News from PANUG - February 2, 2001 PANUG'S FOCUS PANUG's focus is networking. We're platform-independent and cover Windows, NetWare, Linux, and whatever our members are interested in. PANUG's email broadcasts are meant to be a reflection of this focus. However, the broadcasts contain content contributed by PANUG members on a voluntary basis. We can't and don't control what our members wish to write about. As long as the content is suitable, helpful to other PANUG members, or newsworthy, we run it. Frequent contributors write about what they're interested in. This can make it seem that PANUG is overly focused in certain areas, that we ignore a platform, or that we criticize a certain vendor too much. Sometimes people criticize PANUG for being too biased. As a volunteer-driven organization, PANUG is what you make of it. If you want more emphasis in certain areas, then volunteer and do it. This also applies to meeting presentations. If you're knowledgable in a certain area of networking then volunteer to write an article or do a presentation at a monthly meeting. The PANUG Board is interested in your feedback on our email broadcasts. Let us know how you feel about articles, such as the ones below, by sending email to board@panug.org. MICROSOFT VALIDATES LINUX LEAD? by Ed Sawicki Accelerated Learning Center http://www.alcpress.com Microsoft has finally come to realize that Linux is their major competitor and is predicting it's doom. You can read the article, called "MS Exec: Linux Is Going Down", at: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,41527,00.html The article quotes Doug Miller, Microsoft's group product manager for competitive strategies. This is a man paid to evaluate Microsoft's competitors and to plan ways to overcome threats. Doug is doing his job by trying to convince IT decision makers to look at Linux the same way they look at commercial products. Doug tells the reader to watch for a sharp decline in Linux-based companies' stock value as a sign that Linux popularity is fading. Doug wants you to believe that companies that sell Linux, such as Red Hat Software and Caldera, will determine the ultimate success or failure of Linux and open source software. They don't. Linux and open source software are entities that are independent of and unaffected by companies, the economy and the stock market. You need to use different metrics to measure its success; metrics like reliability, performance, resistance to attack, and cost. Metrics where Microsoft's products don't fare so well. It's not a surprise that Doug wants you to focus on things that MBAs care about rather than things that technical people care about. In the same article, Steve Ballmer says "I think you have to rate competitors that threaten your core higher than you rate competitors where you're trying to take from them. So in some senses (that) puts the Linux phenomenon and the Unix phenomenon at the top of the list." Imagine what Doug is feeling now. He's trying to get decision makers to see Linux as just another product that will untimately be defeated by the Microsoft monopoly. Steve sabotages that plan by correctly referring to Linux as a phenomenon. A phenomenon! Phenomenons are not measured or thought of the same way mere products are measured. No, phenomenons are special. They transcend the ordinary and signal sweeping changes. Which is exactly what Linux is doing right now. Not only that, Steve also calls Unix a phenomenon. When you lump Linux and Unix together, as Steve does, and look at market share statistics for the installed base of servers, you come up with a slice of the pie bigger than Microsoft's slice! That slice, by the way, is growing. So even if you don't understand technical things and you're more comfortable with economics, Wall Street and market share statistics, understand that Linux, open source software, and Unix are not only here to stay, they're leading the way in the server space. You have Steve Balmer's word on that. Doug is not the first person whose best laid plans have been undone by a boss who couldn't just stick to the cue cards.LINUX HAS SECURITY HOLES? by Ed Sawicki In the same article mentioned above (MS Exec: Linux Is Going Down), Microsoft's Doug Miller mentions the "the recent security problems with Linux". He's referring to the recent vulnerabilities with BIND. It could be that Doug doesn't know that BIND is not Linux or this could be his way of discrediting Linux by citing problems in other software and hoping that the deception won't be noticed by people that matter. Here's the reality. BIND is the dominant DNS software on the planet. It runs on numerous operating systems that include Linux and Windows. To say that Linux has security holes because BIND has security holes is silly. Why not say that Windows has the same security holes? We've come to expect silly statements from Microsoft because they say them so often. They don't fool the technical folks but they certainly fool the decision makers. BIND has had security problems over the years but far fewer than, say, Microsoft IIS. Still, no security holes are better than some, so an increasing number of technically-savvy people are abandoning BIND in favor of more secure alternatives. One of these alternatives is TinyDNS which has had NO security problems. If you want to learn how to deploy TinyDNS in your company (or BIND or Windows 2000 DNS) come to my DNS Boot Camp on February 26. Visit the PANUG web site for details. http://www.panug.org BOGUS SURVEY by Ed Sawicki I receive the Windows 2000 Magazine Security Update reguarly like many of you. The latest refers to a survey on their web site that asks about the DNS software that you use. Here's the survey question and answers: What type of DNS service do you use? BIND-based on Windows BIND-based on UNIX Microsoft DNS Third party proprietary The problem with this survey is that these folks don't know that there's open souce DNS software besides BIND. The last choice, "Third party proprietary" is not a catch all "other" category. How would you answer if, for example, you were using TinyDNS? Survey-takers get the idea that these are their only choices for DNS servers. Given the recent advisories about security problems with BIND, you may think that your only alternatives are Windows NT/2000 or an expensive F5 Networks 3-DNS box. Do you think the survey was deliberately constructed this way to move more people over to Windows or do you think the Windows 2000 Magazine folks are clueless to open source software?