From kragen@dnaco.net Wed Sep 23 12:43:00 1998 Date: Wed, 23 Sep 1998 12:42:59 -0400 (EDT) From: Kragen X-Sender: kragen@pike To: webmaster@www.zdnet.com, malda@slashdot.org Subject: comment on "Windows NT Now Open" Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Keywords: X-UID: 2100 Status: O X-Status: There's an article by Angela Hickman at , but it has no email address. So I'm mailing "webmaster". I wanted to correct a couple of minor errors in the article. First, while the article says, "Windows NT is sure to dominate the server operating-system market for years to come," contrasting it with Linux. Linux already has more people using it than Windows NT does. Second, you mention open-source software, and say, "And no one, including Microsoft, dares take a chance on missing that trend." But Microsoft has certainly not come anywhere close to making NT open source, which is a registered certification mark of Software in the Public Interest, and is defined at . This is crucial! The milquetoast programs Microsoft is envisioning can't possibly have much effect on the quality of NT, except to confuse people who don't know much about the issues involved. Third, you quote Bill Peters of IDC as saying, "But it's not as if any IT decision makers are going to replace a NetWare or NT environment with Linux right now." But many institutions have already done this, and some started doing it as early as 1996. There are many case studies available on these migrations available on the Web. Many of them just switched because Linux didn't crash all the time the way NT did. Fourth, you say that Apache runs "almost 50 percent of all public Web sites". Apache has run more than 50 percent of all public Web sites since some time in July, according to the Netcraft Server Survey, at www.netcraft.com, and it currently runs 51.85% of all public Web sites. Apache and slightly-modified versions of Apache have run more than 50 percent of all public Web sites for more than a year. This is a small nit to pick, but it's a point of pride for much of the open-source community. Hope this helps improve the accuracy of your excellent magazine. Kragen -- Kragen Sitaker The sages do not believe that making no mistakes is a blessing. They believe, rather, that the great virtue of man lies in his ability to correct his mistakes and continually make a new man of himself. -- Wang Yang-Ming