Businesses survive because they mitigate risks -- WAS: barriers toadopting Linux by newbies

["Bryan J. Smith" <b.j.smith@ieee.org>]

One re-occurring theme that I tire of is "just get to Linux."  Nuts!

The business of business is to mitigate risks.  Whether you are talking
about their product or service, or the underlying support and
infrastructure of the company -- from 1 man to an entire enterprise --
that is the basic and elementary foundation of any survival of the
business.

Software is no different.

The reality is that continuing to run Windows _is_ an option, and a
_viable_ one for businesses.  The "problem" I find is that people cannot
separate "Windows" the Microsoft OS from "Office" and other Microsoft
applications.  The two _are_ different.  Worse yet, because of companies
like Microsoft, people have labelled _all_ "commercial" software to be
"proprietary" and "bad."

Ultimately it actually boils down to the fact that most people can't see
more than 1 variable or 2 sides of an argument when, in fact, there is
commonly 2 or more variables, and 4 or more options.

And that's why I wrote this article:  
http://www.smithdot.net/display.php?category=freedom&article=hostageware.txt   
I put software into 4 major categorizations, and then analyze the
_business_risk_ to data by using those pieces of software.  Pure,
technical, free of "political debate" -- _solely_ focused on what and
how business can mitigate its risks to its data.

I try to be as objective as I can, differentiating different software as
I can.  Most of what I've seen here is advocacy, with much bias.

-- Bryan

P.S.  Yes, there are actually even more categorizations, with no less
than 3+ variables (and 8+ sides/options).  But I tried to focus on the 2
most common variables, along with Hostageware.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith, E.I. -- Engineer, Technologist, School Teacher
b.j.smith@ieee.org



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