Re: OT--through a Window darkly

[flash flash@xxxxxxxx]

A footnote to software which is available only tied to the software
manufacturer's hardware: in industrial-strength networks and data
centers, this is quite common.

No one expects to buy a cheapo router from Wallmart and run Cisco's or
HP's or Alcatel's OS on it. Binding software to hardware is a very
effective means of ensuring quality control (no Cisco router or HP
switch ever complains about a missing DLL or driver). Same goes for
firewalls and SAN-servers and any number of other professional
computing/networking devices. Apple came out of that
professional/industrial environment. MS didn't; they started out as a
home gamers' platform (with lots of support for third-party graphics
cards and sound cards).

Open-source platform-independent (i.e., Linux) makes perfectly good
sense. Proprietary software linked to proprietary hardware makes
perfectly good sense. It is Microsoft which is out of step, in my
opinion, offering a proprietary OS which is (supposedly) platform
independent (with all that that entails: missing DLLs, no drivers for
your particular combination of printer/grasphics/sound cards etc. etc.);
not quite the one and not quite the other.

Practically speaking, three boxes ought to be enough for me, too. The
fourth box is an NT4 file-server--no GUI, just a fastethernet link to
the LAN-switch and no access to/from the Internet. Oh, I forgot to
mention the bridge which links my MacPro to the stereo.

The purr of many little fans...