LDAP, ActiveDirectory and the death of Linux at corporate

[Brian Fahrlander]

     I just 'enjoyed' telling my contractor-boss that "If you're not 
going to rely on the Linux server for email (using Exchange instead for 
the reminders,etc) and you're not using it to serve files (cause they 
don't need it) and the on-site tech is windows-based, why is that 
machine there?".

     Microsoft came in through the front door, but it squeezes out 
competition by the darkened side-streets, and climbing in metaphorical 
windows. (Pardon the pun)

     The contractor has been telling me he wants to support Linux, but 
in this little low-tech town, while the Windows business keeps climbing, 
we've added only three other Linux clients.  His first offering, though 
he refuses to admit it) is always a Windows jail.

     If we can't get up some kind of people-organizer, more of these 
sites will fall to Exchange.  If we can't get our collective asses 
organized, ActiveDirectory will eat our LDAP ambitions.

     I've tried getting in touch with the two main LDAP-centric 
community pages; there must be some mechanism to find them than I've 
tried. The LDAP sub-community is bottle-necked, adhering to one vendor's 
layout or another....when all we need to begin is our _own_ layout that 
will authenticate for us.

     Why is nothing happening on this part?  Can anyone clue me? I know 
LDAP seems "hard"...but it's not that bad.  Deciding how to layout the 
data (with all it's flexibility) is the hard part.  We can fix this; we 
don't have to stand-down and let Microsoft roll right over us...

     If you're interested in LDAP in any way, please contact me.
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  Brian Fahrländer                 Christian, Conservative, and Technomad
  Evansville, IN                              http://Fahrlander.net/brian
  ICQ: 5119262                         AOL/Yahoo/GoogleTalk: WheelDweller
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