Re: About standards and politics

[Brian and Kathy Wiens <wiens@cyberus.ca>]

Bud Beckman wrote:
> From: Brian
> 
> >Then Linux is no good for the vast majority of the world's computer
> >users.  Are we rolling over and playing dead already???  I thought that
> >"my mother" (or yours, or any one else's) was the market that we were
> >aiming for, in the long run.  If we don't care about them, then we have
> >very little point in going much further because the work that RedHat and
> >Caldera is doing is probably sufficient.
> >
> 
> Right between the eyes!

Thanks.  I am not always sure that we are all on the same sheet of
music, WRT where Indy is going.  Donovan did clarify that "my mother" is
who we are aiming at in the long run - let's not discard them for now,
and hope that we'll get them back later.  I don't mean that we should
work excessively hard to make it too simple, too quickly, just don't
_ever_ say that "Linux isn't for them, even in the long run".  MS will
continue to set a moving target as described in the Hallowe'en memo -
let's try and make sure that we get/stay ahead of them :-).

> I remember when I typed in vi at the command line, (me smart computer
> user) think I hit all the keys at once to try and get out of the darn
> thing. Always jump in with both feet, never heard of man.

Same for me - did it again just the other day, after we started the vi
thread.  It took me about 10 minutes (even knowing that ^+(something),
^+(something else) was what I wanted) to even accidentally get into
help.  Am I a klutz?  I don't think so, but even if I am, there are
other klutzes in the world that could really use those on-screen
prompts, and a quick peruse of the man page before they get into
something as magical (read "arcane", "incomprehensible", "powerful only
for those initiated in the black arts" :-) as vi.

Brian