From: John Goerzen [mailto:jgoerzen@complete.org] Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2000 4:26 PM To: Alexander Staubo Cc: Zope Mailing List (E-mail); 'Thomas Stenhaug' Subject: Re: [Zope] Zope needs this (and Dynamo has it)

Thank you for completely sidetracking me and instead choosing a flame angle for petty word games. My point specifically was that the mass of mainstream appreciation of Zope versus a product like Dynamo was specificially _not_ related to openness. IBM does not open its money floodgates to invest in Linux merely because Linux is an open technology -- Linux was not the first, nor the last, not arguably the finest open technology in the history of IT. It and others do so, and give momentum to Linux, because of money, pure and simple.

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If the suits in managements (assuming you work in such a place) tell you to go learn Dynamo because that's what they want to use, wouldn't you say it's a problem?

It's not Zope's problem. It's their problem .

Let me relate a short anecdote for you, about the incident which triggered this thread. See, my colleagues are currently involved in a large project for a large company. They are buying Solaris 8 to run Dynamo. I've made a very strong case for Linux and Zope. There is, today, only a marginal difference between these two setups, and that difference is in price: The Linux/Zope combo is significantly cheaper than the Solaris/Dynamo combo. This has zero bearing upon their choice, and indeed on most ordinary computer investments for any company: The cost of buying a computer and licensing the software is "nothing" compared the maintenance costs and the insurance a big company needs that their investment is safe. In other words, heavy support plans and brand names. And guess what? Despite the fact that both Linux vendors and Digital Creations offer such support plans, my advice to my colleague and this company falls dead on the ground. Zope doesn't have the flashy packaging and sexiness of a product line Dynamo -- which, actually, I strongly urge you (and everybody else in this forum) to experience yourself, before you snap back at my again -- and this affects management decisions. Dynamo is exceedingly sexy, and it boasts the kind of bullshit magic that have management and tech people alike drooling. So is it "their problem"? In the end, I don't think so. I think they're going to be quite happy with Dynamo. As one of my colleagues pointed out, the problem starts with the name. (Somebody out there is hyping what they call Linux' next-generating GUI. And it's called... GNOME. What's wrong with this picture?) I don't care myself, but I recognize the problem. -- Alexander Staubo http://alex.mop.no/ "QED?" said Russell. "It's Latin," said Morgan. "It means, 'So there you bastard'." --Robert Rankin, _Nostramadus Ate My Hamster_