> Some people on this list mentioned how easy it is for a
> novice to use MPE.
> I can't disagree with this more, Windows, Sun or X-Windows on
> Linux, are
> clearly easier to use as you have all the options in front of
> you.  With
> MPE, like any command line system, you have to know the
> commands.  Anyway I digress.

I might be one of those people and I think you misunderstood the claim.  I
said it is easy to teach non-technical people to "administer" the 3000.  I
was replying to a point made that there may not be a lot of ready 3000 admin
talent out there and that it is easy to grow your own.  OTOH, I find many
technical people who do not want to recompile a kernel, tweak table values
on VMS, take all the courses to be an MSCE, or to use SAM on HP-UX.  I do
not disagree that a GUI interface is a better interface for non-power users
but that is different discussion.

Richard continues:
>My personal feeling with Open Source software is that I am getting
something
>that does the job, but it might be a bit tricky to install and set up.
With
>MS, I feel I am being manipulated into getting something I don't really
>want, something that will force me to take a direction that I wasn't aware
>of.

I think you make a good point here.  If I want a web server farm, why spend
the money on a bunch of MPE or NT licenses when Apache/Linux is good enough
to do the job for Google and Amazon?  Now, am I ready to put my business
critical data in an Open Source database and OS?  I'm not quite there yet.
But I am also leery of getting locked into a particular vendor solution
again.  I don't really care if the solution is proprietary or open as long
as the interface is open.  If I can easily exchange one solution for another
then I can minimize the risk and take advantage of new competitive
technology as it becomes available.

FWIW,

Mark Wonsil

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