[osol-discuss] An open reply to the Open letter to the Solaris Community

2007-08-03 Thread Sivasubramanian Muthusamy
Dear Wussboy,

I am a total newcomer to the open source community, I am here as a person who 
grew up with Microsoft Windows, as a person who still admires Windows ( I have 
not used Mac ) for its ease of use features. With this background, WITH 
ADMIRATION FOR THE EASE OF USE OF FEATURES OF WINDOWS, I have been working on 
introducing desktop and notebook computers with Sun Solaris, initially for the 
professionals and eventually for the home users. 
http://www.isolatednetworks.com (The product line is still not announced in my 
website, but I have an interesting line of desktop computers and notebook 
computers soon to be introduced, built around the Sun Solaris operating 
system.)

When I have talked about taking solaris home, I have been encouraged by those 
technical executives who have the vision, and I have found a few others 
skeptical.

I am so forceful in my belief that the tasks ahead along the road to home are 
simple, very simple tasks. Windows is like a public park, appears manicured, 
pleasant and easy and comfortable for anyone to walk into (not said of Windows 
with cynicism, I am not a person who is anti-microsoft). Unix is like a 
Government Fortress, elaborately architectured, well engineered and secure. For 
someone to get into that building there are rules to be followed, routes to be 
learnt, guards to be encountered.

It is difficult to make the Public Park secure like a fortress, but it is not 
so difficult to make a Government office appear friendlier.

Take me as a convert. I am allergic to command prompts, I called Sun's ISV 
support to figure out how to power on a Sun Server when I got one, abandoned 
the idea of installing Solaris four year ago (probably because I was trying to 
install a Sparc O/S version on X 86 ?) and four years later took six weeks to 
complete my first installation, and six months more to fix little issues. I am 
that non-technical. I had never seen, read, never seen Solaris before, didn't 
know what Solaris looked like, never had my hands on Linux before, am someone 
who grew up with Windows, but as a user found the Java Desktop easy to switch 
to. Solaris 10 with Star Office across the Java Desktop interface posed NO 
DIFFICULTY for me, and I have been at ease right from day 1. I am not the mp3, 
webcam, mpeg type, so I did not find the features lacking in any way. Star 
office read word documents and excel sheets, mozilla accesses the internet, 
evolution fetches my mail, what else do i need ?

In this public forum I am not going into details such as the marketing 
strategies that I have thought of to reach Solaris to the common man, because I 
am kind of a Proprietory person, still reluctant to disclose my innermost 
ideas, but let me simply say that there are millions out there who would find 
Solaris amazing for various reasons, some for Price, some for Security, some 
for its Openness and some for wrong reasons as hatred for Microsoft.

What stops Solaris from reaching home ? Let me put on the shoes of a demanding 
home user. I get on to the net, Oh, yes, there is mozilla 1.7 , and now Firefox 
2.0. I want to access email and I see Evolution as also the email client built 
into the browser. Wait a minute, I bought a webcam which does not work. And the 
DVD from my library does not play. Hey, I can't download the yahoo messenger. 
My MP3 player and my PDA does not synchronize. Solaris is useless.

Good, you have games, a few games, but I wonder if i can play the games that 
come in DVDs ???

If my questions stopped the Linux community, had it been addressed to the Linux 
community, I wouldn't be surprised. But Solaris comes from Sun that 'owns' 
Java, which is an impossible platform independent software. If James Gosling et 
all could develop a platform independent language, why not a Universal Serial 
Device Driver, or some kind of a Platform Independent Device Driver Language ? 
(Dear Jonathan Schwartz, find an island in the Caribbean, name it the Green 
Island, but do make sure that it has a Oak tree )

On this, Sun can think that it can. In the meantime, all that Open Solaris and 
Solaris has to do is to identify a few more printers, a few more PDA phones, a 
few digital camera brands, work with the manufacturer and develop drivers for 
Solaris. There are small companies out there on the Internet that offer media 
players that play diverse file formats. May be Open Solaris and Solaris can 
work with them to make their products more stable, get them to port their 
software on Solaris.

Java can cause magic for Solaris. I left a few posts on Java and its potential 
in my weblog weblogs.java.net/blog/isolatednetworks to ask what prevents Java 
from becoming the trendiest desktop in the world, the answer was that there was 
so little java in the java desktop. Leverage on your Java strengths to make 
Solaris easier.

Again, as a user, what would do I have to say ? Hide your technical prowess 
from me. I go to the file browser and find a lot of 

Re: [osol-discuss] An open reply to the Open letter to the Solaris Community

2007-08-03 Thread Kaiwai Gardiner
On Fri, 2007-08-03 at 10:12 -0700, Sivasubramanian Muthusamy wrote:
 Dear Wussboy,
 
 I am a total newcomer to the open source community, I am here as a
 person who grew up with Microsoft Windows, as a person who still
 admires Windows ( I have not used Mac ) for its ease of use features.
 With this background, WITH ADMIRATION FOR THE EASE OF USE OF FEATURES
 OF WINDOWS, I have been working on introducing desktop and notebook
 computers with Sun Solaris, initially for the professionals and
 eventually for the home users. http://www.isolatednetworks.com (The
 product line is still not announced in my website, but I have an
 interesting line of desktop computers and notebook computers soon to
 be introduced, built around the Sun Solaris operating system.)
 
 When I have talked about taking solaris home, I have been encouraged
 by those technical executives who have the vision, and I have found a
 few others skeptical.
 
 I am so forceful in my belief that the tasks ahead along the road to
 home are simple, very simple tasks. Windows is like a public park,
 appears manicured, pleasant and easy and comfortable for anyone to
 walk into (not said of Windows with cynicism, I am not a person who is
 anti-microsoft). Unix is like a Government Fortress, elaborately
 architectured, well engineered and secure. For someone to get into
 that building there are rules to be followed, routes to be learnt,
 guards to be encountered.
 
 It is difficult to make the Public Park secure like a fortress, but it
 is not so difficult to make a Government office appear friendlier.
 
 Take me as a convert. I am allergic to command prompts, I called Sun's
 ISV support to figure out how to power on a Sun Server when I got one,
 abandoned the idea of installing Solaris four year ago (probably
 because I was trying to install a Sparc O/S version on X 86 ?) and
 four years later took six weeks to complete my first installation, and
 six months more to fix little issues. I am that non-technical. I had
 never seen, read, never seen Solaris before, didn't know what Solaris
 looked like, never had my hands on Linux before, am someone who grew
 up with Windows, but as a user found the Java Desktop easy to switch
 to. Solaris 10 with Star Office across the Java Desktop interface
 posed NO DIFFICULTY for me, and I have been at ease right from day 1.
 I am not the mp3, webcam, mpeg type, so I did not find the features
 lacking in any way. Star office read word documents and excel sheets,
 mozilla accesses the internet, evolution fetches my mail, what else do
 i need ?
 
*cries* you'll never appreciate the true joy of using a real computer
like an amiga, atari, amstraad etc. Its sad that today a computer is
equated to Windows preloaded onto x86.

 In this public forum I am not going into details such as the marketing
 strategies that I have thought of to reach Solaris to the common man,
 because I am kind of a Proprietory person, still reluctant to disclose
 my innermost ideas, but let me simply say that there are millions out
 there who would find Solaris amazing for various reasons, some for
 Price, some for Security, some for its Openness and some for wrong
 reasons as hatred for Microsoft.

People hate Microsoft because they're the 'big man' on the block. People
who reinvent history to justify their hatred, or simply hate Microsoft
because its something to hate and its what all the cool kids do.

 What stops Solaris from reaching home ? Let me put on the shoes of a
 demanding home user. I get on to the net, Oh, yes, there is mozilla
 1.7 , and now Firefox 2.0. I want to access email and I see Evolution
 as also the email client built into the browser. Wait a minute, I
 bought a webcam which does not work. And the DVD from my library does
 not play. Hey, I can't download the yahoo messenger. My MP3 player and
 my PDA does not synchronize. Solaris is useless.

Why do you need to download yahoo messenger? Pidgin/Instant Messenger
supports those protocols out of the box.

 Good, you have games, a few games, but I wonder if i can play the
 games that come in DVDs ???

DVD's? I tend to play mine on my dvd player hooked up to the television.

 If my questions stopped the Linux community, had it been addressed to
 the Linux community, I wouldn't be surprised. But Solaris comes from
 Sun that 'owns' Java, which is an impossible platform independent
 software. If James Gosling et all could develop a platform independent
 language, why not a Universal Serial Device Driver, or some kind of a
 Platform Independent Device Driver Language ? (Dear Jonathan Schwartz,
 find an island in the Caribbean, name it the Green Island, but do make
 sure that it has a Oak tree )

Already done, UDK - it never caught on; originally written by Caldera,
designed to be a API to bring the UNIX and Linux world.

 On this, Sun can think that it can. In the meantime, all that Open
 Solaris and Solaris has to do is to identify a few more printers, a
 few more PDA phones, a 

Re: [osol-discuss] An open reply to the Open letter to the Solaris Community

2007-08-03 Thread Manoj Joseph
Kaiwai Gardiner wrote:

 not play. Hey, I can't download the yahoo messenger. My MP3 player and
 my PDA does not synchronize. Solaris is useless.
 
 Why do you need to download yahoo messenger? Pidgin/Instant Messenger
 supports those protocols out of the box.

Pidgin does not support voice chat - not yet. :)

Manoj
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Re: [osol-discuss] An open reply to the Open letter to the Solaris Community

2007-08-03 Thread Kaiwai Gardiner
On Sat, 2007-08-04 at 00:55 +0530, Manoj Joseph wrote:
 Kaiwai Gardiner wrote:
 
  not play. Hey, I can't download the yahoo messenger. My MP3 player and
  my PDA does not synchronize. Solaris is useless.
  
  Why do you need to download yahoo messenger? Pidgin/Instant Messenger
  supports those protocols out of the box.
 
 Pidgin does not support voice chat - not yet. :)

Hmm, I have to admit, given how cheap phone calls are in NZ, I can't be
even bothered trying to get Voip.

Have you tried getting them to use Ekiga instead?

Matthew

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Re: [osol-discuss] An open reply to the Open letter to the Solaris Community

2007-08-03 Thread Manoj Joseph
Kaiwai Gardiner wrote:
 On Sat, 2007-08-04 at 00:55 +0530, Manoj Joseph wrote:
 Kaiwai Gardiner wrote:

 not play. Hey, I can't download the yahoo messenger. My MP3 player and
 my PDA does not synchronize. Solaris is useless.
 Why do you need to download yahoo messenger? Pidgin/Instant Messenger
 supports those protocols out of the box.
 Pidgin does not support voice chat - not yet. :)
 
 Hmm, I have to admit, given how cheap phone calls are in NZ, I can't be
 even bothered trying to get Voip.
 
 Have you tried getting them to use Ekiga instead?

And try to persuade my friends who are on gtalk to switch too? No. :)

Manoj

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