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发信人: Lg (北斗七星), 信区: Linux
标 题: The Importance of Adopting an In-House Linux Expert
发信站: BBS 荔园晨风站 (Wed Sep 23 19:23:17 1998), 站内信件
"Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
The Importance of Adopting an In-House
Linux Expert
By Carlo Prelz
Changes, even huge changes, are difficult to evaluate when you happen to live
close to whatever is
undergoing the change, be it a child, global politics, or the world of people
who make a living with their
knowledge of information technology (IT) matters.
In our world, as the most common computer-dependent tasks get standardized and
as more and more raw
computing power can be tapped by more people, the figure of the white-clad
``computer priest'' is about
to vanish. But what is the world getting in exchange?
How is the young manager of a new company going to build its IT infrastructure?
No, he most likely won't
phone IBM. Instead, he will order a bunch of PCs, equipped with a various
assortment of Microsoft
software. Other Microsoft software will follow, because that's what everybody
does.
Through a brief, fractal period, we have moved from one monopoly to another,
with the added
disadvantage that people who blindly accept the new easy solution end up with
less-than-solid material.
This material is much harder to adapt to local needs. In the past, companies
who could afford a high level
of informatization hire with a handful of COBOL or RPGII programmers who could
customize the
software that needed to be adapted.
Today, a manager will most probably be equipped with a NT server, a Microsoft
Office suite on Windows
95 for each desk, an Ethernet network, and an assistance contract with some
specialized firm (who has to
deal with dozens of other companies). He may organize things so that his people
have some limited sort of
Internet access. All standard, on a path that is being walked on by a huge mass
of people all around the
globe.
As the path gets dug deeper and deeper, it gets harder to choose a different
one. This has to do with
gravity: the deeper the path and the steeper its sides, the harder the person,
company or organization has
to want to choose a personal way to its own IT goals.
But why would a reasonable IT manager want to get out of the mainstream? The
keyword is
customization.
Yes, you can program in Windows. But when it gets to having an ``intimate''
relationship with what actually
happens, Windows leaves you in the cold. You may find books, but unless you
have uncommonly strong
links with the Microsoft engineering circles, you have no way to be confident
in the fact that whatever OS
feature you are using won't disappear without a trace in the next release.
Which you will have to use
because everybody will be using it at a certain time. You end up being
dependent on the next brilliant idea
they come up with at Redmond, WA.
This strategy is evident. Human beings' laziness is again tapped, at the
benefit of a company that found
itself at the right space-time coordinates, and has been as un-principled as
needed.
But if our young manager were to dedicate a moment of thought to how to solve
his IT problems, what are
his choices?
If he has enough resources, he can go the mainframe way. The road is still
open and fast becoming
an elitist choice.
If his connections with IBM are vital, or for a series of (constantly
diminishing) other reasons, he
may go the OS/2 way.
He may be romantic and like Macintoshes. There are concrete rewards in
these choices, although
these give the impression of diminishing, too.
He may instead choose the proprietary UNIX way--yes, the overpriced one.
If he has a curious attitude, chances are that he has already met Linux,
and that he has seen Linux
mentioned at an increasing rate during the past months. Thanks to the Net,
there is no scarcity of
information open to whomever decides to look around a bit.
He may also decide to either write or pay somebody to write an operating
system from scratch.
This seems somewhat improbable.
Let me know if I missed some important options. But of all the above, the one
that promises to bear more
fruit is the Linux way. So, how to give it a try? The best solution for a
manager who would like his
computers do what is needed without learning the way himself, is to engage the
services of one or more
Linux aficionados.
The Linux Aficionado
Linux has been growing like a big, healthy forest plant. Each branch has been
contributed by someone like
us, who decided to spend a bit of their free time to make the tree look and
live better. Not ``for free'': we
humans always do things for a reward; it happens that money is not the only
(nor the best) reward. The
impulse behind the Free Software movement has been and still is to demonstrate
to ourselves and to the
world that we worked well, that we brilliantly solved a problem. That we
created a handy tool, that was
not there before. That is, that the world is now a little bit nicer now than
before we started developing our
ideas.
Of course, programmers need to survive, too. Here is what the Richard Stallman
has to say about the
topic (excerpt from the GNU Manifesto):
``Won't programmers starve?''
I could answer that nobody is forced to be a programmer. Most of us cannot
manage to get
any money for standing on the street and making faces. But we are not, as
a result,
condemned to spend our lives standing on the street making faces, and
starving. We do
something else.
But that is the wrong answer because it accepts the questioner's implicit
assumption: that
without ownership of software, programmers cannot possibly be paid a cent.
Supposedly it is
all or nothing.
The real reason programmers will not starve is that it will still be
possible for them to get paid
for programming; just not paid as much as now.
Restricting copying is not the only basis for business in software. It is
the most common basis
because it brings in the most money. If it were prohibited, or rejected by
the customer,
software business would move to other bases of organization which are now
used less often.
There are always numerous ways to organize any kind of business.
Probably programming will not be as lucrative on the new basis as it is
now. But that is not an
argument against the change. It is not considered an injustice that sales
clerks make the
salaries that they now do. If programmers made the same, that would not be
an injustice
either. (In practice they would still make considerably more than that.)
The above was written back in 1985, when programmers were still earning big
money; 12 years later, our
market and contracting power has diminished a lot. Gone are the days when a
programmer could be the
best paid man in the company thanks to writing huge bits of database
access/data entry pieces of software
that differed very little from their brothers.
When the need arises for an application that is somehow different, there is no
other way than to call an
actual programmer. Here are a few characteristics that make a Linux aficionado
an ideal choice for such a
special need:
Passion. Something better than money as the reason for what we do.
Love for quality. Learning from previous experience, and being able to
judge and better our work.
Ability to solve problems. If a problem exists, we like see it solved in
the best possible way, and we
generally find a way.
Loyalty. If we are given recognition, an interesting place to work in,
interesting things to do and a
reasonable wage, we may oppose more than normal resistance to the lure of
head hunters.
I may like to add a couple of counter-indications:
Lack of particular enthusiasm for wearing ties or adopting uniforms (or
respecting poorly justified
liberticide rules).
The wish to understand what one is doing renders less than desirable a
sort of job where you must
focus on a tiny fraction of the whole thing, knowing nothing about the
complete picture.
No Need for Another Windows95
There are recurring, well-financed efforts to create a new good-for-everybody
operating system on the
robust structure of Linux. These efforts are justified by the hope of snatching
even a small percentage of
the huge market held by Microsoft. A very small percentage of a very large sum
may promise reasonable
earnings to those who follow this path.
Regardless of how things look like now, the omnipresent PC that we see today
has a limited time to live.
A very big slice of the PCs that are currently in use in the world are used for
standard operations: keeping
one's correspondence, making spreadsheet calculations, maintaining one's agenda,
playing games and
looking around the Internet. How many PCs do you know are being used with
software that has been
written especially for them? The logical direction, one that much effort has
been spent to hamper, is that of
including everything that a secretary, a non-IT-oriented office worker or a
common home user will ever
need in an idiot-proof box.
This tendency has at last emerged in the shape of network computers. No matter
which way is selected,
the result of adopting an NC is that, from the prospective of the user, there
will simply be a couple of plugs
to insert into the respective sockets, and the user will be ready to work or
play. No need to reinstall
Windows95 for the nth time because the maintainer can't divine a better way to
recover from the cryptic
error messages.
Along this way, comes the demise of shrink-wrap software. If the server is the
only place where a separate
operating system needs to be installed, it will be much harder for Microsoft to
maintain their stronghold on
the computer market. NT has very little advantage compared to the many UNIX
options in the field. In
particular, it is not significantly easier to manage than UNIX by a
knowledgeable person. And if or when
the networked world becomes so easy to manage that a bunch of software wizards
can do the job, the
next step will be NSes (Network Servers, I think I'll patent the name...).
Again, something that spells bad
to a software-only company that is programmed to EARN.
Isn't it futile to try to be the new Microsoft? As if it really mattered much
to have so much money that you
will not have the material possibility to spend it all in your lifetime.
Meet the Ideal Entrepreneur
So, what is there that is not futile? Doing something nice, that makes the
world a bit better. I said that
before.
A human being has an idea. Some say they float around, and visit you when you
become receptive enough.
She finds all the resources that are needed to turn this idea into a practical
product. After some time, other
people can exchange some of their own wealth to take advantage of the idea of
our entrepreneur.
Or the idea can be imported within a sufficiently fertile existing corporation,
one that will recognize the
value of the idea and give our human being enough space and resources to reach
her goal.
Or the idea deals with bettering an established way of doing some task.
What kind of enterprise can you think of, that won't benefit from the use of
IT? Most of the times, she will
have to look for computer assistance. It is to all the entrepreneurs who are
facing the problem of which
way to informatize their pet project that I would like to speak.
Linux may well be the best choice for you. But for Linux to adapt well to your
world, you will want to
adopt one or more Linux aficionados. You will want to secure the continuing
services of a person who
deeply knows and appreciates the tools he works with. Who can craft your
personal solution. Who can
maintain the operating system that your solution works on abreast of the latest
technical progress.
Linux cannot be eternal. Nothing is. But it has reached a solid, mature stage
NOW. Especially, it is the
ideal tool for tapping into the networked world. Now is the time not to be lazy
and to profit from this
situation. And keeping a Linux aficionado happy and well-fed now might also
imply finding yourself in a
more elevated position in the post-Microsoft world, tomorrow.
Copyright ? 1998, Carlo Prelz
Published in Issue 29 of Linux Gazette, June 1998
--
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