Re: Practicality of GNU project and libre movement (Sagar Acharya : 2)

[Miles Fidelman]

On 7/25/20 3:12 PM, Matt Ivie wrote:

>     "And, yes, I rely on a Mac, and MS Office for lots of things - "
>     Hi Miles, this is not an attack bit a practical question. What
>     functions does the Mac do for you that you're unable to do in a libre
>     system? Same question on MS office.
>     I have been an IT professional for some years now and I have been able
>     to run my workstations using debian and I use LibreOffice without much
>     of an issue.
>     Do we need to start a new thread or discuss this privately since it is
>     a little bit of a side topic.

Not sure how much of a side topic it is - seems like it's right up there 
with "practicality of .. "

To answer your question:

- It's not about being "able" to do something, it's about being able to 
get real work done with the least amount of hassles.  I'm a systems 
architect - computer hardware & software are just tools for getting the 
work done, and components in the end products delivered to customers.

- When I'm trying to get work done, I like my tools to just work.  The 
Mac is a nice piece of hardware, the GUI is polished, Apple Care is a 
pretty good deal for keeping stuff working, and Office is what everybody 
in business uses.  Sure, one CAN do it all with Debian & LibreOffice 
(until you start sharing complex spreadsheets), but again, ease of use & 
support count for a lot.  (Now, with Apple about to change the 
underlying chipset, and moving toward a more and more closed 
environment, there's a good chance that my next machine will be an MS 
Surface - but that's another matter entirely.)

- On the server side, Linux & FOSS are the things that "just work."  
I've been running Debian, Apache, Postfix, Sympa, and MySQL for years.  
But what with systemd mucking things up, and MySQL now owned by Oracle, 
there's pretty good chance that my next upgrade is going to be to either 
BSD or SmartOS, or Erlang on bare iron.  Now if someone would just come 
up with a good, FOSS, distributed file system...

- And, of course, when it comes to delivering stuff to customers - more 
often than not it has to run on an MS platform.  And, if not MS, then 
Red Hat (precisely because customers like to purchase service contracts).

Cheers,

Miles


--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
nothing works and no one knows why.  ... unknown