RE: tlug: linux.org down all week

[Jonathan Byrne - 3Web <jq@example.com>]

On Sat, 31 Oct 1998, John De Hoog wrote:

>OK, read it again. I didn't say the system was fragile, but that the grass
>roots infrastructure that supports the Linux community, depending as it does
>on mainly volunteer efforts by people in their spare time, tends to be
>fragile.

I know exactly what you said, and it is 100% dead wrong.  That is why I have a
problem with it.  Linux.org isn't even part of the support network you are
disparaging.  Your arguments are a total 404 on this. How can you possibly
describe as fragile a support network that is present in countless user group
MLs all over the world, numerous vendor sites, a great many Usenet
newsgroups, the sites of an ever-growing number of Linux distributors, a large
and ever-growing network of Red Hat support consultants, loads of excellent
reference works in paper and electronic formats, and probably a few more
channels that I haven't listed here.  

Do you really believe that one web site
being temporarily offline can have even the slighest impact on the level of
support for Linux?  If you do, it's time for a reality check: ask yourself how
much impact there would be on MacOS or Windows support if Apple or Microsoft
were offline.  That is a single point of failure of immense proportions.  The
Linux network has no single point of failure.  It's replicated all across the
Internet.  If half of the entire Net were taken down by a disaster, there
would still be plenty of Linux support available in the half that was still
there.  That's why Linux support was chosen as the best in the world, ahead of
any commercial vendor.  Because it's always there, 24-hours a day, seven days
a week, with greater speed and much lower cost (free, usually) than that
offered by the commercial vendors.

You sound like you've been reading too many nay-saying year-old articles from
mainstream computer magazines.  Note that the publications (print and
electronic) that used to raise these kind of claims have pretty much all done
a 180 as reality got to them.

>No, but I'm having difficulty seeing why you have a problem with what I
>wrote. Try not to see "troll" in everything that suggests weaknesses
>somewhere.

I have a problem with it because it was really, really wrong.  It was so
utterly baseless that it's difficult not to see it as posted just for the
purpose of making trouble.  If that was not your intent, I apologize for
misinterpreting it.  But you're still totally wrong in the asssertion that a
web site's being offline indicates a weakness in the system. 


Jonathan Byrne
Media and Content Section
3Web - Your Internet Solution! <URL:http://www.threeweb.ad.jp/index.en.html>
3Web Channel <URL: http://www.3web.co.jp/index.en.html>


---------------------------------------------------------------
Next Nomikai: 20 November, 19:30 Tengu TokyoEkiMae 03-3275-3691
Next Technical Meeting: January, 1999 (details TBA)
---------------------------------------------------------------
Sponsor: PHT, makers of TurboLinux http://www.pht.co.jp