08.13.08
Systems Administrators That Make Us Happy
This is a brand-new video. The producer the Digital Tipping Point project writes: “Christa Casebeer, a sys admin at the Johnson County Community College in Kansas City, Missouri, says that 15% to 25% of all users at her college are Linux users!” Watch for yourself.
Other parts of this interview:
It seems as though the systems administrators there truly promote Free software, to the extent possible.
By contrast, watch Saturday’s news on how ‘helpful’ Novell has been when asked for assistance.
Question: About two years ago the company I work for got all brand new Dells. They could not throw the old computers away so they asked if any of the workers wanted one. Since I had an old Windows 98, and they had Windows XP, I snatched one up in a heartbeat. All I had to do was when the password window came up I typed it in and it opened. About two months ago I turned it on, typed in the password, but their old network Novell wouldn’t let me in.
I contacted Novell, but they acted like I was some hacker spy. Nick can you help?
Novell was also unresponsive when this apparent hack got reported. Novell customers have complained about support on various occasions. █
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.