James Fogg presents Windows-Linux Interop to CentraLUG

[Ben Scott]

On 12/6/05, Ted Roche <tedroche at tedroche.com> wrote:
> Hope you're feeling better.

  Yes, thank you.

> James has expressed an interest in giving the presentation again.
> He originally presented at DLSLUG in October. You might want to
> ask The Powers That Be in Nashua if they'd like to invite him.

  Okay...

/me shouts: Hey!!  Powers That Be in Nashua!  Invite this guy!

  ;-)

> We may want to wait for James to join the mailing list -- I've
> invited him.

  I hope he accepts.  Having that kind of expertise on this list would
be fabulous.

  I firmly believe one of the keys to adoption of Linux in "the real
world" is, has been, and will continue to be how well it interoperates
with everybody else.  It's a stark contrast to the rest of the world. 
Most everybody else invents their own way of doing things and expects
you to switch to that (since it's so obviously much better then
anything else).  If you're lucky, they'll document it, so someone can
at least create a compatibility system.  More often, you're just stuck
with a bunch of isolated computer communities living on the same
network in ignorance of their neighbors.

> Having spent a year writing Automation, MAPI and CDO interfaces and
> event sink components against Exchange, I have a grudging respect for
> the power and scope of the beast.

  Exchange isn't an email system; it's a groupware system that happens
to support email.  (Note that this says nothing about how well it does
either.)  I will admit Exchange has some impressive aspects.  The
thing is, most people (and I'd guess most organizations) use maybe 10%
of Exchange's features and power.  Yet there's really nothing else
that provides that 10% without resorting to other overgrown
monstrosities (Lotus Notes, GroupWise, etc.).

  Pre-emptive reply: I include network-disconnected operation in that
10%, so if someone is going to suggest $WEB_BASED_TOOL, forget it.  :)

>>> "Exchange Public Folders are evil"
>>
>> May I ask why?
>
> IIRC, James' issues were that Public Folders were unreliable,
> difficult to back up, inaccessible via Outlook Web Access (an IIS
> exploit masquerading as a Web email client) and more trouble than
> they were worth.

  I'd have to disagree.  PFs are implemented using the same backend as
private mailboxes; PFs should be as (un)reliable as mailboxes are. 
They likewise get backed up with the rest of the Exchange Information
Store (database).  They are as accessible with OWA as any other
folder.  As far as "more trouble then they are worth" goes, well,
that's subjective, and I'd daresay that all of Exchange might well
fall into that category, but assuming you're will to accept Exchange
to begin with, I don't see PFs as significantly worse/different.

>>> "AD domain zone contains AD-specific extensions, must be
>>> AD-integrated"
>>
>> That is not strictly correct.
>
> I think this was a simplification for slideware.

  Understandable, certainly.  The rest of the bullet points on the
slideware were impressive in that they accurately summarized most of
the important points of a very complex topic, which is why that
statement stood out to me.

> James actually gave MS kudos, grudgingly, for doing most, if not all,
> of their extensions to DHCP, DNS and AD via the RFC process. He
> was surprised, considering their usual modus operadi.

  I'd have to agree, in all respects.  For a few minutes around the
release of Windows 2000, it almost seemed like Microsoft had finally
"got" the idea that maybe standards are a good thing.  Whatever
temporary reality disconnect occurred was quickly fixed, though, and
Microsoft resumed being the beast we know and hate.

-- Ben