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Belgium: A Computer in Every Home
joost writes "In an article published online by Belgian newspaper 'Het Nieuwsblad' (sorry only a dutch link), Belgian minister Miss Laurette Onkelinx speaks about her plan to provide every Belgian household with a computer. The minister is (amongst other things) responsible for 'equality' and therefore pushes the plan to provide the less fortunate with a pc. In the same article, she said she already started talking to Compaq for the hardware and Microsoft for the OS. Belgian Linux users are starting a campaign to petition Miss Onkelinx's departement, explaining their concern about the decision, and advising to look towards linux for an alternative.(more on be.comp.os.linux) You too can send an email by clicking here."
for linux on the desktop, and equality in technology, if only they would use linux.
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
Yeah it's free, and a great server OS.
But it's desktop side is not there YET.
Not that I'm suggesting Windows, or MacOS, but Linux?
Who's going to pay for all of the O'Reilly Books if they do use linux? And then you bet there'll be a flame war about which distro to use.
Price just isn't a big as factor as everyone here thinks. I'm in on purchasing for a major university. What we spend on our site license of EVERY MS prodoct per year is a FRACTION (4% to be exact) of what we spend on new hardware for our labs each year...Switching to linux would not save us much at all, and oh the headaches.
It seems likely that Microsoft would jump at a chance to increase its userbase by a significant amount by providing the OS for this program.
My question is, if the Belgians really did go with Linux, who would have the resources to supply it as readily as Microsoft could supply Windows?
This is the NFL, which stands for "Not For Long" if you keep making those bulls*** calls.
What Linux developement would look like five to ten years after this was implemented (if she chose Linux). With an entire country's populatioin using it by default the number of good developers we'd get from Belgium would be a great boon. Not to mention Linux would garner a lot of support from hardware and game companies that we lack right now. If this got through, and I've got to say I doubt it will, it could be the turning point in Linux developent on the desktop.
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
... There's a newsgroup in belgium called be.os, and that the ng's topic is what I think it should be :) Sorry, had to be said.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
Miss Onkelinx speaks about her plan to provide every Belgian household with a computer
With a name like that, she could even get distro named after her
...if she does the right thing
Seriously, how can you propose to take a population as large as Belgium and introduce them to linux, which most reasonable people have already concluded cant match M$ on the desktop. Anyone want to volunteer to do tech support for that?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
You put an email address on the front page of /. and you do not even obscure it.
/. reader is not going to be objective or polite. It mostly certainly is not going to aid the cause of putting Linux on these machines.
/. hurts more than helps the wide spread adoption of Linux?
/. is _NOT_ the place to post email addresses of individuals who are percieved not to get it. The typical
I wonder if
I don't see any reason why people cannot choose their own OS. Oh, right, this is a government project. Forgive my initial ignorance.
Or at least, this is a government project. It should be open bidding. Lets see Microsoft under-bid "free".
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
IM laughing my arse off!!
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
... But Universities buy state of the art hardware. I imagine that the hardware being purchased for this purpose will be "Discount hardware". Im sure they arent intrested in putting a Sparc Station in every home. So in this case Licences will be a much larger portion of the cost. Also, im sure even if you work for a big 10, there are more people to worry about than at your University.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
If they're going to provide computers to everyone, then they need an OS everyone can use. That breaks down into two possibilities: Windows and MacOS.
Personally, I'd try and strike a deal with Apple. Jobs would be glad to lose money on every computer, if it got him a foothold in every household in belgium, and it means good hardware, good software, and a not-so-unpleasant software company.
--Dan
I'm curious, what "resources to supply"? Blank CD's?
Please don't misunderstand me. I'm as much against foisting Linux/BSD/Win/Mac off on anyone as I am for Mac/Win/BSD/Linux. Either way, someone loses.
The problem with this is that government is force. They cannot make everyone happy, and by trying they aren't going to make anyone happy. The biggest decision they're going to make is to standardize the application space, and that very likely means Microsoft Word just because of the theory that "everyone uses it."
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Every Belgian citizen has been given a new computer thanks to minister Miss Laurette Onkelinx's campaign for equality however many of them are not using them for their intended purpose.
One Belgian used his as a stepping stool while cleaning his windows. "I powered the [darn] thing up and played around with it for a few minutes but I couldn't get anything done," said Hermsh Obernikle, "then the bulb in the hallway went out and so I toted the box over then to stand on, it works great!"
One homemaker, who asked not to be identified, was at home testing out her new computer when a bandwidth crazed crimi-geek broke into her house. "Thank goodness my new computer had linux on it", she said, "the [intruder] was so mesmerized that he stayed on the computer for hours doing something with the [kernel] thing until the police arrived." She went on to say that she was glad that linux saved her life but was unsure what she was going to do with it after that.
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
Why do I predict this woman's plan being stifled and perhaps killed by the B.S. of what system, what hardware, and what OS to use?
I mean, I totally support Linux and all, but I don't think that it's the way to go in this situation. I would advise MacOS (as people seem to think that it's the easiest of any major OS to operate), but then I don't use it myself. And hey, Microsoft products or not, a free computer is a free computer.
"Anonymous cowards are just K-whores afraid of their accounts being modded down." - Bob the O (me)
It sounds to me like the budget has already been ironed out and that the budget for these PC's includes a provision for Windows. If so, can we stop for a minute and think about the GOOD things that come out of this?
-- Every person in this country gets access to a computer that they might not have had at all. They get Internet access, which provides them with a wealth of new information. Some of them will pursue computer-related jobs that wouldn't have otherwise. In general, the country will benefit from this.
So why is it necessary to post an article on Slashdot basically asking people to flood this government with email complaining about Microsoft? Can we leave well enough alone and accept that the more computer-literate people there are, the better our industry benefits as a whole? These people will buy our hardware. They will visit our websites. They might even patronize Slashdot. This is a good thing.
It's sad, really, to see what should have been a "look what this great country is doing!" article turn into a pro-Linux, anti-Microsoft rant. I'd much rather see Slashdot readers take their time to go volunteer computer training or to build hardware and install software at a local school than to see Slashdot readers criticize a country for what is, in the long run, an incredibly Good Thing.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
so when the "less fortunate" sell theirs on eBay, I can get some good hardware.
__
LilDebbie
Speaking of providing the less fortunate with a PC...
I'd just like to put in a plug for Kite, Inc.: "a nonprofit organization addressing the global digital divide by offering free, customized computer support packages and technical training to community groups in the 'Third World'."
Do you buy books? Then you can help them, by purchasing from galtbooks: "The mission of galtbooks is to assist charitable and community organizations in generating revenues for their cause."
No, I am not affiliated with either organization. I only heard of them just recently, and thought "wow, I'm really glad someone's doing that". Sorry if this comes off as just more spam.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
I use linux, I like Linux and I've deployed it in many production enviroments but my enthusiasm for it is tempered by the realization that it's not quite ready to be considered suitable for beginning computer users, and thus probably not appropriate for deployment en masse to the less fortunate in Belgium or elsewhere.
I am making an asumption here, that most of 'the less fortunate' mentioned in the article will be first-time computer users. Given this asumption, you could argue that these uers have history using other OS's, they should be able to adopt the Linux paradigm more easily than those unfortunates who were brought up using MS Windows. On the other hand, if these users are not familiar with computers it would be most beneficial to provide them with the simplest enviroment possible (and by that I don't mean WebTV). With this reasoning, the government should deploy iMAC's to everyone. You'd think Apple would jump if given the opportunity to penetrate this new market.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Looks to me like the right way for honorable minister would be instead of talking to Compaq an MS is to have an open bidding. If windows is cheaper solution then, say, Linux, then so be it.
Is it just me being paranoid or the way she addresses the problem suggests some potential corruption?
I imagine that the Distributing Companies would like to since that is how they make money. Since they dont make money off of licenses, Tech support is their thing : )
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
See who bids the lowest on tech support.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
The "free" argument doesn't wash either - for such a large purchase it impossible that the government would pay the going consumer rate per install. In fact, I suspect they would pay at most 40% of the cost of being each copy of Windows independently.
That sounds great. Also If the Macs are runnign OSX, those intrested in digging deaper into the computer will get a chance to experience UNIX.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
I've seen other posts that resemble this but I'm not sure if they were serious.
Why not let the people choose their own OS? The government is going to be shelling out the $$$ for this big project anyway.
I understand that the platform will be x86. So give them choices of Win98, XP, all Linux distros, BSD, Be, Solaris...
Let the taxpayers decide what they want. It shouldn't be shoved down their throats.
Besides, Microsoft isn't always evil and (I know you don't want to hear this, but...) Linux still isn't ready for the masses on the desktop.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Putting Linux on the systems would pretty much render the computer useless for 90% of the Joe Six-Packs and Sally Lunch-Buckets out there.
Besides they aren't going to be able to properly secure the machine once they get on the net. You can't expect these people to subscribe to bugtraq and update religeously!
If everyone in Belgium had a copy of XP, police could just require you to carry your Microsoft Product Activation Key with you at all times.
What if they sent out a ballot and a had the people who would be getting the pc's decide. Obviously if they have never had a pc then they are not 100% bias towards microsoft.
:-)
Also include a packet with the ballot that would explain the two choices. Explain how running linux would save x amount of dollars initially and how it would also save y amount of dollars to them in the long run because they would not have to purchase software since it is freely available.
Don't force linux upon people, but instead educate them on why they should run it, and let them make their own choice.
More to the point, they are doing a disservice to the market by buying everyone the same computer. They should simply provide a tax credit or a voucher for the purchase of a PC, and let the consumers decide what they want. One size will not fit all, particularly for people who already own a PC.
This is not an occasion for an advancement of linux, it's a great oppurtunity for those who don't have access to computers to get that access. Perhaps those who feel they need more (or specific uses) can switch to an OS that better suits them.
MS Windows is a great OS for exactly these people. When all that most people want to do is surf the web and read their email or write documents/improve their computer skills it makes sense to get an OS that is supported the world over and can be fixed easily.
This isn't about us, it's about the world.
internet like monkeys'
sometimes geeks can be fucking retarded... linux isn't for normal desktop users.. let alone people having a computer for the first time
Belgium is one of those openly socialist countries, like the United States, that doesn't use the word "socialist" because of the generally bad reputation that the word brings.
Instead, they use words like "equality" with the meaning of "equal outcome" rather than just "equal under the law." Their tax rates are very high, and as long as people go along with what the government programs provide, people are "happy" the same way that worker ants are "happy".
Problems occur in such a situation if you introduce too much choice. This leads to un-equal outcomes, resentment or resistance to one-size-fits-all government programs, and increasing unease since someone always feels "left out" because their outcome wasn't as good, in their opinion, as someone elses.
I really hope this program does not come to pass. 25 years ago, France decided to do this same thing, with their Mintel program. Its 300 baud command line time sharing system was advanced, at the time, but France was left in the toilet as the rest of the world developed graphical applications and interfaces, distributed information sources and efficient IP networks.
However, the only cost to government is the rare risk that a politician might not get re-elected. There is no other "cost", since they spend other peoples money. For that reason, the politicians of today may very well repeat the Mintel disaster simply because it looks good in time for the next election. Everything else is secondary.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
"don't have computers in the currest case"
Do you mean "current case?" Preview is your friend.
It's silly, really, to claim that Windows has some sort of UI or usability advantage over Linux or *BSD or any other OS. As you said, these are people who aren't used to any computing at all.
I bought my old grandmother, who had never owned a computer, a Linux PC. She has no problem whatsoever using it - she can run KDE and all she really needs to do are run the Mozilla and KMail programs, which she learned fairly quickly.
The truth is, when you're teaching a person how to use a system, much more important than the perceived usability of the system are:
A) What's the former experience of the trainee? If they've used Windows mostly, they'll be used to Windows. If it's Linux, or MacOS, they'll be used to those. I often have trouble using Windows or MacOS X because I'm so used to X-style cut-n-paste, terminals, etc.
But if they know nothing about computers, MacOS and Windows and Linux will all be just as alien to them.
B) What programs are they using? Most people use a mail client, a browser, and a word processor. The main thing you need to consider for these people is the ease-of-use of the actual programs they use (not the OS, not the UI) and teaching them how to get to those programs.
Again, just my 2,000 Argentine pesos...
desperance.net - ride the walrus.
Simple, they can choose which Linux they want. Many distros have downloaded versions ready.
As for the books, they can read howtos and probably contact local LUG guys. I know I'm going to be flamed for this, but most of the people needs to use computers just for typing, e-mails and browsing internet. Do you think they'll need books for this? Local LUG can volunteer here.
The aim in using Linux is to save millions so that the govt can relocate the OS budget for something else.
--
Error 500: Internal sig error
Think of all the misery that could have been prevented if this had been implemeted 20 years ago? Young Jean-Claude Van Damme could have been steered away from martial arts with a timely dose of computer games and warez cracking.
If only the Belgian Government had had a little more vision, films like 'Hard Target', 'Street Fighter' and 'Universal Soldier' might never have been made.
Little use in trying now. Only once every 50 years or so does something noteworthy come out of Belgium and JCVD was it for this half-century. We had our chance to stop this and we blew it...
Just what we need. Ten million more Jerry Lewis fanpages.
------------
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I am an expert in electricity. My father held the chair of applied electricity at the state prision.
die Idee hört sich gut an!
Let's do think of the good that can be done. While dumping M$ boxes on the world may be better than dropping bombs, we can always do better if we try.
Let's say Microsoft decides to dump windows on these poor people at no cost. They should refuse on grounds of security. Why would they want to make their internet look like SirCam and "I love you" all day? Sorry, that's not a rant it's a simple statement of fact that M$ makes a single user OS that does more to cripple a machine than use it.
If M$ does not dump the reasons are even more obvious. Every Euro not spent on OS can be spent on computers. This means more people get them faster, or the savings can be put to something else useful. One useful thing might be to fund a configurations and help group to work out hardware problems and offer other general help. The publication of such a group would be of use to all. Money spent on a second rate OS from a forgein company is not money well spent.
You are obviously a man.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I'm all for making computers affordable,
but if people don't want one enough to get one, what are they going to do when it gets pushed through their door?
I can see Eastern Europe filling up with these units.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
Windows is "easy" for many because it's what they are used to. It's not intuitive (Click on "Start" button to shut down machine is not intuitive or "easy) as people keep making it seem to be.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Holy crap, just about every response I've seen is in favor of MS, not linux for this. Did someone at MS email the whole company like with that ZDNet poll that they rigged?
Recent versions of Mandrake are nearly as easy to use as windows, and gets better with every release. If mandrake made a dumbed down version of their distro with the same features of windows ME, I'm sure there wouldn't be a problem. Plus, if you've used OSX lately, you'd realize how much more advanced it is than windows. Easier to use too, but still has lots of power under the hood.
Seriously, I can't imagine that Belgium will want to tack on $300 for an OS on each machine, and another $450 for an office suite. That's insane.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
If you told me to pick one OS, to foist on several tens of millions of unsuspecting non-technical people, I sure would not pick Linux alone.
Even I didn't pick Linux alone! I chose it for many reasons for myself.
You want my opinion on specific OS? MacSystem7.1. Yes, that's right, 7.1, not X, not 10. Not Win nor Lin either.
Yes, at this instant in time WinXP would minimize the initial installation support costs for a project like this. And the politicians may even go for it "monopoly" or not. But I believe the operative issue is "A project like this" where one-size-fits-all is the theory.
I much prefer cooperative efforts by interested people. That means the various users groups in Belgium organize themselves and offer support for their various preferences.
If the Belgian government were interested in real computer litteracy, it could simply give the UG's support, and let the chips fall where they may.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
I agree, IF your criteria is to buy support from one place.
This is exactly what I expect a government agent to do. I don't agree with it, I don't think it's required or even important, but then I wouldn't initiate a project like this in the first place.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
God forbid they use the money saved on O$ to buy books, or that they put those books in a public library! The information anarcy must be stoped burn the libraries now.
Here is a vote for Debian, one distro that will always be free. I can see some other great uses for that O$ savings. State funded mirror sites, mmmmm, a help office with a nice little web site and staff dedicated to making EVERY piece of hardware distributed work perfectly, mmmm a tuned distro via deb packages, more computers for everyone, mmmmmmmmmm.
I've got an overwhelming urge to eat ice cream now. You M$ trolls don't go pretending to be Linux zelots flooding the emails while I'm gone. I hate it when people act like jerks for me.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Better to simply provide a tax credit, and let consumers make their own choices.
You know, there seems to be an increasingly strong contingent of people of the "Let's think rationally. Windows is probably the best choice here" people. Perhaps there is some bitterness amongst the faithful?
Why not linux? the average home user who doesn't know crap about a computer is going to have just as hard a time with WinXP as with Mandrake setup for the home user (i.e. 1 desktop environment, 1 mailer, 1 browser, etc). Heck, maybe some of the new imacs. What I am saying is that the avergae user does not need office, they need a small word processor. They do not need exchange, they need a mail client that can do pop and recieve attachments.
I say go for it. I suggest mandrake because it's from that continent. Suse might be good as well, but i've had more experience with Mandrake.
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
Maybe they should learn a lesson from this: Free PCs for the poor on sale in black market... not everyone wants a PC, some people would rather have food and other basic needs.
Well, at least the poorer people will have something to burn when it gets cold in the winter. (What, the poorest of Belgium are going to have uses for a computer?! Give some NYC homeless guy a comp and he'll burn it or try to sell it.) Hope they don't die from the fumes.
Glad to see politicians from other countries are as clueless as ours.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Yes.
If it works with the hardware, it will have all the software people need.
Theres no shortage of Linux software, theres just not enough windows software on linux.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Tell it to redhat!!! Redhats busy trying to promote linux in US schools, If i were redhat, Suse, Mandrake, I'd be trying to push these people into using linux and GIVE them all the software they need to do it.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Ah, so they are openly socialist. Good, thanks for the correction.
On the other hand, I'm sorry you had to insult me by calling me "right wing".
Lastly, it's easy to "fill in the cracks" here: Charity. Promote giving old hardware to Users Groups for free, let the Users Groups revamp the machines as they see fit, and give them away to people who don't have computers.
No lock-in, no monopoly OS, choice, and even the ability to say "no".
It may be unpopular to say it: There are people who don't want a computer. There are people who don't want a TV. Or a car, or a house, or a Linux driven wristwatch.
I happen to believe it is morally wrong to force those people to pay for other peoples stuff in the name of "equality" too.
I'm not "right wing", or "left wing" or anything else. I do not advocate force for any issue. Period.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
I'm certain that the SuSE and Debian developers in Belgium would love to take the job!
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Gee, from the tone of your letter we might assume that people on Slashdot are rude. You abuse the people who run the site you seem to enjoy and that seems to be the sum of your contribution. Thank goodness you are not the typical Linux user.
Now let's think a little about that. What makes you think that M$ slaves are not already flooding the address with tons of abusive and stupid comments (like yours!) for us already? You know, trolls like we see here all day? In this instance, as in so many others, the finacial incentives for such "aggresive" abouse are clear. If it were not for the moderation system that Hemos and others developed, useful comments would be lost in piles of M$ astroturf here. Even so, it's difficult to fight all the toads. Your example proves the usefulness of the address inclusion, thank you.
Hopefully many people will write well reasoned letters that will shine through the noise. We all know the superiority of any Linux distro: stability, privacy, ease of use, ease of upkeep, ease of software upgrade and addition. We all know the good things that all the money not spent on M$ "products" can buy. We can write many inpired and polite letters expressing those things. I'm proud of all the useful, well reasoned and well put letters I've seen from previous letter campaigns, such as the RAND fiasco, and I expect to be proud of the letters that get sent this time too. The exercise is much easier after reading some of the nice clear posts that will rise to displace your abuse.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Yes, I imagine the M$ astroturfers are pretending to be Linux Zealots. You are right about it being a turn off, therfore I expect the Gates drones to adopt it quickly.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Predictably, this article generated a storm of posts about how Linux isn't ready for this, or Linux would confuse users, or Windows is better supported or...
However, when you read the actual, detailed arguments about why Linux is a bad choice for this project they boil down to two things: Linux is too hard to install and there aren't enough people around who know how to use it.
In the first case, do you really think the Belgian government is going to ship each user a PC without any software on it, and a pile of CDs to install? Why don't they just ship a pile of components, while they're at it? The government is going to buy a whole bunch of identical machines pre-installed with some idential collection of software, all configured so it will run right out of the box. Whether Linux is hard or easy to install isn't really all that relevant, since the users won't have to install it. And, unlike Windows 9x systems that experience an "entropy" effect whereby they gradually become less and less usable until finally you have to reinstall them, Linux boxes tend to run forever.
Second, in an environment filled with Linux boxes, how long do you think it'll be before the average person can call the neighbor kid over to fix any problems? Not long at all. On well-known hardware, with a nice GUI installed Linux isn't any harder to use than Windows, it's just *different* (and not really all that much different). Not to mention the fact that if the Belgian government took all of that cash that they were going to spend on Windows and Office licenses and instead spent it on setting up a support infrastructure for those machines, the net result would probably be *better* support.
There are also some really significant advantages to free software in this situation. The largest one is the application software available. What? Absolutely. Yes, there is more software available for Windows machines, but there is more *free* software available for Linux. Both environments include the most basic stuff by default; browser, e-mail client and multimedia player. Unless you buy Office for each machine ($$) Windows doesn't have a word processor, spreadsheet, etc. Unless you buy Quicken or Money for each machine, no personal accounting system. MS Paint hardly counts as an image editing program.
A pre-installed Linux box with KDE, an office suite (StarOffice would be ideal, I'll bet Sun would give them free licenses) and the standard collection of packages that come with every distro would provide a low-cost, easy to support solution that does pretty much everything a basic user needs right out of the box. No command lines, no arcane syntax -- except for the kids who have tons of time to invest in learning how this thing ticks, and what better system could an up-and-coming techie have? (And don't give me that "They should have a Windows box because that's what they'll use in the workplace" crap. What they'll use in the workplace will change five times before they get there, and it will be deep understanding of how one system fundamentally works under the covers that will translate well and stand them in good stead, not superficial knowledge of which buttons to click. Hell, I grew up on a Timex Sinclar 1000, a TI-99/4A, a Commodore 64 and an Atari 520ST.)
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
What's this "Write your congressman!", but no, wait, "Don't write to Belgium!" dyspepsia going around on Slashdot? I guess you're only supposed to advocate that people you agree with get involved. I disagree wholeheartedly with your sentiment that this is a "good thing". This would be terrible. I certainly wrote a letter, as follows:
/use/ computers, but also to advance the state of computing. To actively participate in, rather than passively subsidize, the digital revolution. It does so by promoting four essential freedoms:
I urge you to please abdicate your decision to pursue having Microsoft provide software in your (noble) effort to conquer the digital divide.
If you would truly like to present the people of Belgium with an opportunity to participate in the global digital revolution, you should promote the use of free software (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html). Free software empowers people to not only
* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
* The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
* The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits. (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
Installing proprietary software, such as that produced by Microsoft, will only serve to shackle the people of Belgium to Microsoft's eternal desire for profit. While profit is a worthy objective, when it becomes the highest objective, as it has for many corporations, other worthy principles often fall to the wayside.
Since you are just beginning this venture, now is the best time to avoid the eternal dominion of Microsoft's licensing entanglements and other schemes to ensnare and entrap new legions of revenue enhancing impotent users. Avoid this path before it is too late.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
In order to download, something must already be running on the machine.
Like it or not, the machines will have to have something pre-installed.
The only question is who chooses what it is the user sees the first time they power up. The user? The government? The hardware distributer?
At the very least, this is going to be interesting no matter what's chosen.
I can imagine the Belgium Linux Users Groups putting together bootable CDs designed to support the Government Hardware Standard, then giving them away free saying something like "Don't Boot Without It!!!"
Of course, my personal preference for giving away millions of MacII-ci's running System 7.1 would piss off everyone.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Why compaq? I don't know anyone who actually likes their stuff. Compaq is terrible at "slightly" modifying off the shelf equipment so that it'll never work with standard drivers. Don't say support, because there are plenty of other big companies who make PC clones without fuxx0ring with the hardware.
I think the poster has a perfectly valid point. Unless the e-mail address is intended for receiving huge amounts of e-mail, it IS inconsiderate to post it on the front page of a news site that gets several hundred thousand viewers a day.
Okay, I don't like Window's, but at least it's a viable choice for a consumer OS. For god's sake, what is a person who can't afford (and likely not know how to use) a computer do with Linux? I know you can save some cash, but at the expense of usability and application base.
They should just buy droves of iMac's and make everyone's like easier. No one will ever agree about the OS, but the Mac is by far the easiest to use out of the box, it's highy reliable (software and hardware) and it's not that expensive.
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
Microsoft can easily do that.
All they have to do, is give out Windows preloads for free as part of this deal, and include $5 rebate certificates with the computers. -5 beats 0. "But," you say, "then Microsoft loses money."
Nope. Part of the beauty of leveraging monopolies is that you can lose in one area and make up for it in another. Give 'em Windows and sell 'em apps.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
This is a flame. And now it begins.
Linux is not user friendly? Last i checked it was GUI. Have you used KDE? EASIER THAN WINDOWS XP!!!!
Percentages arent fair considering people dont buy Windows, they are taxed for it when they buy their PC. Its not like people are given a choice, so dont even mess with biased statistics.
Desktop Failure? IT JUST started to aim for the Desktop, give it 5 years, it took Windows years to surpass MacOS.
Linux is no reliable? And Windows95 was? or 98? PLEASE!! It too Microsoft 5 years to become reliable. Give Linux 5 years too, and hey people didnt say "Windows isnt ready for the desktop, go use MacOS"
The linux community is elitist? No thats not the community, thats the programmers working on projects who dont have time to teach newbies.
You are bashing linux? You tried it? Once? How many times have you tried Windows? How many years did it take to learn Windows?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
We would hope the minister of a good size country would have a big email box and that /var/spool/mail is a seperate device. Then again, she might be running IIS, and the M$ astro turfs took it out yesterday.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
in the USA used Dos, Windows 3.1, Windows95 etc, Linux is easy enough. We didnt start out with OSX and WinXP
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Sorry, but one of the most basic aspects of intelligence is that you don't just look at the good side of one choice. My cat can be pretty single-minded and easily fooled, but most of the humans I know have at least a little more vision than that.
If you look at some of the other choices, such as not using Windows, you see that you have the same good points.
Then when you start looking at the bad points, the MS choice also stands out.
This "great thing" is just another perversion where socialism meets megacorp welfare. Belgium taxpayers will spend a shitload of money on hardware and software (it's not like the government can just magically declare that computers have no economic cost), and Microsoft gets an increase in marketshare (and not just in the OS market, but also by extension in other related markets, such as apps and even "content" (since the preloaded IEs will all default to some MS page)) without actually having to compete in the marketplace.
If Belgium's government made a deal with McDonalds where on January nth, every Belgium citizen gets a "free" Big Mac combo meal, would you be dancing in the streets about what a GOOD thing is coming out of this? Or would you see it as corruption?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I'm a flavor of socialist myself, so I'm all for a more equitable distribution of that wonderful semiconductor laden stuff - in theory.
;). If people use them regularly, which if you give them to everyone for free is likely, the software you bundle them with (and the homepage they come preconfigured with) becomes a major issue. It is a serious tool that they can use to direct the nature of an emerging sector of public discourse. I can't even concieve of all the possible ways it could be abused, and the belgian government has a world class history of gratuitous acts of evil.
.net crap with it.
Computers, however, are a bit of a problem. Yes, I know the government puts them in libraries and schools allready, but computers (nowadays) are a communication device, and it is very easy to make them into a propoganda device. Government paying to put propoganda into libraries, and unfortunately public schools, is basically unavoidable (you can have meritocrats make the decisions, but that hurts as often as it helps,) but in people's homes? Everyone's homes?
It may just be the capitalist mind control rays making me say this, but - most of the people who get these computers aren't going to be especially computer literate, and if some flemmish speaking prole gets a computer from the government he is unlikely to reconfigure it when he gets home from a long day at the football riot
Alternatively, they can sell it to the highest bidder - if I were M$ I'd give them the OS and help pay for the machines (which have gotta be cheap at the moment) so that I could bundle all this
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Linux isnt for everyone, neither is Windows however saying people cannot handle Linux is like sayingn back in 95 people cant handle Windows and demanding everyone use the more expensive easier macOS.
Education has nothing to do with computer skill. Do you think bill gates, steve jobs, or most linux programmers have degrees? If you can read and write, you can learn to code, you can read the manual and learn linux, and you can master the computer.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
) What's the former experience of the trainee? If they've used Windows mostly, they'll be used to Windows
I think you just won the argument for rolling out windows.
Because windows accounts for approx 95% of all desktops out there, statisticly, these people have a better chance of aleady using windows the linux in the past. Hence windows is more likely to be fimilar, and therefor easer to use.
The Oeone PC looks like it would fit the bill; it's dead simple to use, and it runs Linux. The only problem I can foresee is cost, at $800 per unit.
Fighting the War on the War on Drugs.
http://smokedot.org/
Step back a second and consider what is being proposed. *Every home* in Belgium would have a machine, which by default runs OS N. (I'd use "X" as my variable but that's taken. :-) )
Under these circumstances, damn near every objection raised to every OS I've seen mentioned are meaningless. If this went through, it would be a different world.
So OS N has some rough spots. So what? You neighbors all have OS N too. Every kid on the block has been exposed to OS N. A country full of people are working on helping each other learn the OS and "making it go".
Frankly, the discussion boils down to ONLY one issue, and that's "Proprietary or open?" And the answer is clear: Open.
A proprietary OS puts an entire country at the mercy of the vendor. While the country will certainly have a lot of "pull", you can bet that the marketing department of the company is going to get more and more brazen over time, and they DON'T have your best interests at heart.
An Open OS, be it Linux, FreeBSD, or whatever, imposes nothing on Belgium. Certainly if Belgium is going to put a computer in every home, they can afford to make their own distro, which can be as easy or as hard to use as they want, even to the TiVo extreme.
Everything changes when you're talking about a country in which every person you meet on the street has had experience with the OS you're using. (God knows Windows isn't the dream it's being portrayed as... or haven't you helped a new person learn Windows lately?)
Upshot: A proprietary OS will meet the needs of the developing company. An open OS meets the needs of Belgium. The choice is clear. Old arguments are irrelevant. Willingly selling an entire country into vendor-lockin is analogous to selling Manhatten Island for the proverbial handful of glass beads.
It's kind of fun, really, like shooting fish in a barrel. The choice is so easy, and the trolls lack creativity. Anyone who's used anything other than M$ junk knows how crippled the stuff from Redmond is, and it's just so fun to point it out. Secure Shell remote logon, with fast graphical exports? You won't see that from M$ as long as they stick to their stupid single user model force by their obsolete licensing and distribution schemes. But here I sit in bed with woefully underpowered laptop, logged into a nice speedy machine. There you go, point out the abilty to install your software on specific purpose machines that you can share out to your friends and office mates. One machine in each virtual terminal or mixed, M$ "integration" never had it remotly close. Hell their idea of desktop integration is getting their bloated word processor to share text with their bloated browser, HA HA HA. Oh yeah, you would think that Belgian would want a nice web server like Apache. I suppose they can get it for Win32, but how can you run something like that on such a flimsy foundation? How much easier apt-get is. They might also like pro-ftp. Access and administer your machine from somewhere else, I do it and I've yet to be cracked. My mighty 66MHz 486 gateway sits on a cable modem 24/7. People using M$ get cracked just connecting to the internet. They lose everything thanks to all the stupid scattered places M$ keeps information. Me, I'm backed up and can be back up in less than an hour if need be. The list of things that are nice to have that are easy to get for Linux goes on and on. Hell, even paid M$ trolls have to wonder in frustration at their single virtual screens. I just love to rub it in.
Here's the biggest rub of all: It was easy. That's right, easy. I'm just a bone headed mechanical engineer and I've got my house networked with Debian. My wife uses it, no problem. Are we leet or what? NFW, we are simple users who have put a fraction of the time we used to spend on left handed M$ shortcuts toward learning something real and constant. Give a person a preconfigured Debian box and they will never look back. Give them a Red Hat box and the difference will sink in slowly until they ask theselves, "How did I ever put up with all that cranky junk?" Tech support calls will cease to be an easy $50/hour. Easy, easy easy.
This is one sale that's unlikely.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Ok, I'll bite...
Excactly, because as everyone knows, Europe is strongly underdeveloped and cannot compete at all with the superior technology that is so common in the US, I heard a rumour you guys even have indoor toilets and horseless wagons! So no way that any european would know one OS from another.
</sarcasm>Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
We make our own reality. Right now we think windows is the true reality and Linux is the way reality ought to be. If everyone used Linux, it would be reality and Windows would be on the garbage heap of history, where it belongs. The point about users needing an expert around to help them with their random computer troubles is really good.
And the thing with Linux is, when you actually have computer problems, there are always ways to fix them. Most of the way that things work in Windows' internals are obfuscated and non-obvious, and very poorly documented even if you dig deep into the bowels of the MS site. Best case you find some stupid KB article that kind of relates to your problem, and you get a step-by-step on how to fix it. A lot of it seems like voodoo rather than actual trouble-shooting.
With Linux, you ALWAYS have the source code. You ALWAYS know what is going on. If enough people ran linux, the overall intelligence level of computer users would rise. It's kind of a trickle-down effect. Sort of made possible by the six degrees of separation.
Look, I live in the Central American country of Panama. I was born here and have dedicated a lot of time to understanding why third world countries are what they are (for better or worse).
Where I live, people are generally quick to accept technology, and like everywhere else, it has become a symbol of status. The guy that _tries_ to wash your windshield in a streetlight has a pre-paid cellphone here. Hell, ALL cellphone accessories are sold AT streetlights here. There are entire towns where houses are put together, rather than built, using materials and methods I still cannot comprehend, boldly defying conventional wisdom and the laws of physics, and yet they all have 2-3 25"+ TV sets, Big Stereo equipment, VHS, one generation old video game systems and more. Some even have satellite TV. We're talking about people that make $200-$500/month. And that's household income.
And yet I'm of the opinion that putting a computer in every home would not solve the problem of the so called digital divide, in fact, I think it would make it worse. Here's my rationale:
If a computer was given for free to every person in my country that can't (or won't) afford one, more than 95% of the people would break it, put it away, sell it (if market price doesn't go down too much), and in general, not value them for what they're worth (economically and intelectually). There are a lot of legitimate cases where people really need one and can't afford it, but even those would probably not value them as much as if they had worked and saved money for their own.
Sure, some 5% of the people would change their lives by having access to a computer, learning how to use it, hooking up to the Intenret an having access to all the information that's available (the good AND the bad which forces you to develop critical thinking). After all, this is similar to what happened to me when my parents won $10,000 in the lottery and bought me a $2,000 PC 10 years ago (now I have a consulting firm and i'm doing pretty well, thank you).
The problem is, you would still have a mayority that not only can't but won't use a computer, and a minority that does. Digital Divide anyone? Only this time it's not economically based, but intelectually based.
It's all a cultural problem. Most people don't use computers because they don't know how good it would be for them, for their carriers, for developing critical thinking, for improving their competitivenes (professionally), for having access to much more information, for improving productivity, etc.
This is not very different from someone giving you a supersonic jet for free, and telling you it's much better than your Honda Civic. There isn't much I can do with a supersonic jet to be honest, I see no reason to learn to fly if I can get around with my Jetta pretty well. Besides, they say learning to fly is very very hard, so why waste my time? Well, maybe I could sell that Jet to someone that does fly!
I believe the only way to actually close the Digital Divide (God, I hate clichés) is to improve the cultural level of developing populations, promote critical thinking, make people understand that they have to "work for it", and that in the end it's worth it (what capitalism is based on), and THEN let them BUY computers real cheap. Never give them away.
There's this little anectdote I want to share before I wrap this up. About 30 years ago there was this military dictator in Panama. A guy called Torrijos. Most people agree he was a pretty cool guy. You've probably heard that name if you're older than 20 and know a bit of history. Anyways, he used to give food and money away to people in a provice called Colon, the second largest city here. After a very short while, they got used to getting everything for free, and just adored the guy. Torrijos died in 1981 (they say it was Noriega, but who knows...)
Three years ago we were going to build an earth station in Colon, wire the area with fiber optics, provide local ISP service, etc. I interviewed over 40 Colon residents for different low level possitions. Nobody would work after 5PM (even when you pay the extra hours). The few we actually hired, would never, ever show up on time for work, and when they did you could still smell the alcohol. We decided to close the shop very quickly. Last week, MONADESCO (Colon Unemployed Movement) was barricading the streets of Colon. They want Jobs (as long as they don't have to work). They want food. They want money. You wanna give these guys free computers? right.
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
It's a good thing the ol' US of A isn't quite yet a socialist country, while some people are working quite hard to steer it in that direction. It's good that people are trying to encourage using Linux for these computers, but should the government even be involved in this? Government's don't solve problems well, any half-way informed libertarian knows this. There is an abundance of PCs out there, obviously not as many powerful enough to run Windows 2000 or XP, but certainly adequate for Linux. Perhaps if the government were to instead offer a tax deduction for donating an old computer (like what is done for automobiles here in the states), they would reach their goal of PC ubiquity, at a tremendous savings. Windows 2000 won't run well on these donations, but Linux certainly will and cost bundles less. There are better ways to feed their wish, but their current approach will likely end up with the receipients re-selling the PCs and Windows license for cash, who's to say that won't happen?
...could be %0 when using somthing you don't have to pay for.
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Is this a sig?
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Wouldn't it be nice if the linux community stopped acting like the Jehovah's Witnesses of computers?
Linux User: Hi, are you aware that your computer's resources are in imminent danger?
Window$ User: What? My computer is fine.
Linux User: No sir, if you would just take this Oreilly pamphlet, your computer can still be saved.
Window$ User: Um, I think I left the stove on. *slams door*
Just be happy that the underprivileged are going to get some computers. Leave it to them to discover that Window$ is computer poison.
The basic guidelines that we all need to follow for sending email supporting Linux, or any other open source software are simple.
We must be courteous and kind.
NO FLAMES, this hurts their perception of the type of person that uses open source software.
Try to state things in a way that they'll understand. They need to see that Linux is a viable alternative for public use if it's implemented correctly.
Just use common sense, and don't say anything stupid.
I forget the exact details, but here in Australia, there was a push by (then Prime Minister) Bob Hawke (yes, a while back) to have a computer in every Australian home by 199x('91? 92?).
... cept now a number people are buying consoles instead of C64s/Amigas/STs/PCs :)
Its 2002 and thing don't seem to have changed that much
Oh well...
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
The problem with linux is that if it breaks or otherwise doesn't work, you're own your own to fix it - and if want to do something useful with it, it's 10x harder to do anything with Linux that it is with Microsoft. Now, you're going to take a country full of people (ma's and pa's and people who have otherwise never used a computer) and give them an OS like that? You're going to get 10 million doors stops
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Oh my
Do th epoor really need a computer?
You simply can not mean what you are saying
unless you believe the old line that the poor get what they deserve just as the Rich have earned the money they make?
From your flawed line of reasoning, I take it you think public education is also wasted on the poor?
Of course, it could never have occured to you that the reason you know how to use a computer is that you grew up with the ability to have access to one? No, I dont think that ever occured to someone that thinks like you
Sigs are dangerous coy things
Hell I want to move out of Belgium. Imagine that my neighbours, grandparents, friends all knock on my door with problems with there governementpc's. BTW Laurette & Jean-Claude are from the french part of Belgium. Don't blame the Flemish they can't do anything about that :-)
Every little help counts.
Subject: Please consider using linux for the provided computers
Hello
I believe it would worth your time to investigate potential usage of linux
in the hopeful possibility of everyone being provided a computer. Linux, though
seemingly hard to use, and often slandered as not suitable for the desktop,
is an extremely viable platform, optimal for this situation since it can run
on weaker hardware than windows and is completely and entirely free.
Furthermore, making any changes to the platform to better suit Belgians would
be trivial, as full source code (calling source code a programmer's blueprint
is an understatement--it provides all necessary to make any level of alterations
and adjustment to the programs) is provided.
Linux, when configured properly can be extremely easy and fun to use, as
well as powerful and stable. I believe it would of great advantage for you
to consider linux
-mateusz-
You are an idiot! That's not what he typed at all! You are assuming you know his logic when nothing he typed indicated what that might be. By the same token, I can take what you said and come to an equally radical, and most likely false conslusion:
You cannot mean what you say!
unless you believe the old line "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"?
From your flawed line of reasoning, I take it you think that everybody deserves a computer, a million dollar house, and several Jaguars in the garage?
.. you get the point. Anyway, dip, the original poster merely questioned whether these people need computers more than they need other things which that money could provide.
and force everyone to have the Windows which they don't want, if it is decided to standardise on Windows eventually. The alternative, perhaps is to have the computers dual boots, triple ....
... and would they give every computer user a Belgium waffle?
Experience has shown that email addresses posted on /. tend to attract the same trolls who post their innane rambling here to post similarly innane and/or abusive crap to the unfortunate whos email address was posted.
*Hopefully* you are correct and everyone will write polite well reasoned mails, but somehow I suspect that the small handful of abusive idiots may cause more of a negative reaction than all the constructive mails put together.
A little planning goes a long way...
There must be some subliminal message hidden in windows. Seriously, why are there down with linux flames to a story on promoting choice and competition in a large market. Seems to me that if windows was truely so much better, there would not be any issue. Are windows users (specifically those attacking linux) viewing alternative choices as a direct attack on them, or are they just bored, and need a use for their pc??
Why is it a Dutch link ?
I thought they speak Belgian in Belgium !!
I don't really now for sure, but in this country the fact that Onkelinkx says she will do something doesn't mean she will at all.
Anyone know of a translator that does Dutch -> English?
..... worldlingo.com does English->Dutch but not vice versa, at least, with machine translation...
The fish doesn't
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Here's the correct link to the article (still only in Dutch, but I'll try to translate in a following post).
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
Hi ! This is so outrageous, even a apolitical monster like me had to write an email: To: marcourt@meta.fgov.be Subject: Microsoft? Hi! I can not believe that you would be so naive and start negotiating with Microsoft about a populationwide distribution of their software. What are you ? A Microsoft evangelist? Do you really want to have a population of homogenized, monocultural Microsoftusers who have endless problems with their Operating System, Mailvirusses and crap backup? In times like this I really wonder wether the bad reputation that belgian politics have in the world is truly homemade and justified. Dr Dirk Pilat
(God knows Windows isn't the dream it's being portrayed as... or haven't you helped a new person learn Windows lately?)
I find it is more important to give new people a smack on the butt, a thorough bath, a warm towel, and a bottle. Otherwise, I doubt they'd live long enough to even learn what a window was.
A politician trying to score. Please tell her that she has to renew her investment every 3 years.
Btw. she is a representative of the poorer, socialist walloon region in Belgium. She's trying to dig up some federal money for her own region: this will never happen!
*grin* Nice one... :)
Belgium is doing pretty well actually for technology...people don't usually realise that Belgium is a world leader in ADSL technology.
From internal news at Belgacom:
All switching centres in Belgium are ADSL enabled - and the first one was enabled in 1998. Not too shabby I think... :)
-- Pete.
Monochrome - Probably the UK's largest internet BBS
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
mmm you're definitely someone who believes that fries are from France too mmm???
Big part from Belgium speaks dutch beside French and German and English(especially around Brussels).
A lot of Belgians can speak more then one language.
Belgium is divided in 4 parts: Flemish, Brussels, Wallon and East-cantons.
Another knowledge: Tintin is from the french part, Rubens is from the flemish part, Belgian waffels are from Brussels, Belgian chocolates are from Belgium.
JTLYK
This becomes an endless battle between microsoft and linux.., microsoft got the money and will win... just sue them Belgians can't even choose with language they want to choose... french or belgian (ripped from the dutch people) And that women just wants some attention, let her have it, remember Australia they said the same, laterz "We don't hate; we're just indifferent. Same result, less effort." - Cancer Omega
Recently one of my friends, a computer wizard, payed me a visit. As we were talking I mentioned having recently installed Windows 98 on my PC and that I am very happy with this operating system. I also showed him the Windows 98 CD, to my surprise he threw it into my micro-wave oven and turned on the oven. Instantly I got very upset, because the CD had become precious to me, but he said: 'Do not worry, it is unharmed.' After a few minutes he took the CD out, gave it to me and said: 'Take a close look at it.' To my surprise the CD was quite cold to hold and it seemed to be heavier than before. At first I could not see anything, but then on the inner edge of the central hole I saw an inscription; an inscription finer than anything I have ever seen before. The inscription shone piercingly bright, and yet remote, as if out of a great depth:
C 20 4F6E65204F5320746 F2066696E64207468656D2CDA4F6E65204F5320746F2062726 96E67207468656D20 616C6C20616E6420696E20746865206461726B6E6573732062 696E64207468656D
4F6E65204F5320746F2072756C65207468656D20616C6C2
'I cannot understand the fiery letters,' I said.
'No,' he said 'but I can. The letters are Hex, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Microsoft, which I shall not utter here. But in common English this is what it says:
One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them,
One OS to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
She's not really responsible for 'equality', but for 'equal opportunities' (or 'equal chances', I don't know the exact translation of the Dutch 'gelijke kansen' or French 'Egalité des chances'). A slight difference perhaps, but a significant one in my opinion. Clearly, not everyone is equal, but I think everyone should be given equal opportunities.
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
A PC in every home here in Belgium?
Damn, there goes my bandwidth.
Ministry of Employment and Labour, also responsible for Equal Opportunities (not Equality!)
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
By the way, Belgium is also a high-tax country, and there are all kinds of arrangements for people without jobs. Don't know about washing machines though.
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
(disclaimer : I am from Belgium so my opinions might be biased :))))
A better use of the money would be to have computers in publicly accessible places like libraries.
They would be also appropriate in schools where proper training of teachers would be required so that they don't become m$ point'n-click zealots and teach it. Then, when the kids will be adults, they will be well educated, get a job or better, create a company and don't need a free computer paid by those who work.
If you give a computer to a man, he will play quake until windows crashes but if you teach him linux, he will be able to do whatever he wants with a computer for the rest of his life.
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
In order to evaluate the proposal to give away free computers to everyone, one has to know one or two things about Belgium.
First (and hopefully commonly known) Belgium is divided in two parts, one part speaking Dutch (5.5 million inhabitants), and another part speaking French (4.5 million inhabitants).
Second: the Dutch part is economically doing a great deal better than the French part. This is true when you evaluate on number of unemployed people, average wages, ...
Third: There have been socialists in our government for the last 50 years or so. Hence there is a lot of protection for the 'needy'. For example: Belgium has just about the highest income-tax in Europe (to startle some Americans: I (and my wife) pay 55% taxes on our income. Another example: Belgium has the highest rate of people getting money from government compared to working people. A staggering 103 people getting unemployment, disability, pension, ... per 100 working people. For comparison: France has 90/100, US has 60/100.
Last: As people are most concerned about themselves (this merrits a '-1 obvious') the 103 vote socialist to get more money/computers/free healthcare/whatever from the government. The 100 vote liberal (or central Christian) to pay less taxes.
Minister Onckelinckx is, as you may have gathered by now, a member of the socialist party of the French speaking part of Belgium. Her proposal is therefore perhaps great for the people that vote for her, but it obviously isn't for those (like me) that have to pay the bills.
On a side note: I wouldn't be at all surprised if that would turn out to be 'Pay the Bill'.
This proposal will eventually be burried, like so many other proposals from our ministers. A green party minister once suggested to close our national airport at night because of noise-problems. It's like all ministers agreed to each get a week in which they can try to step into the light by making the silliest possible suggestions. I'd suggest not paying too much attention to it.
I have a photographic memory for numbers. I know almost a hundred of them.
The minister is (amongst other things) responsible for 'equality' and therefore pushes the plan to provide the less fortunate with a pc.
/. at least, I would have expected a little more skepticism of a proposal that would give a government complete and unrestricted access to the majority of its citizens email accounts and hard drives. Would you be willing to sell your freedoms for some shiny new consumer electronics?
This smells like a belated attempt to jump on the Internet bandwagon to me. Why don't citizens get equal automobiles issued to them at the voting age? Why aren't citizens assigned to identical housing units? Why don't citizens queue every week at the supermarket to collect their equal shopping baskets of goods?
I strongly recommend that anyone who favors the idea of spending so much money on computers read Silicon Snake Oil by Clifford Stoll. In this book, he presents a compelling argument that, in education, the money would far better be spent on hiring more and better teachers, and actually taking the kids to museums rather than sitting them down in front of PCs loaded with CDROM encylopaedias. And in business, computers aren't the productivity panacea that they're touted as.
And, on
linux.be[dutch only] joost is a big submitter there.
But since the link is wrong, so for for "Read the article first.".
Another option would be to take all of the money they intend to spend on Microsoft software, and employ Belgian programmers to develop and improve Linux for Belgians. This could be an ongoing thing and this way the government won't be tied into costly Microsoft upgrade cycles, paying for features /bugs that the people won't even use.
I think you've spoken well.
But I cannot completely agree.
A TV-set is not a computer. A computer is a much more complex piece of machinery.
There is absolutely no reason to know how a tv works. It has to do one thing, and that's to show tv programs on a screen.
A computer can do the same, with a tv-card and a monitor. But you can also use a computer for writing mails, recording/editing video, phone/fax, scanning/printing, whatever.
Sure, you can use a computer for a few simple tasks, like just wordprocessing, mailing and browsing the web. But for that you can just as well use linux, windows or macos.
Linux is not perfect. The first priority was stability, the second priority is gui (imo in this context). Some people say it's ready, but it's not quite there yet.
Windows is not perfect either. The first priority was gui, the second priority is stability. Some people say it's stable, but it's not quite there yet.
Just a sidenote:
When your tv is broken, the repairman might even tell you to just buy a new one, because it's cheaper then the repair.
What would you say when your computer had a major crash and the repairman told you to just buy a new one?
This wouldn't make sense to me.
Well, don't worry about that. We can get you back before you leave. (Dr. Who)
Wout,
please note that me and my family relied on public assistance in the past (unfortunately). We never voted for socialists. Also, there are a lot of working people who vote for socialists.
I think your opinion is full of manicheism. the Dutch part is economically doing a great deal better than the French part mmh yes but what's the point ? The region of Liège is doing better than the region of Charleroi, the region of Brussels (french speaking at 80 pc) is doing better than some places in the dutch part and the dutch part is doing better than a lot of places in Europe (congratulations).
So what's the point of comparing linguistic regions on an economic basis ? Maybe the propaganda of some political people works in a way. What is funny is that some (all ?) of them want brussels as the capital of Vlaanderen. Looks like some french speaking people are necessary anyway.
All in all, I also think that some people are cheating on the welfare state and it is also possible that there are more of them in the french speaking side of the country (though some do not speak french). BUT I REFUSE THAT ANY CITIZEN CAN BE PUT IN A CATEGORY BECAUSE OF HIS LANGUAGE OR ETHNICS OR RELIGION, etc. More precisely, I consider stupid the opinions that "unemployed people are lazy", "walloons are lazy" and so on.
Concerning the silly suggestion concerning the airport, I suppose you do not live in Zaventem.
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
rock
It' a small one but everything is in it.
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
Something that a lot of these Linux folks don't understand is that people do NOT care to learn how a computer works or how to set it up or how to make it do anything else besides what they want it to do.
This is far more a critique of Microsoft's offering than anything else. With Windows people are expected to do all kinds of sysadmin tasks, simply to be able to use the thing.
Windows is very difficult for non-techies to learn how to use.
Also the model behind Windows is of a single user system where the end user performs administration tasks.
This is part of the problem with Windows the end user is expected to perform "techie" tasks.
If you want a system for the non techie then either if must be quite limited in what it can do (installing software is a complete no no) or the non techie needs a techie to set it up and service it for them.
Imagine if someone made a car where ignition timing, fuel/air mix, etc could be altered from the driving position. Further than the driver was expected to use these controls as part of driving...
It doesn't add to the discussion of posting or not posting an email address on /. but for those who care, the address is not the minister's address, but the address of her chief executive (or whatever you call those guys who call the shots when she's out)
/. and I did it 'cause I wanted some attention to be drawn to this issue, and I hope some other channels would take over the news.
Furthermore, I don't have a habit of posting on
I guess that worked since I received some email from local press.
Ok.. Just some other facts of Belgium.
:-)
Total population : 10 million
Total internet connections (ISPA figures) end 2001 : 1.2 million
Number of ADSL connection : 200.000 (whole of Belgium)
Number of internet cable connection : 200.000 (only in Flanders, the Dutch speaking part)
So.. seems like we are in the top of the most wired Internet countries
Karel
I realize this comment is just a joke, but anyone else ever notice how an anecdotal attack will often be used when a valid argument does not exist. Kind of like how the the one "food stamp queen" driving a Cadillac is supposed to make us forget about the multitude of children that are being fed.
Analyzing the median results of a program, along with the variance of the distribution, is much more meaningful than talking about a couple of freak cases way out on the tail of the distribution. Anytime you see somebody using the anecdotal attack, a good working assumption is that either they don't know what they are talking about, or they are lying.
* Third: There have been socialists in our government for the last 50 years or so. Hence there is a lot of protection for the 'needy'. For example: Belgium has just about the highest income-tax in Europe (to startle some Americans: I (and my wife) pay 55% taxes on our income. Another example: Belgium has the highest rate of people getting money from government compared to working people. A staggering 103 people getting unemployment, disability, pension, ... per 100 working people. For comparison: France has 90/100, US has 60/100.
* Last: As people are most concerned about themselves (this merrits a '-1 obvious') the 103 vote socialist to get more money/computers/free healthcare/whatever from the government. The 100 vote liberal (or central Christian) to pay less taxes.
Just do like the americans do: find where the people getting unemployment/disability/pension keep their marijuana, and start locking them up for it. You'll instantly turn a substantial chunk of the socialist voting block into non-voting slave labor in your prisons. Good for the economy, good for the libertarian political cause.
I wish I was joking.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
This would be a great oppurtunity to stage an experiment. Install windows and linux. Most will start using windows but many may gravitate towards linux. Stability, security, cost of programs and things like this could win many over. Average people (not those reading Slashdot) don't do any thing but use the computer. They don't add new hardware or fix software problems. As long as there are professionals in place to handle this linux could survive next to windows. Just my opinion!
Linux is not a user-friendly desktop OS.
Problem is that "user-friendly" is a term which has been tossed around so much that it's utterly, meaningless. There are good odds that whatever criteria are being used here would also lead to the conclusing that Windows wasn't "user-friendly" either.
If you include support structure costs It'll probably cost MORE than trusty ol' Windows
Considering that Windows is often unfixable without an expert physically going to the machine this claim is rather suspect.
Based on the type of hand-holding support I had to give these people, I think people who have never used a computer before should start with something much simpler than any version of MS-Windows; and I'm sorry, but Linux doesn't qualify.
What criteria is being used for "much simpler"?
Europeans don't pay taxes in dollars ...
We're definitly not wasting any tax dollars!!!
Most public libraries in Belgium, as well as other public places, have internet connected computers to be used by anyone interested. So if you wanna get online, you can. But if they want to give away computers to anyone who can't afford a PC, why not give away free cars instead of free public transportation. Most people in Belgium who don't have a PC in their home either don't want one or are hardly intelligent enough to use a remote control. It would be a lot more interesting to use the money to teach them how to use a PC then to give them a machine they will most likely never use.
And although I'd love to see a free OS run on every PC, I think it'd be a lot more interesting to get linux on government PCs than to distribute it on a couple of thousand PCs that will hardly be used.
all your spam are belong to
Except that majijuana is not criminal in Belgium anymore
Breaking news (10 january 2002) :
The individual usage by adults whose consumption is not considered problem (that is out of control) and which does not cause social nuisance (confusions of the neighborhood or on the public highway, consumption in the presence of minors or on the public highway...) will not be pursued.
source : this site or this article
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
> chief executive (or whatever you call those
> guys who call the shots when she's out)
We call them 'kabinetchef'. Chief of Cabinet.
For all you trolls and non-trolls out there who think Linux is hard to use. It's not. It's difficult to install and configure/get all hardware and software going nicely. But once that is done it's no harder than Windows.
90% of computer users always go to a computer shop to get major stuff done(like install new hardware, or upgrade windows) so they can continue to do that, and all the tricky Linux stuff can be handled by experts. This is what we do at the computer shop I work at. Use of Linux is simple. And the rest of those people who are more into computers will have no trouble getting a book on Linux and learning the finer points of using Linux.
Unless the e-mail address is intended for receiving huge amounts of e-mail, it IS inconsiderate to post it on the front page of a news site that gets several hundred thousand viewers a day.
What a bunch of balony. If the people in charge of a technological project of such magnitude aren't equiped to handle email, they shouldn't be making these decisions. This is exactly where comments should be sent; as opposed to, say, staring into your navel by confining your ranting to Slashdot.
Are you really afraid of people's manners, or maybe are you just afraid of what they might say?
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
Hey, how about this idea: if you *really* want people to get a crash course in "computer literacy" why don't you ship the computers without operating systems? I'm not joking. If they really want to use that shiny new $1500 piece of equipment they'll have to put something on it. And perhaps they *won't* want to pay ~$200 out of pocket to put Windows on it. Let them choose whatever they want.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Thanks a lot for this comment about manicheism!
If you are looking for divides between two communities, you will indeed find them and be able to emphathize them; make statistics about people crossing red lights in Kruishoutem, Dilbeek and Verviers and you will likely find big differences in behaviour, proving you right that one community is brilliant/hard-working and the other is lazy or whatever.
Yes, my native language is French, and no I don't vote socialist or depend on social security and yes I pay for the social security of people poorer than I, and yes I speak good Dutch as well.
Language just is not the problem. The problem with this project is that it will likely cost much more than just the PC and the OS (whose cost already is objectable). It would be a much better idea to offer computer training (or whatever other kind of training) to anyone who wishes. This would mean less money better spent than offering money-convertible goods to everyone. The lazy will not take the training and will not cost anything to the government while the most incompetent of all lazy jerks would never refuse the PC.
My 2 eurocents.
Very good idea, a bit similar than what I said about education.
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. Bertrand Russel
Equality of opportunity is the dream of American Constitutionalists, and one reason for America's unprecedented growth in the 19th century. Equality of outcome is the nightmare of Harrison Bergeron, and the dream of American Democrats and other socialists.
If you want something, earn it yourself. Else you don't value it. I don't know how many times I've seen this myself, when I see the well-to-do families giving their kids neato toys that get broken, their teens nice cars that get wrecked. You know you've seen it too.
I'm glad I'm not Belgian. The US government's redistribution of wealth is bad enough.
Constitutionally Correct
It's not a bunch of balony. It's simply polite. At least OBSCURE the address by textualizing it...otherwise spamming software will pick it right up. I'm sure this person will decide to have Linux installed after the 10s or so comments they read amongst the 100s of spam messages. Just plain rude.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
.... to let any single company benefit from the tendering process of the hardware, the same should have been done with the software. Linux is not owned buy anyone and has only costs based on client support. Like this the government is not dependent on the survival of a foreign country, which is being sueued by the EU for bussiness bad practices.
The Belgian Linux users are a great asset to make the system the most usable for the rest of the Belgian population. The Open Source philosophy relies on the concept of sharing and collaboration thus getting the Belgian developers spontaneously develop better applications to support the system. The software will be owned by everyone and the development of such software can be even incentivated by the government. A clear example of this is the involvement of the German government in sponsoring the secutiry libraries of Kmail. This has even more grounds when it is now public that Microsoft wants to move to a services type of bussiness model as opposed to selling the whole software product.
Dodge this !! --Trinity, The Matrix
So, the government could plan to put a computer in every home of Belgium, but then Suse, Redhat or other Linux companies would have a chance to show they are cheaper than Microsoft.
This is an opertonity for Linux to shine through MS once again. If Linux could stucture it's self up against MS in this, Linux could get a good promo. Linux has some high quiality basises to it. It has no target on which MS can battle and take over. Linux has set it's self up a nice plot.
But on the actuall topic, does everyone in Belgeim need a PC?? If you are giving these PC's to the 'unweathlier' class, what's to prevent them from selling or pawning these off?? And do many of these people even know how to use a PC at that. Plus, alot of matince goes into computers, so could they afford it if anything went wrong with the machine??
That being said, I agree that you can run Linux on much less expensive hardware than, lets say, Windows XP. However, if you are talking that many systems, it'd probably still be easier to buy new, but less than "cutting edge" hardware, probably something like a 700MHz AMD. It would be much too much paperwork and manual labor collecting and setting up used equipment.
Your Servant, B. Baggins
Income tax of 55%.
... it just goes on & on.
It's about the sam ein the US, we just "hide" our taxes.
I have deductions for federal income tax, state income tax, social security, medicare, a couple of state retirement programs, 401K 'cause social security won't provide a living wage, medical, dental & vision insurance
More than half my pay goes to deductions, not all are taxes, but they pay for services that are funded by tax dollars elswhere. When Iook at total cost and services recieved I find that I'm envious of my German & Italian relatives!
I'm locked out of on-line pay records -- will add hard numbers later when I get home if anybody cares.
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." --Napoleon Bonaparte
In belgium we have a job-finding computer called the WIS-computers (Work Information System). As far as I know (and I life in Belgium) these systems work on Linux or at least a Unix. They have the typical "X" arrow of the X displaying system when they are "doing" something. It's a touchscreen of course, and the software is written in Gnome I think. But I am not sure if this is still the way it is
However, these system are ment for people who have no knowledge of computers "at all".
I know Linux, I know that they can make Linux 700*10! times harder to modify and crack then a Ms. Windows system. So if they are going to make a mass-computer for which they don't want to deliver support to much; and can update by broadcasting updates.. I'd go for a linux, thats for sure.
While the spread of a free OS is certainly a worthwhile goal to strive for, it is not realistic... yet. What worries me about this issue is that the concerns of the Belgium Linux community is not based on what is best for the people who would be receiving these computers, but what is best for their agenda.
I may be going out on a flamebait limb here, but I suggest that it would be easier for the average layperson to learn Windows as opposed to Linux, whatever the distribution. I also would suggest that better technical support is available for Windows than for Linux.
While that's not a concern of all the 3133t15t h4x0r5 out there who already know the in's and out's of their OS, it is to millions of people who have never used a computer before. Training and tech support will be very valuable... and it is something that the majority of the Linux community cannot provide.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
it is what windows 95 should have been. to bad MS is destroying its sales of off the shelf by requireing activation......could they not atleast provided a family licence that can be installed on 4 -5 machines for around $250 I mean come on.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Stomme troll!
I would have to agree that if linux were adopted there than it would be the most excellent thing to ever happen. However, take into perspective the fact that many people would be pissed at the fact that they couldnt run kazaa or some other of their favorite programs. I mean as hard as it is to say for me, windows is more user friendly than linux. My experiences with with trying to "convert" people to linux is this:
1. In the beginning they might love it because its all free
2. Then after a while people get pissed that they cant run some of their favorite programs
3. For a novice with no previous training everything is really hard to configure.
4. For kids the learning curve might suck.
5. Lets face it, bottom line, linux has zero plug and play support. PnP, or some other modularized form of it is a good thing when its done right. Hardware support is a big issue.
Just sticking in my 2 cents.
1) Belgium's computer resellers/manufacturers will not be able to sell anything to anyone in the home market, thereby swiftly putting them out of business. [Maybe the EU should complain about this minister to the WTO for her unfair, pro-U.S. trade sanctions.]
2. Not only will this destroy Belgium's hardware industry, but place its viable software industry at the mercy of MS for the foreseeable future. With such a homogenous home market, businesses will have strong incentives to write software for that market, as well as standardize on MS systems because the large local pool of potential employees "skilled" in MS technologies.
3) Then some professional spender-of-other-people's-money, (i.e. socialist), will pester the "Minister of Equality" and her successors for upgrades every few years, which will of course require new licenses, (unless you can evision MS idly standing by while Compaq shifts blank harddrives).
-or-
if upgrades aren't forthcoming, they will end up like France, and have a totally outdated computer (ordinator) network based on government sponsored technology. And what will replace these outdated systems? Nothing local, because that industry will have been driven into extinction faster than you can say: "European competitors of Aerobus". [That's right, there are no European competitors of Aerobus, ever wonder why?]
4. Having had its entire computer hardware reseller/manufacturing market desicated by a feelgood government welfare scheme, Belgium will have to resort to making other appliances, like electric belgium waffle irons. Unfortunately, they will have stiff competition from shitty little third world country's whose people are desperate enough to take lower wages than last year's assemble-it-here-because-well-work-for-pennies fad. Belgium will slide into bankruptcy and social unrest will follow when the EU proposes bailing their stupid socialist asses out.
5. A new "right to modern appliances" will have been created, and people will get very upset that they don't have a new belgium waffle oven and scream how it was just like the Selma Busrides. [Ok I'm joking, but isn't unintended effects 1-4 bad enough?]
Great, now you have a few thousand computers with identical root passwords!
:)
... Ever powered off a Linux machine without halting it? Sometimes it makes u type in commands just to get it to boot up
Maybe. And if they ship with XP, it'll be identical "Administrator" passwords.
Granted you will still get it in XP, they can always configure it from the images to load the default user account automatically, without a login
If they use Gnome, GDM can use "pictures" for logging in, and can also be easily configured (read: with a GUI) to log in a particular user on boot. So this is also the same. (KDE can probably do this too, but I don't use it, so I wouldnt' know.
Linux is a bit easier to break than windows
"u" ever used ext3 before? Works great, y'know...
Not only that, Netscape Navigator tends to crash, and bring everything down with it
Mozilla, Mozilla, Mozilla. Navigator is DEAD.
I've got strong suspicions it'll be equipped with at least something, if only Works.
Or they could install a *real* suite like OpenOffice...
Linux is becoming *quite* usable on the desktop. Anyone who's installed a recent copy of RedHat could tell you that the install is just as easy as Windows (just maybe not as familiar, but still very easy. hell, the partitioning utility beats the crap out of Win2k's HANDS DOWN), so that's not an issue. And for usability? StarOffice, Mozilla, and Evolution are every bit as usable as Office, IE, and Outlook, IMHO. And since they could save MILLIONS on this project by not using M$ software, they could take a *fraction* of that budget and put it towards removing any "rough edges" they observed in whatever distro they decided on...
The Free desktop that Just Works
The majority of your average schmoe consumers use Windows, hence the majority of your average schmoe software is available for Windows (only).
Where is Joe Schmoe going to figure out how to use his USB camera on Linux? How's he going to play the games he buys (Oh God, hear comes the 'but Linux has games!' crowd of dirty nerds - I can hear them now hoofing their way towards me).
The very idea of distributing Linux in this situation is idiotic at a level that almost reaches 'instinctual knowledge'. I don't even need to put much thought into it - the first issues it brings to mind are show-stoppers.
I'm a PC guy (Windows and Unix) but I have to admit the iMac is a good choice here.
Belgium won't have a high tech industry then. You will sing a different tune once you a start working for a living and watching 50+% of your earnings going to deadbeats and the politicians which live off them.
TWOD == The War On Drugs. But you've got a good point on the non-voting part. I've never actually heard of a good reason *for* the War on Drugs. Thanks, you've broadened my mind.
Who is going to pay for all these computers? And why does everyone need a computer? It is like saying "Every household must have a TV." Maybe half the people need a computer but I'm guessing that those people the need a computer can go buy their own, instead of forcing their neighbors to buy them one (i.e. Taxes).
Ok, I see lots of people here telling me all of the wonderful things I can do. But really, if my household is going to get one, then I'd rather have something that we'll be happy with, which may not match what people here want.
For starters, I want everything installed, or very easy to install. One of the more silly comments I saw was they we could all have boot floppies and download the install. Sheesh, as local calls cost money, I'm not going to spend the cost of Win XP on telephone charges to download redhat or SuSE at 28-56K by phone.
It's also got to be in French.
It has to have useful applications which my wife knows - she doesn't have the time to spend learning different things - if you don't believe me, please ask HER.
If it was only my wife's decision, then she would ONLY want to use MS products. She would never bother to use the computer if it was Linux.
I recently helped my neighbour next door choose a second had computer. Her main requirement - something which matched what the her children in school were using - again, MS wins.
I'm sorry, but if we all end up with Linux, then I'm usre alot of the boxes will go unused.
"The best part? I became an ordained minister while not wearing pants." -- CleverNickName
Yeah, it's late, so nobody will ever read this -- but why is this article deemed to be 'about microsoft?' Honestly, the news is that they might be giving everyone a computer, not that the computers will be running Windows. It seems to me that we have enough ms/linux flame wars that the editors don't have to go out of their way to make opportunity for another one. Matching this story with the borg symbol was highly inappropriate, and sent the discussion off on a completely different (and useless) track.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Another stupid idea. Two stupid ideas actually. A cabinet level post for implementing equality; fantastically stupid. Add to that the idea of just giving unearned assets to people, cosmically stupid. Too bad that asteroid missed earth.
They will wonder why they can't use any of the applications they see at the store and why the need to run a program called "btichX" to get help.
...just tell her it was named after her
Liberty uber alles.
Funny, I'd have thought the goal would be achieved by supplying free methods and techniques for doing all things the proprietary software does. I don't see anyone, even RMS, looking to directly destroy the companies that produce proprietary software, except Microsoft, and they don't count as they are criminals and deserve to be destroyed for other reasons, like fraud, blackmail and extortion. Instead I see the goal being that people should only pay for proprietary software if they WANT to, for instance if it is particularly nicely GUIed or runs 70% faster or has teams of repairman ready to come help you or something. Why should people be compelled to resort to proprietary stuff JUST because it is proprietary stuff? Maybe some people aren't fond of the idea of having a free basic level of competition which a proprietary vendor must exceed if they expect to sell to customers?
"One way this is accomplished is by putting software that would normally be public domain under a license RMS himself created, called the "General Public License," or "GPL." Simply put, this license allows code to be reused-- unless the final product is distributed without its source code, as a proprietary product must be."
Funny how that works- curiously enough, all software would normally be public domain except that some people choose to claim rights to such earthshaking concepts as 'clicking a picture of a button on a screen, once' and refusing to let people use those ideas and that code. In fact, call me paranoid but it might be that some organisation like that will, some day, get crazy and antisocial enough to try and PATENT the idea of clicking a button on a screen once to do a thing, so people can't even use an idea LIKE the one the proprietary guy has claimed rights to. Thank God THAT will never happen! ;P
As to the GPL vs. public domain: what gives you the idea that proprietary concepts and public domain can coexist? Do you see them coexisting in practice? Since proprietary guys can take concepts from the public domain and patent them and bodily remove them from the public domain, isn't it true that RMS, in inventing the GPL, simply implemented a protected public domain, which by design can't be cherrypicked at all unless you agree to work within the public domain that you are cherrypicking?
Wouldn't the counterpart be a desire to be allowed to cherrypick proprietary software, take the ideas and start publically using them without fear of reprisal? Is that not completely antithetical to the whole point of proprietary software? ...then, why do you consider cherrypicking public domain for the benefit of proprietary stuff to be any more sensible? It rather defeats the purpose, wouldn't you say? Particularly with what you may call retroactive patenting.
I look forward to reading what you have to say when you grow up and have read other books besides Atlas Shrugged :)
"How can people make a living over there?"
Here's some news for you: many Canadians are taxed over 50% as well, and we make our living just fine, thanks...
Yeah, I thought of that after I hit the submit button. I should have said "good for libertarian economics", meaning, it gets people off welfare and into profitable prisons.
But it's only the radical libertarians who are against the war on drugs. All the conservatives in the Congress who my CATO-loving libertarian friends support because of their economic policies are for the war on drugs, and generally for increased imprisonment because it stimulates the economy both when prisons are built and when welfare patients become prison slaves.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
other things that your employer is required to pay for you (i.e. he would pay a lower rate if your weren't there, so it won't show up in your paystub) include: unemployment insurance and workman's compensation insurance.
Medicare/Medicaid (4%?) are social medicine programs that U.S. employees don't need because most good jobs (i.e. post college white collar/unionized blue collar) have far better health/life/disability insurance than the state run programs, which they do are excluded from anyways.
Capital gains tax is also a big one. Most U.S. workers are owners of taxable securities, a habit which the smart ones learn from their 401k's. Capital gains mean that you risk your money, which in turn gives business the funding to create economic opportunity, and the government taxes you if you happen to actually have backed a business which does well.
Also, regarding the deductability of state taxes, there is a difference between a deduction and a "below the line" tax break. A deduction simply lessens your taxable income so you pay less taxes. A "below the line" tax break actually comes off the tax bill itself, which is usually a much greater percentage of savings. You may have less taxable income, but most states (I know that TX, AZ, FL, and possibly Alaska, do not) do have income taxes of between 4-8%.
Municipalities also exact an income tax based at 1-2%, to say nothing of the property taxes we pay if you are a residence owner to fund a very expensive and very innefficient public school system. (Most people don't know that private schools spend far less per student than their neighborhood public schools.)
And he is also right about the tax credits. Most tax credits phase out very quickly, so that most of the middle class can't take them. That means they have to pay for services (like health insurance, food, rent that other's get breaks on.)
Long story short, this is not about being stingy with the "less fortunate", it is about pulling your own weight and contributing to society. Most people who are poor (i.e. most are able-bodied and of decent intelligence) have made choices in the past which have made them poor, and they refuse to change their lifestyle in the present to increase the likelyhood that they will succeed.
When you live in a society as fluid and dynamic as the United States, being poor is usually a choice. Its sound's funny, but it's true. If you can get cable, nintendo, good clothes, medical insurance and stuff yourself to the gills with food, your far better off than most people in the world, especially from a historical point of view. There are no poor people in the United States.
This sounds more like a conspiracy against the Belgians'
What percentage of Slashdot readers understand Belgian? 2%?
Honestly, I hate it when there are links to Heise, because I don't speak German, but there are at least a lot of German speakers online. Belgian speakers? Is Belgian even a language? I thought they spoke Dutch/French there?
Can we please try to at least provide English translations, for the 95% of the net that speaks English? No, the fish is not good enough; you can understand the gist most times, but never the details.
BTW, maintaining Debian stable is extremely easy. If those folks get the system pre-installed, Debian is less likely to be broken during use than Windows.
Alec
Secondly, no economically savy republican would believe that increasing prison populations would be good for the economy, for the following reasons:
Prisons are expensive. It costs more for U.S. taxpayers to send a prisoner to Prison than it does to send a student to an ivy league college.
"enslaved" workforces are not economically efficient, because it is the "army game" in another context. The sergeant, in this case the prison guard (who is hardly motivated to make the contractor money) tries to get the private, i.e. the prisoner to work as hard as possible, while the private tries to get away with as little work as possible. An economy based on slavery always loses to an economy based on workers who trade their efforts for pay because they are better motivated because they have the opportunity for both advancement and better pay.
Prison run businesses are partnerships with the state. The state might be a good customer, but it is an inefficient business partner, and organizations which are partly state run are less efficient and flexible than purely private sector organizations.
welfare has been carved back to workfare in most states, (thank God), so the goal is to turn welfare recipients into productive taxpayers anyways. These programs have met with considerable success across the country, and are probably the most siginificant policy change of the entire 90's decade.
Besides, it struck me as funny since the French make such a big deal over translating technical jargon of an English origin into native terms, (which one's aren't?), and I have heard that they are lagging far behind the ever growing tidal wave of buzzwords.
First off, who gets a free government computer?
I take it that if you already have one you don't get a second. Second, does this computer belong to whomever it was given to, as a "gift"? Does the government have the right to take it back, will the users be alowed to change anything, format, upgrade?
Carpe meam simiam!
That computer was called the Minitel. The Minitel was a small folding desktop/network computer that you could easily plug into your phone jack. Its screen shot did look a lot like Prodigy, although I never had seen Prodigy at the time.
I did use it occasionally as a phone book when I went to the post office, and in that respect, the Minitel was and still is the most comprehensive and easiest phone book I have ever used. The upfront cost to a household for a Minitel was nil (although that may have changed since then). The cost of the phone book service was also free, but for everything else, you had to pay for it by the minute, and my mother assured me that those connection rates were exorbitant. From it you could get text-based porn, you could browse and interact with the sites of your favorite television shows, and you could directly book your travel arrangements.
The French government also had an initiative to put a computer in front of every student, but that took some time. By the time I left France, around fourteen years ago, kids of all ages had had at least one year of some sort of classroom introduction to the use of computers. Later on, they introduced a programming curriculum in Logo and Pascal, they gave away graphic calculators to the kids who couldn't afford them, and they eventually allowed those graphic calculators into the official high school exams.
Seven years ago, the last time I went back to my French home town, the French Minitel technology was way behind the US internet technology, (the only feature added seemed to be email, but it wasn't even integrated within the machine, you had to go through and pay for a special gateway to use it). The Minitel connection rates were still exorbitant and the internet market had not developed since the local telephone charges were prohibitive. According to my former teachers, the computer educational initiatives were utter failures, it made the kids dumber if anything, even one of my former communist teacher admitted as much.
Stephan
For those for whom money *is* the barrier to computer literacy, I would certainly support a program that allowed you to *earn* a free computer by taking, and passing, some basic, free classes on how to use the computer (for something other than games.) I would let you take that class as many times as necessary for you to pass, including private tutors if you are really trying but couldn't figure it out. You wouldn't be able to keep earning computers, though. Limit of one per customer.
I think the majority of the "oppressed classes" would stay away in droves, though, at least in developed economies.
We have a public library here where I live, right on the border between a rather wealthy neighborhood and a poor one. It's not hard to tell the residents apart -- on average (and I'm only talking statistics, not individuals).
When you enter this library, it's immediately obvious that the people inside are overwhelmingly from the wealthy neighborhood, despite the fact that use of the library is entirely free.
You would think it would be the opposite, since the wealthy can afford to buy their own books and magazines, so it would seem that price is not the major factor.
The library also offers free adult literacy classes, which aren't well attended, except by the volunteer tutors and a few Asian recent immigrants.
I'm glad we have this resource, but people who almost all own televisions, yet express no interest in free books, are unlikely to use a free computer to leave the ranks of the Have-Nots and join the Haves.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
If these pcs are donated to those who are struggling for food and basic comforts in life, who will pay for monthly ISP fees and repair costs when the pcs get damaged (and undoubtedly they will). And I seriously doubt that these people will be ready to shell outs francs to pay for any software to make their pc worthwhile to them. True they will be able to play solitaire but do you really think thats going to better their society?
But a computer is more than an appliance, it can be extended to perform many tasks, whereas an appliance is typically designed to perform a single task. You can buy games consoles which are FOR playing games, and yes these are easy to use. You can buy word processors for typing letters and such, and you can even buy appliances for web browsing and email. Computers are really a jack of all trades, and people really should learn to get the best use from them, and use them properly. The amount of times i`ve had someone call me complaining their computer is "broken" because one of the icons has moved is enough to drive anyone mad.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
OK I'll bite :-)
/. editor with this post? I pointed out that placing an email address unobscured on the front page will invite spam and trolls.
/. has no other public method of moderation for the editors. That's beside the other stuff I post, unlike your posts which seem to most be about bashing Microsoft. I decided to read your other posts becuse this post could be a poster child for intelligent sarcasam, it's not.
:-)
/. but that is unlikely. Every other time an email address has hit the front page of /. the recipient has been buried under a torrent of abuse.
"Gee, from the tone..."
I do not believe that I abused Hemos or any other
If you take a look at my comments, you will see that I tend to give constructive criticism in the forums because
Describe a typical Linux user and I'll see if I fit the profile
"Now let's think a little.."
From your comment it would seem that you only thought a little. This makes little or no sense, this wasn't about moderation but about an editor making, what I believe to be, a mistake. but I see you slipped in some Microsoft bashing.
"Hopefully many people will..."
Hopefully there will not be much noise generated by
Lastly, I see that you do not publish your email address, why not?
Since this is in Europe, it would be fitting to use SUSE or Mandrake. In the light of the European courts checking into the MS monopoly issue, I think that the Belgians will/should look into OSS. (The French and German Legislators are looking for OSS to use in Gov networks).
AND since MS just got nixed on the $1bn proposal to "donate" Software to US schools, the monopoly issue will become more and more relevant.
I think that the Belgians, my former neighbours, since I come from Aachen(Aken in Dutch/Flemish), will come to the "RIGHT" decisions!
Where ever you go, There you are
Couldn't have said it better.
Where ever you go, There you are
You know I've seen this happen several times. I'll be working and someone will come up and say, "oh is this XP" or "Oh, you have OS X on this thing?".
Put anyone infront of Mandrake or Suse that doesent really know computers and they will be able to pick it up just as quickly.
For example I Gave a copy of Mandrake to my brother (who can't afford to buy his own computer) and I was readily able to talk him through the install on the phone (even setting up a duel boot). He knows almost nothing about computers and he decided to ditch windows and use only linux (after just a couple of months).
Those who say 'it is not ready' haven't tryed lately.
Ivop,
I agree with you, people "should" take care of each other.
That is why most religions state, often repeatedly, to help your neighbor when they're down.
Will you imprison one person for not giving a third person as much money as YOU believe is fair? Will YOU kill them if they continue to refuse, or try to defend themselves from you?
Never forget that ALL political power flows from the barrel of a gun. Once you make a law, be prepared to "enforce" it.
"Forced" charity is not charity.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Yes. There is no doubt, if you look at the rules which have been made to control how people live their lives.
More than 50% of your income goes to taxes. Income taxes from state, federal and even local governments, sales taxes, property taxes, use taxes, school taxes, consumption taxes, Social Security taxes, and the list goes on.
If you add the costs of regulation to doing business such as licensing, taxing, administrating regulations compliance, etc, the real load on your "income" is more like 75%+.
There are lots of things you are not allowed to own. This has nothing to do with hurting other people, mere posession is punishable by fine and imprisonment.
You may not engage in any trade you wish without permission. You may not buy or sell legal property without permission.
You may not travel without permission. You may not be annonymous. You can be killed by "mistake" and as long as the killers have badges, they are not punished.
If you bother to examine the platform of the 1936 Socialist Party of America, you will find that nearly all of the items on their wish list have been implemented.
Which leaves me to ask, by what criteria do you define "socialst" that the United States does NOT satisfy?
Could it be that merely by holding elections you believe it's not "socialist"? That's what the government mandated educational system tells the children.
What they forgot to mention is that even in the "socialist" countries like the USSR and China, their popularly elected deligates lost re-election at a rate far higher than the less than 10% rate for elected deligates in the United States.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Well, apart from the obvious, I'd say not really. It's still Microsoft abusing their power, no matter which country you slice it from.
"The weak are always anxious for justice and equality. The strong pay no heed to either." - Aristotle
I do find it very interesting that you can quote Ayn Rand in your sig, and still write as if "government" takes care of people.
It seems an irreconsilable contradiction.
I can suggest the essay "Government Is Evil" on LewRockwell.com as a primer for my "opinion" that you say you disagree with.
On the other hand, you may just disagree with my definition of "socialist", which is also interesting in of itself.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics