>This is mainly due to the fact that if you have a problem with Linux,
>there's a whole world out there eager to provide you with free
>technical assistance.

And you get what you pay for. While there may be literally hundreds of volunteers out there to help you with your problem, none of them is *obligated* to do so. What is the Linux support escalation procedure?

>Speaking of assistance, Tom told us that the Cerritos Linux User's Group
>(another L.A. area group) periodically has an installation and configuration
>meeting.  Therefore, if you're having problems with you Linux installation,
>you bring you machine in and get others to help you get it working right.

Carrying in my N4000 might be difficult, even if my employer gave me permission 
to let me leave the building with it.

Linux definitely has it's place, and Charles' email illustrates a lot of them. However, Linux will sink or swim, and HP-UX will sink or swim, not on TECHNICAL merits, but on business merits. This is exactly what happened to MPE ... technically it's wonderful, but HP doesn't expect to make enough money on it, so bye-bye! My company, and many companies, are still very uncomfortable running "critical" things on a system that's supported on a volunteer basis by you-have-no-idea whom. Maybe Linus Torvaalds himself is helping you, or it might be the guy behind the counter at Baskin-Robbins last week who served up your double-dip in a waffle cone. Both could provide you with answers ... hopefully correct ones. Do either one have an N4000 and fibre disks so they can debug the driver problem you're having?

Assume your helper decides it's a Linux bug. Can he promise it will get fixed? 

Business people hate uncertainty, and the Linux support model is very uncertain. We IT people can talk until we're blue in the face that Linux is very good and nothing to be afraid of, but until the business people can understand the Linux model (which is alien to every computing business model any executive worked with before) there will be no mass datacenter adoption of Linux, and thus a continuing need for HP-UX, Solaris, AIX, etc.

I'm no IT visionary or anything, so I could be wrong about all this. I just don't see HP-UX going away anytime soon because there is just TOO MUCH money to be made with it, because business managers are not willing to go to Linux to replace it.

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