Date: Thu, 21 Mar 2002 23:41:47 -0700 From: "Charles Burns" <burnscharlesn@hotmail.com> To: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Advocacy help for CS professor Message-ID: <F118QCIRDE2e0ghLGRI00009136@hotmail.com>
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I have a CD professor who has a masters in CS and EET from a top 50 university yet is enveloped in the Microsoft way of life. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, he is indirectly advocating Windows over Unix for all tasks based on knowledge from the Unix of years ago. Alot has changed! Showing him that Unix (BSD/Linux, etc) make a great server is easy, but Unix is now a great desktop platform as well. This is what I need help with. I have written several advocacy messages myself, but they are typically targeted to people setting up servers. I would like to make some specific arguments that will show him that Unix is worth giving a try, and if he doesn't like it, fine, his choice. He is willing to read what I have to say about it and listen to me as a peer, and considering his position as the head of the CS department, this could benefit FreeBSD and Unix in general (if you are interested in that sort of thing). This person has the following additude: - Microsoft has money, therefore can buy the best programmers, therefore has the best products. - Microsoft is very successful, therefore has the best products (though he is not using the popularity alone as an argument as he does have extensive knowledge of logic) - OSS programmers could not possibly be as good as Microsoft programmers, because Microsoft sponsors such things as nat'l programming competitions and hires the winners/hires the best of class from top universities, etc. I need specific reasons and hopefully links (not to slashdot, to reputable neutral news sites and such). OSS has Greenman, DeRaadt, Torvalds, Hubbard, Lehey, and others which are certainly among the top 100 programmers on earth. How to prove, though? I have pointed out that academics and contest winners are different from people that naturally love to code, but he is in a commercial mindset. I have seen many great logical abstractions of this concept on various sites, but finding them would be impossible. - He is using examples of MS products being superior to other Windows products, examples in which he is right. Netscape 4.7* vs. IE4--No comparison. MS Office vs everything else--for it's intended audience, it really is the best. Media player, etc. He quoted Outlook Express, but being in the field he uses Eudora because of OE's jaw-dropping security record. I already made the Evolution comparison, but I really need more examples in which an OSS Unux product is superior. ----Note that I am not trying to convince him that Unix makes a better overall desktop, or that OSS software is necessarily the best, only that there are many great OSS apps-some of which are better than MS counterparts, and that he should give it a try. (he is busy and doesn't want to waste time on something that he is pretty sure will suck) - He says Unix is fragmented, therefore cannot have a unified vision and focus, and that this automatically makes it inferior to Windows which is under one company with theoretically one vision and focus.(to own everything :-) I have already made some arguments and given some examples, but I would greatly appreciate any compact and strong anecdotes, facts, quotes, examples, theories, logical proofs, rhetorical questions, etc. that apply. Please don't tell me that Windows really is a better desktop OS--whether it is or not isn't the point. Thanks ahead of time. _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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