive or) Sheesh! jb4 shrub\ufffdbish (Am., from shrub* + rubbish, after the derisive name for America's 43 president; 2003) n. 1. a form of nonsensical political doubletalk wherein the speaker attempts to defend the indefensible by lying, obfuscation, or otherwise misstating the facts; GIBBERISH. 2. any of a collection of utterances from America's putative 43rd president. cf.* BULLSHIT
Post #179,079 by deSitter 10/13/04 10:55:38 AM Reply	None, but what does that matter? Large orgs are like communist states. Five year plans, catchy mantras, black markets. The truth has no actual value, only the perception of truth. Republicans. -drl
Post #178,987 by ben_tilly 10/12/04 9:35:43 PM Reply	Amazing... I know plenty of competent, employed sysadmins. None would take that attitude. Of course the ones that I know generally work at companies staffed by people with clues... Cheers, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #178,994 by deSitter 10/12/04 9:48:13 PM Reply	Re: Amazing... This place has a superb systems team. The clusters have near 100% uptime. They do more EDI on these boxes than the next 30 corps combined. I've poked over their layouts and everything is comme il faut. So don't take that high moral tone with them, dude. -drl
Post #179,012 by ben_tilly 10/12/04 11:10:35 PM Reply	That was a simple statement of fact I said what the good sysadmins that I know are like. I then qualified this by pointing out that the ones which I know work at companies that understand free software (so they don't have to worry about certain political games). You may note that I do not know the sysadmins that you are sampling from. They may well be competent. But I don't know them. Furthermore, speaking frankly, at this point I am not going to rely on your judgement of someone else's ability with computers. You have impressed me as someone who is longer on opinions than facts. And some of your opinions strike me as dangerously misguided. So my data remains what I said. There are competent sysadmins out there who are gainfully employed and do not pull the kind of crap that you described. There may be sysadmins who are competent and do. I don't happen to be aquainted with any. Regards, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #179,026 by deSitter 10/12/04 11:42:00 PM Reply	Programmers are often naive about group action in IT We're talking about massed body politics, not what is best or even correct procedure. The bottom line is - do you want Linux to succeed against Windows and vendor UNIX? If so, you can't just fight with facts - if that were true, Windows would have been ditched in 1993 for OS/2, right? -drl
Post #179,038 by ben_tilly 10/13/04 1:02:06 AM Reply	If only you'd provide me with facts to deal with I have your unsupported BS claims instead, which is very useless. Let's get some sample numbers. I'll focus on a single large vendor because I can get numbers for HP. I think that their experience is telling about what is happening overall. From [link\|http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/investor/financials/quarters/2003/q3.html\|http://www.hp.com/hp...ters/2003/q3.html] we see that HP includes Linux in their "Enterprise" space. A category that for the 3th quarter of 2003 was $3.71 billion. That is the same category as their Unix business, storage units, and so on. From [link\|http://www.technewsworld.com/story/33746.html\|http://www.technewsw.../story/33746.html] we find that according to IDC, in the same quarter HP got 28.1% of the revenue from selling Linux servers (that is servers pre-installed with Linux). Total revenue in that segment was $743 million, so HP's revenue from selling servers was about $209 million, or about 5.6% of their enterprise revenue. Not bad, but it gets better. For we also find out that the year over year revenue growth in that Linux segment was 49.8%. If that continues, then the revenue numbers for Linux are going to get a lot juicier. Furthermore HP itself does not count things the same way that IDC does. As pointed out in [link\|http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php?story=20040115100015615\|http://www.linuxelec...20040115100015615], HP includes various service based revenue streams, totalling $2.5 billion in 2003. Which means that the straight server sales has to be a fraction of overall Linux revenue. Exactly what fraction I can't precisely calculate, but somewhere in the 1/4-1/3 range looks right. In fact we can calculate what HP (a giant with many business lines, including desktop machines, printers, servers, consulting...) made of its total revenue from Linux. Their Linux revenue in 2003 was $2.5 billion. Their total revenue was $73 billion. That's 3.4%. (And that's growing rapidly!) This suggests that Linux already has succeeded. Now it is only a question of how good that success will turn out to be. The problems that Sun has been having fighting Linux underscore the fact that Linux really is a contender against traditional Unix. A large number of companies now have the attitude that they use Sun where they must to, and Linux where they can. The situations where Sun is required are quickly diminishing. Of course to listen to you, none of this is happening. My experiences, the experiences of people that I know, the revenue numbers being posted - this all goes over your head. You are convinced that Linux is failing and will continue to do so unless we all sign up with the priorities that you claim are critical. When you do that, you demonstrate that you do not have an opinion worth listening to. So cut the crap. I gave you actual numbers. Either give me something concrete in response, or shut up on this topic. Cheers, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #179,068 by deSitter 10/13/04 9:13:40 AM Reply	Nice facts Unfortunately, facts are often the last thing that troubles an IT organization - if management cared about facts, then why do they allow Windows machines to come near sensitive data? What I'm saying is, you can't beat Windows with facts. You need perception on your side. -drl
Post #179,110 by ben_tilly 10/13/04 1:00:10 PM Reply	Didn't I ask you to cut out the unsupported opinions? As you said, I presented nice facts. Very relevantly, what I presented are facts. You can blather all that you want about what needs to happen for Linux to succeed. The fact is that it already is succeeding. Now it is true that there are a lot of dysfunctional organizations out there that will not get the message. Such is life. In every major technology change that has been the case. Many places and people won't get the message for the better part of a decade. However the numbers indicate that Linux is achieving mindshare already. Perception may not be on Linux's side in all organizations, but it is in enough already for commercial success. Your contrary unsupported rants notwithstanding. Unless you manage to present something resembling a fact, that ends this discussion for me. Regards, Ben I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)
Post #179,003 by admin 10/12/04 10:04:26 PM Reply	Ditto Our sysadmin is as true-blue Solaris as they come. Linux ain't gonna happen as far as he's concerned; FreeBSD only because the network guys sneak it in and ask forgiveness later. Intel/AMD in the data center? Yeah, right. Our boxes have vim, xemacs, and bash installed on them (the latter two at my request -- no problem). Ross' sysadmins are clueless (and rare, in my experience). Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #179,008 by deSitter 10/12/04 10:33:17 PM Reply	And the largest place you've worked is? Note that I didn't say they were right, or that they meant what they said. What I said was, they repeated the corporate policy, which is to keep the box as simple as possible in the context of the problem for which it is directed. I'd like to have vim, sure, but I can live with vi. -drl
Post #179,010 by admin 10/12/04 11:00:15 PM Reply	What does that have to do with anything? I work in the financial industry. Typically very conservative with their machines. The largest place I've ever worked was one of the big 6 accounting firms (back when there still were 6). Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #179,023 by deSitter 10/12/04 11:37:01 PM Reply	Everything Policy at large corporate sites is designed to avoid lawsuits and pissed off gigantic customers (think WalMart). It often has nothing to do with truth and everything to do with appearence, appeasement, imagined stability, and accountability (no one really wants it). Upper middle management rules by fiat, but not autocratically, rather in the way that most ensures a covered ass. Like it or not, that is the target if you want to see Linux thrive. Once the gigantocorps bless it, it's home free in small to medium business as well. -drl
Post #179,025 by admin 10/12/04 11:41:24 PM Reply	Wrong. Apparently you've never worked in the financial industry. Companies big AND small in this industry have exactly the same behavior. Size has nothing to do with it. Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #179,027 by deSitter 10/12/04 11:42:35 PM Reply	Do banks count? No? -drl
Post #179,028 by admin 10/12/04 11:43:31 PM Reply	Do you have a point? Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #179,029 by bepatient 10/12/04 11:44:00 PM Reply	What? They run the tightest IT shops in industry from policy and licensing pov. If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #179,030 by deSitter 10/12/04 11:45:26 PM Reply	Exactly admin: "Apparently you've never worked in the financial industry." I suppose credit card distribution and administration also would go under the heading "financial industry", am I right? -drl
Post #179,033 by admin 10/12/04 11:51:50 PM Reply	Er, duh? My point was that you don't have to be a BIG company to have a tight IT policy, which is what you intimated with your assertion that I had never worked in a big shop. Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #179,034 by deSitter 10/12/04 11:58:35 PM Reply	Re: Er, duh? My point was that IT policy in a large corporation is almost incidental to the culture of upward managerial mobility, which requires a covered ass at all times. Despite all the strict rules, I've seen the very same thing in the financial industry. The best boss I ever had was a former VP of Colorado Nat'l Bank (30 yrs there), who was locked in a stupid, withering political struggle against the P and his hatstand Windows minions. Tight mandated policy or no, corporate behavior often devolves to foreskin. -drl
Post #179,080 by folkert 10/13/04 11:07:28 AM Reply	How about Morgan Stanley? Do they count as "Big Firm"? Most of this shamelessly stolen from: [link\|http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7730\|We're Going to Be a 90% Linux Shop] at the Linux Journal. Phil Moore of Morgan Stanley, the Executive Director of the Engineering Team, recently began a talk this way: I work for the 38th-largest company in the world, Morgan Stanley. We have a billion-dollar IT budget. And we use a little of everything. Unfortunately. Excuse me, a LOT of everything. The trend I've seen in the last ten years...is the exponential growth in the variety and the depth and breadth of installation of open-source software in our infrastructure....What I'm seeing is that in the infrastructure, the core infrastructure, open source is going to take over, leaps and bounds....I'm predicting, right now, that by 2006 or 2007, we're going to be a 90% Linux shop. Further into his talk he made some comments about Microsoft (and other foreign companies) and what it will be like ten years from now: Look overseas at what's happening [with Linux]. It doesn't matter what distribution. Because [Linux is] economical for people in foreign countries. It lets them invest in their own local software companies without putting money into these guys' pockets [indicates Microsoft] or some other foreign corporation that doesn't have a vested interest in your own economy and your own culture. That's going to be the number one reason why open source ends up taking over the planet. Read that Article, it'll help you understand you own issue. Point your PHBs to the Link, to the HP stuff for Debian, for other HP sanctioned products. Especially point out the part that says: Juxtapose any-with-any on few-to-many, and you can see the cross-purposed result. It's easy to see how this presents a problem, not only for software giants such as Microsoft but for few-to-many empires including the entertainment industry and consumer electronics. Protecting few-to-many from any-with-any has become a cause for the whole entertainment industry. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, lobbied through Congress in 1998, is a landmark achievement in paranoia. Yet now large customers such as Morgan Stanley show us we misconceive the market when we see only conflict between open-source and proprietary software business imperatives. They make this clear when they put any-with-any in a supportive position beneath few-to-many. By its relationship-agnostic nature, any-with-any can include and support peer-to-peer, many-to-many, business-to-business or any other pair of nouns flanking a preposition. If Linux is infrastructure, where does infrastructure fit? This question matters, because it provides the context within which paranoid few-to-many forces attempt to control infrastructure and prevent any-with-any from working. -- [link\|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net\|greg], [link\|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry\|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ *i_wethey* No matter how much Microsoft supporters whine about how Linux and other operating systems have just as many bugs as their operating systems do, the bottom line is that the serious, gut-wrenching problems happen on Windows, not on Linux, not on Mac OS. -- [link\|http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1622086,00.asp\|source] Here is an example: [link\|http://www.greymagic.com/security/advisories/gm001-ie/\|Executing arbitrary commands without Active Scripting or ActiveX when using Windows]
Post #179,082 by folkert 10/13/04 11:13:35 AM Reply	This really needs to be broken out: Morgan Stanley on Linux. (new thread) Created as new thread #179081 titled [link\|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=179081\|This really needs to be broken out: Morgan Stanley on Linux.] -- [link\|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net\|greg], [link\|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry\|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ *i_wethey* No matter how much Microsoft supporters whine about how Linux and other operating systems have just as many bugs as their operating systems do, the bottom line is that the serious, gut-wrenching problems happen on Windows, not on Linux, not on Mac OS. -- [link\|http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1622086,00.asp\|source] Here is an example: [link\|http://www.greymagic.com/security/advisories/gm001-ie/\|Executing arbitrary commands without Active Scripting or ActiveX when using Windows]
Post #179,084 by deSitter 10/13/04 11:23:12 AM Reply	Super, perceptions must be changing -drl
Post #180,010 by lister 10/19/04 3:37:38 PM Reply	Back in my SA days... ...not too long ago, I usually tailored what was allowed and what wasn't depending on the environment and the users. My two biggest SA jobs were at software development companies were I was mostly dealing with developers. Some good (they were given quite a bit of leeway), some bad (next to no leeway) and some neutral. With production and some development servers I kept a lid on what could be done and anything to be added, changed, etc. went through me since anything done could affect most of the staff. In most cases those additions or changes were no problem. The developers usually had Sun workstations at their desk that they had free reign to if they so desired knowing that if they did something to it which screwed something up and I couldn't fix it fairly quickly, the system would get reinstalled via jumpstart. Any window manager was fine, any tool, or even using local workstation storage with the knowledge that it was never backed up. Certainly any other OS would have been okay as long as they understood that there wouldn't be expert support of it for a while at least. lister
Post #180,067 by folkert 10/19/04 7:10:55 PM Reply	DING, DING, DING!!! We have a winnah! -- [link\|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net\|greg], [link\|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry\|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ *i_wethey* No matter how much Microsoft supporters whine about how Linux and other operating systems have just as many bugs as their operating systems do, the bottom line is that the serious, gut-wrenching problems happen on Windows, not on Linux, not on Mac OS. -- [link\|http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1622086,00.asp\|source] Here is an example: [link\|http://www.greymagic.com/security/advisories/gm001-ie/\|Executing arbitrary commands without Active Scripting or ActiveX when using Windows]
Post #179,006 by broomberg 10/12/04 10:29:42 PM Reply	"prevailing attitude" - BS Maybe in your experience, but certainly not mine. I've met lots of sysadmins. I've NEVER heard that stated about core utility software such as vim, bash, Perl, etc. Where you do hear that, often, and it is reasonable, is cornerstone business software such as a CRM system. Things that need ongoing care and feeding are usually not a good candidate for Open Source when there is a political battle. How about this: What C compiler is on your system?
Post #179,007 by deSitter 10/12/04 10:31:29 PM Reply	K+R HP kernel compiler No C programmers here, ergo no C compiler. COBOL compiler though! -drl
Post #179,013 by broomberg 10/12/04 11:11:52 PM Reply	Oh that's just stupid Accept that you have the gig, it pays the bills, and anything you need a decent tool set will be running off your Linux PC. How do you access it? Telnet or SSH. If SSH, a commercial one or Open Source? If telnet, take a hammer to the sysadmin.
Post #179,024 by deSitter 10/12/04 11:38:51 PM Reply	It's a yob, ya know? :) -drl

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