Re: IIUG - Linux and Informix

Alan Denney wrote: > > In article <5kd646$646$1@news.xmission.com>, > DBA Resources <dbaresrc@xmission.xmission.com> wrote: > >The issues surrounding the technical viability of a Linux port can be raised > >**politely** during the Ask The Experts session the IIUG is sponsoring during > >the 1997 Informix Worldwide User Conference. With Tim Shetler, VP of Product > >Development and Don Top, Director of OnLine Kernel Development available to > >respond, you should be able to get a better perspective of the issues from > >Informix's point of view. > > > >Carlton Doe > > Without speaking for anybody else... it seems to me that the key areas > of Informix involved in such a decision would be a) the group that selects > are prioritizes ports, generally based on commitments with hardware > vendors and on business cases (e.g. those who have "shown the money"), > and b) Platform Engineering (who would actually be doing the work). > Yes Alan, this is the reasonable model for commercial products. I would not expect anybody playing by the current model to do anything different. Please understand that Linux defies the current model. This is it's strength. If there was an alternative to all the expensive solutions out there, Linux is proving it. Linux allows UNIX to be ubiquitos and portable--literally. > I don't even know who's in charge of "group a" above, nor what its > title is anymore, but I doubt that it's under Tim or Don's realm, and > Platform Engineering isn't either. Therefore, while taking up the subject > of Linux issues with them is a good starting point, please don't get angry > with them if you find them unable to make specific commitments or give > much detail on the Linux issue, as it isn't really their area. Try > to acknowledge that fact going in, and rather than beat on them for specific > answers, get them to have the responsible parties in "group a" and > Platform Engineering follow up to the Linux audience in some manner > after the conference. (Perhaps an interested party could fire up an > Informix-on-Linux-SIG listserv.) > OK, I wasn't going to say anymore, but since there's actually an Informix person responding, here we go. Alan, if you or anybody else got the impression that I am angry with Informix please don't think that. I'm not angry, just confused, and basically disappointed. I have to break out a megaphone occasionally and raise the volume. After watching the way Informix has gone in the dumper I have to say what must be said. I've also received a lot of off-line mail in support of my rants, mainly because a majority of people out there do not want to risk saying anything. I'm not a lunatic, but merely someone who ain't afraid to say what must be said, in the face of ridicule, and scorn. I'm just a small potatos developer, not rich, and not famous. Informix products have fed me well over the years, but a lottery would do much better. Your company has the best data base product on the market. However, your marketing department is the worst. In the face of common sense, and proof to better ways of doing things, your marketing people have ignored the success of Microsoft and Oracle. Greed has taken its' toll. Informix wants to compete against the likes of these, but refuses to play by the same rules. Informix may be the "thinking man's" company, filled with the brighest technical minds, but if you can't move the products, you need to sit down and think about what went wrong. How did the stock go in the dumper? I'll reiterate, like a while-loop that needs a break, YOU DID NOT BUILD CONSENSUS WITH YOUR PRODUCTS, BY INVOLVING YOUR DEVELOPER COMMUNITY. Not your internal developers, but the folks out here in consumer-land, that consume your products, and MAKE MONEY with them. The developers who've stayed with you the longest have heard the least from you. We don't get ANY communications from you, and we now have to compete with Informix consultants. Informix as a company has missed the mark. Informix is now trying to force consensus with their products by catering to the top companies, in the effort to trickle the product down. Microsoft has used just the opposite theory, building a market from the grass roots up. Even Oracle, with their sh***y products, has understood this. Oracle is also playing both markets against the middle. Larry is no dummy. > Also, keep in mind that supporting a platform for ANY length of time > creates a longish-term commitment to supporting a product line. Also, > since in this case you don't have a software vendor to work with > (or, ahem, go after) when you run into operating system or compiler > problems, you add risk to the project. The Linux faithful certainly > think that Linux has a lot of productive years ahead of it (as do I). > However, history has shown that "free" O/Ses can be abandoned as > quickly as they are adopted (I don't read much about 386BSD anymore, > for example). > OK, I'll say it once again real slow: you can download the source code to the operating system, and develop your release with a safe version. When you announce the ported version, you do like Netscape, offer it amongst all the other versions. Netscape stock is doing a lot better than Informix by the way. Linux has turned UNIX into a commodity. It's intricate, complex, and comes with a lot of cool software programs. But it's now a commodity. It has it's place with DOS, only light years ahead. Linux people understand the risk involved in an uncommercial OS, but in bringing DSA to Linux, you port it to a safe release, and this very effort will help to stabilize it. By putting a commercial data base on Linux, you will in <indirect> means, add stability to Linux. You will be endorsing it as a viable platform for whatever application people plan to use it for. Small businesses, students, researchers, libraries, retirement homes, small hospitals, places where the expensive UNIXes will not be found. Places where Informix is not currently found. > People here seem to be made most angry by the lack of Linux support > to date because they view the technical/porting issues as solvable. I can't speak for the others, but I'm not angry. I'm disappointed. We do not know the half of what goes on in your company. All we see is the end result. We talk to the customer support, or work with your consultants. The inside stuff, that belongs to you. So, what appears extremely important to Informix as a company INSIDE the company will never be known unless you make it public. Our sensitivities remain with all the externals. And this means we see the competition--YOUR competition--doing things we WANT YOU TO DO. We really don't care about a lot of the cool insider stuff going on, we just want to see your company responding aggresively in the same market the majority of us are working in. ( A lot of your own people agree on this ) We see Informix turn a deaf ear to developers and small businesses, by charging high prices, and making the product extremely difficult to acquire. We have to develop relationships with your sales people, many who don't give a shit about small developers, and then we have to cajole an