[ The opinions expressed by authors on Linux Today are their
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]
By Paul Ferris, Staff
Writer
The late summer haze had just settled over the Beer &&
Bytes when who should stroll in but my ole’ “buddy” Slots Globnick.
It’s bad enough that the Latte machine leaves those iron filings in
the mix, now I’d have to deal with Slot’s iron-headed logic on top
of it all.
Ratz and I were having an endless-loop discussion about the
espresso machine that was going around like this:
Me: “Don’t you think it’s time to upgrade that thing? My dentist
is removing fillings instead of addin’ em!”
Ratz: “If it ain’t broke, don’t-“
Me: “It’s broke though!” I broke in.
Ratz:”It’s not broke! Everyone needs a little extra iron in
their diet. It’s a feature you might say.”
Me: “Oh, come on!”
But Slots ended the cycle: “Don’t complain, Sue!”
That stopped the conversation cold. Ratz and I both slowly
turned to look at Slots, who as usual was picking chocolate
sprinkles off of his (mostly) white dress shirt and Dilbert
tie.
For some people, the only way to get resolution involves calling
their lawyer. Even if it’s family. As much as I hated the espresso
and the metal filings, the idea of suing Ratz over it would compare
to someone suing his priest because the communion wafers were
stale.
I decided to hold off on the argument for a bit. If I was gonna
get mad I might as well get mad at Slots, because usually he’s
great at supplying me with good reasons.
“Sue? Over an espresso machine?!?” I asked incredulously.
Slots looked back up. “Yeah.” he said. “You gotta expect a
certain level of service when you order a drink. If he won’t
provide it, you sue.” If Slots were just a tad more aware of his
surroundings he would have noticed the crowd slowly gathering
around him, giving him what could only be optimistically called
“less than optimal” looks.
A lot of people argue with Ratz about a lot of things in the
Beer && Bytes. They argue about the decor (Mostly abandoned
computer parts, tackely placed upon the walls). They argue about
the selection (Although it’s a bar, it’s used primarily as a coffee
house and there are only a few caffeinated drinks available).
But a lot of ’em just plain argue, because not arguing with Ratz
at the Beer && Bytes would be kinda like going to the
confessional to discuss football scores. You may disagree. You may
yell. But sue? Sacrilege.
“Let me get this straight”, I led in, guessing at just the kind
of a blind alley Slots was heading for. “I sue Ratz over an
espresso. Why don’t I, if I don’t like the service, simply stay
home and make my own?”
At this point some people gave me quizzical stares, knowing that
I’m not the kinda guy who sits at home drinking instant coffee when
I could be out haggling over the benefits of vi versus emacs with
Ratz. Ratz, by the way, always diffuses these things by stating
that he must be non-partisan and that some topics are just too hot
to touch.
“Not that I would stay home, mind you, just hypothetically
speaking…” I quickly explained. The eyes returned back to
Slots.
“Well, it’s like with Microsoft Products. If you buy Windows,
instead of Linux, you have someone to sue.” Slots explained.
At this point Ratz grinned. He knew that he was out of the
picture. I suppose that Slots could have chosen a rougher crowd
somehow. Maybe he could have, for example, stepped into a
Professional Wrestling tournament ring and started yelling “It’s
all fake!”.
Maybe that would have been more humane, come to think of it.
Ratz started laughing and turned to polishing an old upturned 286
AT case that he used to hold shot glasses.
“Come again,” I said, “You have someone to sue ?!?. Name a
company that has sued Microsoft and gotten away with it! No, wait,
even better. Explain how suing a company like Microsoft is going to
bring you any kind of relief when your server goes kaplooey in the
middle of the night!”
Slots thought about this for quite a while. The sudden silence
was kind of deafening. You could hear the whirring fan of an old XT
running CGA space invaders in the corner. Finally Slots came back
from what could only be a non-optimized batch processing job
somewhere in the slower regions of his brain. “Ok, what I guess I’m
trying to say is that I have someone who is directly liable to call
and fix the problem.”
You could almost hear him adding the words “Yeah, that’s the
ticket! Someone to call!” at the end. I looked over at one of the
patrons who was leaning at the bar. The patron, Tiny, was keenly
listening the whole time, and to make the correct analogy, leaning
at the bar is kind of pushing things. More like, the bar was doing
a heroic job of holding Tiny off of the floor.
Tiny is the only coder amongst us who looks like he could double
as a Pro wrestler, except he wouldn’t do it because it’s not his
style. Even if he did want to, the WWF probably wouldn’t want him
anyway because his tattoo “Born To Code Free” doesn’t exactly
project the kind of impression that mean Pro wrestler types are
known for.
Like most of us, Tiny wasn’t convinced. He finally spoke,
slowly. Tiny always speaks slowly and clearly. It’s so he won’t
make mistakes. We’re all glad it’s that way. “So,” He says, “You
get great tech support from your good ole buddies at Microsoft.” He
took a swig of coffee.
The effect on Slots was interesting. He and Tiny have had some
moments of, well, confusion would be the best way to describe
things. Slots in general has done a great job of avoiding the same
kind of confusion since then by avoiding Tiny altogether.
Tiny continued. “You have a problem with your server software,
like it won’t do something you need it to do, and they just come a
runnin’ to help you.” Tiny took another swig from his coffee cup,
which in terms of size comparison, looked more like a shot
glass.
“Well,” Slots was looking about for the first time, and noticing
the rather intense crowd that had gathered, listening carefully.
“It’s not exactly like that, I guess. No, they only fix what
they’ve agreed to support. If it doesn’t work I can get them to
help make it work. That’s what I guess I’m trying to say. I have
someone to call.” Slots was clearly getting nervous now.
“Ok, let me get this straight then, it’s direct support you’re
after. You figure these are the guys that made the thing so they
can be called and help you fix it, right?” I asked.
Slots seemed to think that his point was getting across finally.
He relaxed a bit. It’s the same kind of relaxation I’m sure that a
fly feels just before the bug light zapper fries it to a crisp.
“Exactly, yeah, that’s what I meant.”
“You don’t need to sue, these guys can fix it because they made
it!” I grinned.
Slot’s grinned back. “Yeah!”
“What if they can’t fix it then. What if it’s a server
reliability issue, like what’s been happening to a lot of people
that implement the wrong solutions in a mission-critical area?” I
asked.
“Oh, well, in those cases I at least have someone to blame. It’s
not my problem, see? I’ve done all I can do, I’ve called Microsoft
and they are working on the problem! I got a couple of issues like
that at work right now.”
“Ahh, I see.” I said grinning. “And no one complains about
having problems that cannot be resolved? No one complains when you
have to reboot things all the time and critical services are down,
or when, for example, the mail servers keep losing mail?”
“Oh, you know how it is.” Said Slots, slurping away at the Latte
that was by now probably pretty cool. “There’s always some old
codger in Engineering that’s whining about how we should be using
something else. I always tell ’em that progress comes with a price,
and the managers know that no one ever got fired for using
Microsoft.”
Tiny spoke up again. “You sure about that? I heard some CEO got
fired recently from SGI over NT. I bet he wasn’t the first
either…”
Slots waved this aside “He was taking a promotion. He didn’t get
fired, he actually went to Microsoft to head up their Internet
stuff.”
“Ah. How convenient.” Said Tiny. “Well, now that sounds like a
real step up the ladder. I still wonder if there haven’t been some
people hurt by choosing-“
I broke in at this point, to the relief of Ratz and the bar as
well from what I could tell, which was straining enough as it was.
Tiny stepped back a bit and listened again, smiling.
“So, what you are saying, is that if you buy Microsoft, you can
only do so much, because your involvement is to click on some
stuff. If that doesn’t work, you call someone, who is the only
company that can help, supposedly. If that doesn’t work, you can
just blame them. Suing doesn’t factor into it at all.”
Slots thought about this for a while. He didn’t like where we
had put him on this, but clearly some of the background CPU time
was having trouble not seeing it exactly this way. “Yeah, I guess,
that is what I’m saying. No one will fire you, and you can blame
them because it’s that way all over. Look, everyone may have
trouble with Microsoft stuff, but it’s what everyone does. So,
everybody just accepts it that way.”
I frowned. “Except your customers, who might need your
information structure, inside or outside of the company. They might
just go somewhere else for the services. Maybe to a company that’s
more reliable, or less costly if they are using a Open Source or
Free Software solution.” I said.
“I guess,” Slots said, “but look, I can’t be bothered with this
Open Source stuff. It takes more time to learn. I can’t get the
same kind of support that I get from Microsoft.”
Tiny broke back in. “That’s for sure I’ll bet! I bet that a lot
of Linux support houses are doing a far better job, even though
they weren’t the ones who wrote it!”
The laughter subsided and Slots continued. “Look, Even if I
could write my own solutions, I don’t have the time to learn how.
It’s that simple. You guys are crazy for thinking that the whole
world is just gonna switch to this stuff just because some
people can do more with it. With Microsoft, a lot of people can do
stuff that they can’t do with Linux, and if it doesn’t work all the
time, or completely as advertised, well it does enough to help ’em
get the job at least working.”
“You mean, you can’t setup a web server or file server with
Linux?” Asked Tiny incredulously.
“Well,” Slots thought a bit, “I’ve never really tried it,
actually…”
“Ah.” Said Tiny.
“Ah.” I said in confirmation. “What you’re really saying, I
guess, is that you need someone to blame, more than to rely on
things working from your own efforts. Having Microsoft to blame is
more important than educating yourself and having yourself to
blame.”
Slots looked around, and slammed his drink down. “You’re
insulting me!”
“No, I’m following your line of reasoning.” I said, matter of
factly. “I can usually rely on Open Source products to work rather
well. If they don’t work as advertised, I can get support, quality
support, either purchased or free through newsgroups or Internet
relay chat. The solutions usually take a bit of time and reading on
my part, but they work. I could, yes, write my own, but usually
find that I can follow what others have done more often.” I looked
at him carefully.
This seemed to confuse Slots a bit. “But you are on your own.”
he said, “The quality of the solution is directly tied to how much
you are willing to put up with or learn. I can’t imagine that you
wouldn’t want to have the solutions be point and click, even if
they didn’t always work. Your job would be easier, that’s what I’m
trying to say.”
“If I had to rely upon some proprietary company that made
unreliable products in the face of having free products that
provided better service,” I said, “And even if those products
demanded more of me, I would be in effect saying that I valued the
quality of my services less, and my ability to dodge the
responsibility and accountability to my customers more.”
Slots was quiet. He thought about it for a long time.
Ratz broke the silence by asking me if I needed more
espresso.
I looked at the old espresso machine with some trepidation. “How
’bout Tiny and I give you a hand fixing that damn thing.” I finally
managed.
“Ok, but don’t blame me if tastes like crap after you’re done!”
Ratz replied.
Tiny and I grinned and looked at each other.
“No, I think we’ll sue instead.” I said, laughing and coming
around the bar.
Thanks to Tom P (you know who you are) for the plotline behind
this story.