Linux.com/Looking for a Linux geek

[rlk at alum.mit.edu (Robert L Krawitz)]

   Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 10:25:13 -0400
   From: Bill Okerman <okerman at mediaone.net>

(Your email address is actually pertinent to my comment)

   In the interest of full disclosure I should let you all know that I
   recently joined VA Linux Systems (formerly VA Research) as their New
   England Marketing Manager.  I have been what someone referred to as a
   "lurker" on this list, although I guess an official definition for
   lurker was never established, and attended last night's meeting.  I was
   hoping to have the chance to meet some of you, but, unfortunately, could
   not stick around until the end.  This however is not a sales pitch.
   While I am certainly expected to help sell lots of our stuff, I have
   also been asked to support the local Linux community in appropriate
   ways, and am excited about having the opportunity to do so.  Please feel
   free to let me know if VA can be of assistance to your efforts.  Any and
   all reasonable requests will be considered.

Apparently MediaOne and some of the other cable modem providers are
not willing to install onto a machine not running Windows at the time
of installation.  While this doesn't affect me yet, it appears to come
up frequently.  It sounds like the issues are fear that Linux (or NT
Server, for that matter) boxes will run DHCP or other disruptive
services, and also lack of training for the installers.

This would be somewhere that VA, as a high profile supplier of Linux
systems, might be of assistance.  If you could offer training or at
least training materials, and a prequalification kit (that checks that
a given machine is "safe" to put on the net), perhaps the cable
service providers would be willing to change their policies.

-- 
Robert Krawitz <rlk at alum.mit.edu>      http://www.tiac.net/users/rlk/

Tall Clubs International  --  http://www.tall.org/ or 1-888-IM-TALL-2
Member of the League for Programming Freedom -- mail lpf at uunet.uu.net

"Linux doesn't dictate how I work, I dictate how Linux works."
--Eric Crampton
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