UNIX V7

[Ethan Dicks]

On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 11:55 AM, Dave McGuire<mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
>  This attitude is common...
> ... the only
> thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows.  Do these
> people really believe PCs running Windows process their bank transactions,
> maintain hospital databases, or run railroads?

Common indeed - an example from just this week: I was volunteering at
FreeGeek Columbus, sifting through a pile of donated 2U servers, when
one of the other volunteers _who uses Linux_ asked me what they were
(because he honestly didn't recognize a boxy slab as a computer).
Upon hearing the answer, he asked what a server does and where you'd
use one.  It's a bit tough to explain to someone the difference
between a rackable server-class machine and a desktop machine when
there's little common conceptual ground or vocabulary.  I don't know
how much of I was saying was starting to make sense because the last
question was, "I'm thinking of starting a business with some friends.
Do we need a server?"

Besides the cop-out answer of "probably, at some point", I really
didn't have a good answer for him.  It's a good thing I'm not in
Sales.

-ethan