Re: [cobalt-developers] nice knowing you all!

[Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Arthur Corliss wrote:

> <G>  That was a hard call to make.  It's not like MS has promised exactly that
> with every rev of Windows after the original Win95.  Eventually they were
> going to get it right.  Ironically, you're still wrong, though.  Win98's
> successor is WinME, which is *still* DOS-based.

Not really DOS-based, though it's still got lots of DOS-code in it. 
This has been discussed over and over ad-nauseum in both pro- and con-MS
groups, so I won't go into it in detail here.  But Win98 isn't
DOS-based.

Just like WinNT isn't DEC VMS-based, though it's got a lot of VMS legacy
behind the windows interface.

> It looks like you've never had to administrate a large network of computers.
> Well, I have (I run IRIX, AIX, Solaris, HP/UX, FreeBSD, *and* Win NT here).

My networks are NOT large, but I currently administer for myself a
Cobalt RaQ2 and RaQ3, generic RedHat Linux 6.x, (with Red Hat's secure
server), BSDi4.1, FreeBSD4.0, WinNT4.0SP4, and Win2K Advanced Server
(and a Win98 desktop).  For others a lot more RaQs and generic Linux
boxes.

> For those of use used to working around the individual quirks of various
> Unices, it's no big deal.  But for the low-end market, with little expertise,
> it *is*.  No one wants to have learn the quirks of Solaris vice Linux just to
> bring in new hardware.

That's not what I was thinking of.  I was thinking of using the RaQ
strictly as an appliance, using the gui interface, which I expect would
be evolutionary rather than revolutionary, as it was in the switch from
the Qubes to the RaQs, from the RaQ2 to the RaQ3.  That's why I talked
about washing machines.  They're appliances after all, and most of us
don't know or care that different models come from different OEMs.

> But, then, perhaps you are all for constraining administration to a web
> interface.  In that case, you win.   For those of use who do much with these
> units than what that interface allows, we lose.

Look again at what I've posted.  I said that, basically, for those of us
on the developers list. But most of Cobalt's market is not developers,
and is people who are happy with the web interface.  And again, it
should have been clear from my context that that was what I was
referring to.

Personally, I find myself constrained enough by Cobalt RaQ software that
I use my RaQs in very limited application.

I do continue to support them, and their interface, for my cleints,
though.  That's my market niche.

Jeff
-- 
Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
nobaloney.net
P. O. Box 52672
Riverside, CA  92517
voice: (909) 787-8589  *  fax: (909) 782-0205