[rescue] OT: Linux and USB on Intel

[r. 'bear' stricklin]

On Mon, 21 Apr 2003, N. Miller wrote:

> A good friend of mine (mr. squirrel.com) still works there--probably you
> know him, and he you.  I don't know all the politics of the situation.
> I'm operating from the fact that my friend never mentioned the interim
> steps that you talk about (which is not to say that it didn't happen),
> and that in every interview that I have had in the last 12 mo. w/them,
> every single person has said that the migration to Linux is complete
> except for some internal systems (well, OK, the HR peeps did not
> say that :-).  They are eating the Linux Oracle beta dog food.

Yeah, I worked with Mark. I didn't know he was still there. Tell him I
said 'hi', I guess. I don't know what it'll mean; I had a horrible
attitude about working there, for no particularly good reason. Looking
back on it it wasn't that bad, but it's clear I had a lot of growing to
do.

Anyway.

> Given what I have read about Google's set up and other large
> companuy's, I still say that Solaris is losing to the commodity
> theory of computing.

I say that it's more because Sun hasn't added anything particularly
compelling to Solaris or its hardware lineup, in seven or eight years.

I currently work for a major aerospace corporation in the Seattle area
that I'm not really allowed to mention by name. Linux is starting to raise
some interest, but our top rank architects have declared that deploying on
linux is a fireable offense. Thus... lots of fear. There are also groups
not under the thumb of those architects who are going ahead, trying to
demonstrate the business wins. I happen to work with one of those groups,
deploying linux on z/VM (where z/VM is really the big win, and not so much
linux).

I have a PDF of some slides that go with an executive presentation on that
topic that I've been pitching around the company a bit in the last month
or so. I don't know how interesting you all will find them without the
rest of the pitch, but if you're up to downloading the 900K or so..

http://www.bears.org/~red/nowhere/slides.pdf

It also bears mentioning that I've been the company's E10k SME since I
hired on after I left Amazon. The E10k was a bad investment for the
company, but only because of the business environment surrounding the
management of IT dictated its use in a completley pointless way. Some of
that business environment is reflected by the general focus of the slides.

By now this is deep within the realm of needing moved to geeks. I don't
subscribe to that list, so this will necessarily be my last public
statement on the topic. If anybody wants to engage me further in private
email, you're welcome to.

ok
bear