Should SLAC Give Windows the Boot?

Moderator: Tony Johnson
Panel: David Aston, Steve Gowdy, Norman Graf, Douglas Smith

Date: Thursday, January 29, 2004
Time: 3:30 - 5:00 PM
Location: Orange Room in Building 40
Goodies: Tea and cookies provided

The increasing frequency of critical security patches from Microsoft has led some to suggest that SLAC could solve its security problems and save a lot in license fees by switching all desktop users to some other OS such as Linux. In this panel discussion we will give enthusiastic SLAC users of several operating systems (Linux, MACOSX, Windows) the opportunity to describe what they like about the various OS's they use, describe advanced features that help them in their work, and to make suggestion for features they would like to see incorporated in future. The panel discussion will be followed by questions and discussion from the audience.

While we do not expect to have any immediate effect on lab policy regarding supported desktop operating systems, we do hope the discussion will be educational, and perhaps start a discussion of future lab directions.