Countries Ponder: GNU/Linux vs. Microsoft

koody writes: "IDG has an overview of how many countries are getting drawn into the debate over the relative merits of using open source software rather than Microsoft Corp.'s Windows applications. Seems like many countries would be slowly moving towards the open source community, while a few still pledge allegiance to Microsoft."

Comments

high their

[trollercoaster]

ponder a beowulf cluster.

Re:high their

[Sexual Asspussy]

nice touch.

touch me again.

Re:high their

[Cryptopotamus]

Now Beowulf bode in the burg of the Scyldings,
leader beloved, and long he ruled
in fame with all folk, since his father had gone
away from the world, till awoke an heir,
haughty Healfdene, who held through life,
sage and sturdy, the Scyldings glad.
Then, one after one, there woke to him,
to the chieftain of clansmen, children four:

Heorogar, then Hrothgar, then Halga brave;
and I heard that -- was -- 's queen,
the Heathoscylfing's helpmate dear.
To Hrothgar was given such glory of war,
such honor of combat, that all his kin
obeyed him gladly till great grew his band
of youthful comrades. It came in his mind
to bid his henchmen a hall uprear,
ia master mead-house, mightier far
than ever was seen by the sons of earth,
and within it, then, to old and young
he would all allot that the Lord had sent him,
save only the land and the lives of his men.
Wide, I heard, was the work commanded,
for many a tribe this mid-earth round,
to fashion the folkstead. It fell, as he ordered,
in rapid achievement that ready it stood there,
of halls the noblest: Heorot he named it
whose message had might in many a land.
Not reckless of promise, the rings he dealt,
treasure at banquet: there towered the hall,
high, gabled wide, the hot surge waiting
of furious flame. Nor far was that day
when father and son-in-law stood in feud
for warfare and hatred that woke again.3
With envy and anger an evil spirit
endured the dole in his dark abode,

that he heard each day the din of revel
high in the hall: there harps rang out,
clear song of the singer. He sang who knew4
tales of the early time of man,
how the Almighty made the earth,
fairest fields enfolded by water,
set, triumphant, sun and moon
for a light to lighten the land-dwellers,
and braided bright the breast of earth
with limbs and leaves, made life for all
of mortal beings that breathe and move.
So lived the clansmen in cheer and revel
a winsome life, till one began
to fashion evils, that field of hell.
Grendel this monster grim was called,
march-riever5 mighty, in moorland living,
in fen and fastness; fief of the giants
the hapless wight a while had kept
since the Creator his exile doomed.
On kin of Cain was the killing avenged
by sovran God for slaughtered Abel.
Ill fared his feud, and far was he driven,
for the slaughter's sake, from sight of men.
Of Cain awoke all that woful breed,
Etins and elves and evil-spirits,
as well as the giants that warred with God
weary while: but their wage was paid them!

hahahaha

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck y'all, CLIT sux my ass

fp

[Anonymous Coward]

fp, motherfuckers. www.rowtow.com is the shit, son.

Denmark!

[casio282]

I knew something smelled fishy in Denmark...

Re:Denmark!

[unicron]

I fail to see how that deserved a troll rating. Oh wait, that's right, slashdotters don't read anything literature besides things that are about robots and hackers. Silly me.

Re:Denmark!

[El Prebso]

Yeah, our government sucks. Then again it's not only the government, a lot of Danish companies seems to be ignoring Linux and Unix.

Well not a problem, I always wanted to live in Germany, guess I'll have to move then :)

Re:Denmark!

[casio282]

thanks unicron...is there a 'clearly missed the reference' meta moderation? Although i'd have been more correct to say "rotten in Denmark," rather than "fishy" -- perhaps we're dealing with a purist.

or maybe that someone is towing the line that _nothing_ is rotten in denmark?

c'est la vie.

Re:Denmark!

[dcatkin]

This is no compitition, Linux wins for stability and security issues, also in the money area even if you buy an exensive vresion of Linux for your web server you still don't have to pay a license fee every time you want to use it on a different machine. So you see not only is it more stable but it will save you money.

But their are things that Microsoft will do for your home computer that Linux won't, and it's mostly software types of things, their is a lot more software for your Microsoft machine then for a Red Hat Macjine, so you need to really think about what you want the machine to do for yo.

Re:Denmark!

[Zeinfeld]

This is no compitition, Linux wins for stability and security issues,

Only if your security needs can be met by an uncertified O/S that does not support Mandatory Access Controls an an Email client that does not support Security Labels.

UNIX was not designed as a secure O/S. In fact the majority of the changes from Multics to UNIX involved removing security mechanisms that Thomson and co thought were not necessary for a smaller, lighter environment.

Government security requirements tend to be requirements for security features and for passing of exhaustive (but usually irrelevant) certification criteria. 'B2 equivalent' is not the same as 'B2 certified'.

Overall I tend to think that Jamie is overstating the case. Very few large institutions have a monolithic IT infrastructure and governments almost never. In general IT decisions are taken by the executive branch, legislative initiatives over choice of software are most likely motivated by ideology rather than reason.

The other dimension is that government spending on desktop and O/S software is typically much less than is racked up by consultants on a major IT overhaul. The UK government has been bringing Microsoft into a whole rack of projects that have been previously botched to the tune of hundreds of millions by big 5 (soon to be 4) consulting firms and the dregs of the mainframe industry.

In most cases the issue is not Linux or .NET, its keeping an obsolete system coded in COBOL or moving to something modern. Desktop software is a small part of overall enterprise spending, the big costs are racked up by ERP type systems.

To take one example, anyone who takes a flight on US Airways will notice that the check in desk assistant takes a vveeerrrrry looooonnnggg time to do the simplest tasks. This is because the SABRE booking system she is using was written thirty five years ago and is technically obsolete in every posible way. US Air don't switch even though keeping SABRE costs them hundreds of millions a year. This is partly upper management ignorance, but it is also due to an IT dept. that is only world class in smug complacency. The deeper problem though is that people who run clapped out IT systems don't know enough to build a better one. Their most likely attempt would be to go to a big 5 consulting firm and give them a lot of money to write an report which would conclude that they needed to spend a huge amount on consultants.

Re:Denmark!

[flacco]

To take one example, anyone who takes a flight on US Airways will notice that the check in desk assistant takes a vveeerrrrry looooonnnggg time to do the simplest tasks. This is because the SABRE booking system she is using was written thirty five years ago and is technically obsolete in every posible way.

Oh, I see - system performance directly correlates to the *age* of code. So code, like people, gets rickety and frail of its own accord, even if no other factors change.

That would explain why the 150k assembler code I wrote fifteen years ago must be soooo verrrry much slowwwer than the multi-megabyte ASP.NET monstrosity some guy wrote last week on the same 640K hardware. It's simply that my code has gone geriatric.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Re:Denmark!

[Grab]

The code may not be, but the *hardware* absolutely does, and correct operation of the code is linked to the hardware it runs on. Upgrading the hardware may cause all sorts of problems with the software.

For example, at my last company we had an inventory system which dated back to the early 80s. It used VT100 dumb terminals which connected to a central location running custom software. In 1995 or so they replaced the dumb terminals with proper PCs, but it was still only possible to connect using a VT100 emulator on the PC. And they couldn't improve the link, bcos the inventory system was intimately connected to the VT100 links.

The whole dumb terminal business in itself illustrates how you'd write sofware to match hardware requirements. No-one today would try and let Diablo's central server control every bit on your screen, bcos it just isn't worth it, there's a perfectly good PC sat there which can do it much easier. Just tell the PC where each object is, and offload the display stuff onto the PC. But 20 years (and longer) back, terminals had to be dumb bcos processing was so expensive, hence VT100 as a text solution and, later, X-Windows as a GUI solution.

Point is, when you write code then you will usually make assumptions about your hardware, for example, assuming that using a 32-bit counter counting clock ticks is adequate for long timeouts. It may well have been adequate on a 1MHz 8088, but when you jump to a 1GHz Pentium then you get all sorts of problems. For another example, I've got a whole bunch of Win3.11 games which aren't usable, bcos the game designers didn't think to allow for increasing processor speeds. So the moment you hit "start", the Pacman ghosts zip round the screen like greased lightning and hit you before you can press a button!

If you took the trouble 15 years back to cater for clock speeds of 100GHz, data transfer rates of 1TB/s and data block sizes of 100TB, then your code is probably still OK today and for a few years yet. If not, like most code written way back when, then it's probably gone geriatric. You may not even be able to guarantee it'll run on new machines, so you'd only be able to run it on the old 8088 sat in the corner gathering dust. If this program happens to be something which sorts files into alphabetical or time order, then you'd be better rewriting it to run fast on new hardware than forcing it to run slowly on old hardware.

Grab.

Many countries are poor

[Anonymous Coward]

And Microsoft is expensive. If they don't want to get in trouble with Microsoft (and their friends in the US Government), then really it becomes their only choice. If they have some tech-savvy people who know linux and such, it's an even easier choice. In some cases, it's cheaper to pay local people to learn the open source stuff than it is to pay Microsoft or other companies for software and support.

Even for richer countries, open source is attractive because it means the money that would've gone into software purchases can go into other projects.

Re:Many countries are poor

[Anonymous Coward]

I pity the poor organizations that actually have to pay for their software. Amazing thing is, there are a lot of individual users, who don't have to. Cost can't be the only open-source/microsoft argument as it doesn't even apply to a large amount of users.

Re:Many countries are poor

[Ma$$acre]

If you read the Peruvian letter to M$, you will understand that the reasoning behind going with Open Source has nothing to do with being free or even inexpensive. Certainly the lowered cost of the software itself brings many followers, especially in poorer countries. But the effects of assuming that free software will be any cheaper to implement (other than the licesing savings) is wrong on it's face.

The real reason's to use Open Source are manyfold, and being cheap generally draws folks in, but if a poor country were to believe that they could get the software for free and have a cheap implementation, they are in for a nice surprise.

Re:Many countries are poor

[dirvish]

The US isn't poor but it is still too stupid too consider OSS.

Re:Many countries are poor

[Anonymous Coward]

Something not yet mentioned - with open source
there's an opportunity for local programmers
to write software more suited to the needs of
the local users. Something that Microsoft is not
going to do.

Should local programmers come up with something really useful that runs under Windows, Microsoft is likely to just steal the idea (as they've done so often in the past).

Writing for Linux could mean that local
software producers will actually get to
profit from their work, rather than exporting
even more money to the US.

Irv

Re:Many countries are poor

[jontn_swift]

Not true. The US government may not be the brightest bunch, but such strongholds of bureaucratic groupthink as the US Navy, The US Air Force and NASA are already using Linux in varying capacities.

Re:Many countries are poor

[EvilAlien]

I don't think its really about saving money, its about getting work done, communicating effectively, and public relations.

Supporting the Open Source community is likely viewed more positively than funneling money into Gates' coffers, so it is quite possible that some of the decisions to go with Open Source are driven by a motive along these lines.

Another issue... I was dissappointed to notice that Canada was missing from the list. Some news coverage of the Canadian Government's weather office held some surprises: the desktop computers were running Linux or Solaris using KDE and GNOME.

Re:Many countries are poor

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the scariest part is that whole countries are pledging their allegiance to Microsoft.

Re:Many countries are poor

[Mark Pitman]

Should local programmers come up with something really useful that runs under Windows, Microsoft is likely to just steal the idea (as they've done so often in the past).

What is to stop Microsoft (or anyone else for that matter) from "stealing" and idea for software that doesn't run on Windows? Why would it matter what platform the software runs on if all they are doing is "stealing" the idea?

Re:Many countries are poor

[Yokaze]

The US isn't poor. But the Federal US Government is... kind of. Budget deficit comes to mind.
Have a look at a debt clock.

Oh, another one in Java and ticking!.

I don't consider a debt of $20.000 (pp) as very wealthy.

(What do I hear, my country's deficit is more than twice as high? Well, I'd better shut up now and consider moving to Singapore, Monaco or Norway.)

Re:Many countries are poor

[jedidiah]

If the local market is no longer runing WinDOS, the local impact of Microsoft "stealing ideas" should be considerably blunted. Microsoft being a copy-cat is only really problematic when Microsoft is acting as primary supplier and primary competitor.

Re:Many countries are poor

[Anonymous Coward]

It is ironic, is it? Poor countries are carefull to spend public money on software which belonged to its users. And all governments should be very carfull with public's money, and they should alway buy something that they call their own.

I pledge allegiance to Microsoft. . .

[Limburgher]

and its mighty state of Hysteria

and to the FUDness for which it stands

once workstation, under Bill, with bloat and BSOD for all

Re:I pledge allegiance to Microsoft. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

sheer brilliance

Re:I pledge allegiance to Microsoft. . .

[og_sh0x]

You forgot "indivisible." Windows isn't modular, remember? :)

Re:I pledge allegiance to Microsoft. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

That is supposed to be funny? Good job moderators....

Re:I pledge allegiance to Microsoft. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

this is probably by the guy who wrote the pledge of allegence parody

Re:I pledge allegiance to Microsoft. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

no dude, you don't get it. see microsoft has a lot of money, so...

oh, fuck it. why am i even gonna try to be funny? fuck this site. slashdot blows.

Re:I pledge allegiance to Microsoft. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

I pledge alegance to the OS of the United corporation of Microsoft and to the monopoly for which it stands, one browser under god indivisible with FUD and virii for all.

Story makes me a little nostalgic...

[writermike]

When Linux first debuted and the world-tide started to turn a bit anti-Microsoft, I felt very angry. I mean, who cares what operating system one uses as long as it works, right?

Well, after reading through this article, I think I am glad that the computing world really offers OS choices as it once did so many years ago. It allows people and countries that can't pay large fees to become part of the modern computing age. They'll be able to do things that, maybe, they couldn't possibly afford going with a more expensive O.S. -- especially if it were the only solution.

And really, allowing more and more people the fun and efficiency of computers is a very noteworthy goal.

Re:Story makes me a little nostalgic...

[Anonymous Coward]

When Linux first debuted, no one heard of it for a number of years. ;) Remember, Linux coding began in the EARLY early 1990s (1991?) No one in the World At Large heard of it until the mid, or more properly the LATE, 1990s... it was largely a "geek and techie" phenomenon for many years until business got wind of it.

Re:Story makes me a little nostalgic...

[Anonymous Coward]

I was listening to that jerk-off RMS on a radio show. According to him, the operating system, 'GNU' was actually being coded since the early 80's. It just so happens that the 'kernel' "Linux" didn't come along till the late nineties.

"People mistakenly call the operating system 'Linux' and think it was invented by Linus Torvalds. That's just not true."

--RMS

This Is Not A War

[Anonymous Coward]

no matter how many dirty long-haired nerd hippies think it might be.. Pledge allegiance to microsoft? I'm sorry, but how many people pray to the church of MS?

this is so stupid. People will use whatever software that best fits their needs..choosing one thing simply because of some set belief that one is superior is dumb and p0intless.

Re:This Is Not A War

[FatherOfONe]

God I wish your statement were true. But alas most decisions in corporate America have nothing to do with the best technology. They have a lot to do with back door politics. Some unfortunately even involve illegal practices.

I do agree that to compare this to a real war is a bit extreem.

Re:This Is Not A War

[Fembot]

In case you havent noticed the use of the word "war" in the context of OS wars is purely metaphorical. There are no soilders or bombs so to speak.

Re:This Is Not A War

[Anonymous Coward]

> In case you havent noticed the use of the word "war" in the context of OS wars is purely metaphorical. There are no soilders or bombs so to speak.

"Soilders" -- I like that. It describes how things are after an artillery barrage quite well.

Re:This Is Not A War

[unicron]

I agree completely. The funniest thing on this entire site is that in all honesty, probably close to 90% of these so called Linux users don't run it because of it's stability or reliability. They run it out of some pathetic attempt and self-righteousness(sp?) thinking that in their small little way they've stuck it to the man and got their blown in for the little guy. And the minute after the post their stupid little windows haikus which get modded up to 7-Most Briliant Damn Thing I've ever heard, it's right back to EQ for the script kiddies.

Kids, seriously, shut the fuck up. No one cares what you run. Mod this down all you like, I'd rather be an honest troll than a self-delusional karma whore.

Re:This Is Not A War

[Anonymous Coward]

I prey to the church of anti-P MS, does that count?

Re:This Is Not A War

[JonWan]

There are no soilders or bombs so to speak.

What about "Windows ME" and "Bob"?

Re:This Is Not A War

[NewbieV]

No, this is not a war, but it is one of those rare moments when people (goverments, businesses, etc.) seem to be shaking off a little bit of the daily momentum and inertia, and realizing that they do have a choice!

We're all creatures of habit: it's comfortable, it's easy, it's the path of least resistance. It can take a lot of time and effort to change even one individual's behavior, to say nothing of a collective group.

Businesses, especially large ones, are usually slow-moving creatures, especially when it comes to deploying IT. From their perspective, they've seen a company (Microsoft) that's been basically responsive to their needs, and making the right noises when it comes to improving their products (re: Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing)

Change, when and if it happens, usually starts slowly, and gathers momentum as it goes. Right now, there are two good reasons for looking for alternatives to Microsoft's hegemony:

1. Economy: if I can save a buck (or two, or several thousand) by choosing your product instead of someone else's, you're going to get my attention. Of course, you'll have to demonstrate that your product works as well, if not better, than your competitor's.

2. Security: the less I have to worry about hackers, viruses and all the 10,000 innocent mistakes regular people make when they use computers, the happier I'll be. Do I expect 100% perfect security? Of course not... but I'll sleep a lot easier knowing that I have less to worry about.

One thing to keep in mind, though (and this is where it might look like people 'worship at the altar of Microsoft') and that is the simple fact that people don't like change! How many of us can recount stories of users with that 'deer-in-the-headlights' look when faced with new features (a change of icons, even a different color scheme on a Windows desktop)?

From this not-so-newbie's perspective, it looks like we're in for some interesting times...

Re:This Is Not A War

[Analog Squirrel]

>no matter how many dirty long-haired nerd hippies Hey! Who are you calling dirty? I showered just this week!

Re:This Is Not A War

[kingkade]

Hehehe, amen. That was quite good :) I think most ppl on slashdot are tired of seeing trolling "news" posts about the SAME GODDAMN FU_KING THING EVERY GODDAMN FU_KING DAY. These polarized MS/Linux fanatics make my ears hurt with all the whining and complaining bout how one's better than the other. I think they just want to "belong" to something. It's defiant in a cliche and conformist sort of way :P Anyhow, I don't think MS is going anywhere but they should get their monopoly interests split-up so we could have more competition (and therefore some lower prices) for open/closed projects alike...

Re:This Is Not A War

[13013dobbs]

No shit. I shower every week, even if I don't need it. F-ing clean freaks.

Re:This Is Not A War

[Anonymous Coward]

We are the Al Quaida of Operating Systems.

We are going to unleash a dirty operating system bomb that will spread BSOD all over your government offices.

All your nerd are belong to us.

Re:This Is Not A War

[earthpig]

'choosing one thing simply because of some set belief that one is superior is dumb and p0intless.'

wait, thoes are exactly my reasons for choosing anything but microsquish

Few? Many?

[The Turd Report]

What are the numbers there? How many use Linux? How many use MS Windows? I would guess that, for now, Linux == few and MS == many. But, I would like to see real numbers.

Re:Few? Many?

[HiThere]

What are the numbers there? How many use Linux? How many use MS Windows? I would guess that, for now, Linux == few and MS == many. But, I would like to see real numbers.

I'd like to see the numbers too. My guess is the same as yours. Unfortunately, the only way to see the numbers is to make them up. Counting CheapBytes and KRUD I buy over one Linux distribution / month. (Silly, isn't it?) Guess how many I have installed?

So I've bought lots more Linux distributions than I have installed. But I've also bought more MSWin distributions than I have installed. Up until around 3 years ago I was buying one every 3-4 years. (And since then I bought one when I got a new computer. I've never agreed to the license, but I still ended up buying it. [Was I surprised! I ordered the computer with only Linux installed, and that's the way it came. But an Official Win32 CD with proof of purchase seal came with it.]) Purchases don't tell you much of anything. And web scans only pick up servers. Browsers forge headers. etc.

The only numbers that you can get are those you invent. If you don't want to, somebody will be glad to invent them for you.

Re:Few? Many?

[The Turd Report]

That is why I am wondering why Jamie said 'many'. I can only recall 3 or 4 countries who have announced going all out open source. Actually, I know why he said 'many', it is because this is a linux site. If he said 'a few' it would not have been as big of a deal. But 'many', well that could be hundreds.

Re:Few? Many?

[tomhudson]

Just a quick note: Servers can also forge headers.

All I care about is the research

[Dark Paladin]

I really don't care what government decides to waste its money on (after all, if it wasn't software, it would be gold toilet seats).

But I do care when government sponsored research into software is used by companies to make money. Last I checked, I didn't give Sun/MS/et all my tax dollars to make them richer. I want that research GPL'ed so that I know its available, that I, as a tax payer who paid for the R&D gets the benifits, and that it can be made even better by the world (and thus can help my government/business/etc).

Re:All I care about is the research

[alec314159]

I think there is a law in the US that all publicly funded software should be in public domain (no GPL). Makes sense to me.

Re:All I care about is the research

[gclef]

I don't see why government-developed code should be GPL'd. I'd rather see it BSD'd, honestly. The government should not be in the business of setting restrictions on how people distribute or license code. They should be encouraging everyone to use the code they develop. That means they should BSD license everything.

The GPL's great, don't get me wrong, but I don't think it's appropriate for government research. That research should be totally free (beer *and* speech), not copylefted.

Re:All I care about is the research

[ryanvm]

I usually use the GPL for projects that I do. That said, there is a time and a place for BSD-like licenses.

The Internet as we know it would probably not be the inexpensive and vast resource that it is today were it not for BSD licensed software (Berkley's TCP/IP stack springs to mind).

I want that research GPL'ed so that I know its available, that I, as a tax payer [...] gets the benifits, and that it can be made even better by the world (and thus can help my government/business/etc).

All of the demands that you have listed can just as easily be met by the BSD. The fact that Microsoft used Berkley's TCP/IP stack didn't make it vanish from the face of the Earth.

Like I said, I prefer to use the GPL license, but I'm not so righteous that I demand everyone else do so as well. Free software is supposed to be about MORE choice, not LESS.

Re:All I care about is the research

[Pinball Wizard]

I would like to see government funded software projects to be used by anyone, from students to universites, to corporations that create jobs and stimulate the economy. Thats what Keynesian economics is all about - you pump tax dollars into the economy, which in turn provides more jobs and a better economy for everyone.

GPL prevents the part about companies being able to benefit, thus removing any stimulus to the economy(at least in sales rather than services which aren't as profitable). Being that corporations pay taxes too, this is unfair to them. A more equitable arrangement is to have govt. funded code be available to everyone, including corps.

Therefore, the BSD or similar licences are the way to go. Its not just Sun and Microsoft that can benefit, govt. sponsored projects can help a fledgling software company have a snowballs chance in hell of competing with the giants.

Re:All I care about is the research

[IndependentVik]

Being that corporations pay taxes . . .

Hot damn! That's news to me :)

Re:All I care about is the research

[Pinball Wizard]

Well they're supposed to! ;)

Actually there is a good thing about all this resurgence in patriotism since 9/11 - we can label corps that ship jobs overseas and shirk out of paying taxes "economic terrorists".

Re:All I care about is the research

[njdj]

GPL prevents the part about companies being able to benefit,

Wrong. Companies can benefit from GPLd software by using it.

Many, many more companies are users of software than are publishers of software.

Re:All I care about is the research

[jedidiah]

No, but it did make it easy for Microsoft to take an standard and mutate it into something that interferes with software replaceability. You make it sound like companies need to get something for free before they will ever implement anything new when there's really no good reason that companies can't all just work from a well documented specification.

The LGPL quite nicely achieves this for them while remaining open to review and verification.

If you really want to "perpetuate good code" or "spread a good idea" then there is no reason you need to do it with psuedo-PD.

Also, the point of Free Software is to increase choice for EVERYONE. If you don't grok that by now, you really haven't been paying attention.

Anarchy != Freedom, no matter how often you dress it up and repeat it.

Re:All I care about is the research

[jedidiah]

The LGPL is more that capable of achieving your "Keynesian" objectives.

Is the generation of waste and artificial demand "Keynesian"?

Re:All I care about is the research

[smallpaul]

But I do care when government sponsored research into software is used by companies to make money. Last I checked, I didn't give Sun/MS/et all my tax dollars to make them richer

Heaven forbid that a corporation should benefit from tax dollars and use that money to employ people, pay dividends to pensioners and pay taxes! Better that we put intellectual property off limits to them. That makes a lot more senes.

Re:All I care about is the research

[Anonymous Coward]

Being that corporations pay taxes too, this is unfair to them.

I don't think Microsoft got the memo about paying taxes. They haven't done so for quite a while. Kinda funny that the corporation that makes such huge amounts of cash and has the largest cash reserves of any company in existence doesn't pay any taxes. Funny... or really really fucking sad. I can't decide.

Re:All I care about is the research

[singularity]

Heaven forbid that companies that pay taxes also get something out of the deal.

I think the code should be placed into the public domain with no restrictions.

If you want to take the code and integrate it into your closed-source commercial software, you should be able to.

If you want to take the code and integrate it into your GPL code, you should be able to do that, as well.

Re:All I care about is the research

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? So we pay the government so that they can give it to corporations, so that they can give it back to us? Minus a good-sized chunk apparently, otherwise BillG couldn't buy the Bahamas.

Re:All I care about is the research

[roystgnr]

No, but it did make it easy for Microsoft to take an standard and mutate it into something that interferes with software replaceability. You make it sound like companies need to get something for free before they will ever implement anything new when there's really no good reason that companies can't all just work from a well documented specification.

How did Microsoft's adoption of BSD's TCP/IP stack "interfere with software replaceability"? It meant that when Microsoft was taking months to fix the winnuke/teardrop/syndrop/etc. type holes, we couldn't fix them ourselves (short of replacing the Microsoft software entirely, of course), but if they had "just worked from a well documented specification" we would have had the same problem.

In fact, "working from a well documented specification" has had a negative effect on software replaceability in some cases; witness all the websites that were designed to work only with Netscape or only with IE because neither browser's support for even the well documented W3C standards was up to par.

Re:All I care about is the research

[Perdo]

The GPL ensures works or derivitaves STAY FREE.

BSD and Proprietary licences ensure works or derivatives BECOME or STAY UNFREE.

Using public money to create works or derivatives that become or stay unfree is ridiculous.

There is no place for BSD or any other Proprietary licencing scheme where MY MONEY is concerned.

It really pisses me off to pay for something twice. Once by taxation for the reasearch to create a resource and again for that same resource at retail.

Fucking corperate welfare. Drugs. Software. Commercial Space Launch. Alternative Energy. Agribusiness. Cheap Oil Royalties. Commercial Use highways.

Microsoft uses the BSD TCP/IP stack for free, then sells it to us. Any Taxpayer sponsored research should NEVER use a BSD style licence. If a corporation benefits from my tax dollars, They should not be able to sell the fruits of that research back to me for profit.

Re:All I care about is the research

[ocie]

I think you have the right attitude. If the code is released for all to use, it could be the basis for a commercial product and a GPL product. If the GPL product has enough users, the commercial product will have to maintain compatibility. If the company making the commercial version falls on hard times, people can switch to the GPL version.

Re:All I care about is the research

[Zeinfeld]

I would like to see government funded software projects to be used by anyone, from students to universites, to corporations that create jobs and stimulate the economy. Thats what Keynesian economics is all about - you pump tax dollars into the economy, which in turn provides more jobs and a better economy for everyone.

Err no, who told you that? Keynes's big idea was that the peaks and troughs of the business cycle could be ironed out by compensating government action. In the 1930s the world economy was in a depression due to a lack of demand (but not need). So at that time the cure for that particular problem was for the government to create demand, first by inflating the money supply and secondly if that failed by pumping money into the economy directly.

We are not in that situation at present. In fact according to strict Keynsean economics we should have been cutting back on government spending and paying down the debt.

That does not mean that there are not other reasons to adopt the policy you suggest, but you are describing the straw man put up by the monetarists rather than the ideas of the man himself.

The specific problem in the US is that because the US has historically rejected anything that could be called 'socialism' it had to perform state spending under cover of national defense. The interstate highway network was justified as national defense, as are most govt. research projects outside biology.

This is a problem now that many programs of that type have gone out of fashion in most of the West. Nobody believes in command economies any more and in any case most of the controls employed in the UK or Germany were instigated under the war recovery program. Except of course for the US where the population pay in full for their welfare state but find it supports corporations rather than citizens.

Re:All I care about is the research

[ryanvm]

This is all rather silly, since I'm a GPL proponent myself. (Don't believe me? Check the link in my sig.) However FUD is still FUD, whether it's spread by Microsoft or by GPL advocates.

BSD and Proprietary licences ensure works or derivatives BECOME or STAY UNFREE.

Wrong. Derivatives of BSD may or may not be free, but the original works will always be free. You might not gain from someone else's development, but you never lose anything.

Using public money to create works or derivatives that become or stay unfree is ridiculous. [..] It really pisses me off to pay for something twice. Once by taxation for the reasearch to create a resource and again for that same resource at retail.

When your tax dollars are spent developing software that's licensed under the BSD, you will always be able to use it for free. You contend that because 1% of a commercial software product contains government-produced source code, the entire package must be free. I'm sorry, but THAT is ridiculous.

Microsoft uses the BSD TCP/IP stack for free, then sells it to us.

You aren't paying for the TCP/IP stack - you're paying for everything else added in. If all you wanted was Berkeley's TCP/IP stack you could have gotten it for free yourself - BECAUSE IT WILL ALWAYS BE FREE.

I release my projects under the GPL because I choose to. And that is how it should be - a matter of choice. This blind, raving, zealotry that so many GPL advocates seem to posess is something we could all do without.

Re:All I care about is the research

[Phronesis]

Once by taxation for the reasearch to create a resource and again for that same resource at retail

Sorry, but the government elected by your fellow citizens believes differently. The Bayh-Dole act, which has been law for many years now, actively encourages those receiving government research grants (universities as well as corporations) to patent, copyright, and profit from the fruits of their research.

In the past few years, the New York Times has done a good job or reporting on the number of drugs developed in university labs with government money that have gone on to become billion-dollar products protected by patents and enriching both private pharma companies, the endowment of the universities that discovered them, and the professors in whose labs they were discovered (grad students and postdocs have generally not shared in the windfalls).

I really don't understand all the whingeing about software, when the problems with intellectual property go so much deeper! The question of GPL vs. BSD may be really exciting to people living in the west, but even Bill Gates understands that the role of non-computer-related intellectual property relating to poverty in sub-Saharan Africa dwarfs anything having to do with computers.

Re:All I care about is the research

[Perdo]

Remove the BSD TCP/IP stack from Windows. How usable is Windows afterwards? Tell me again how Microsoft receives only 1% benefit from the BSD TCP/IP stack. Without the BSD TCP/IP stack, Windows is no better than a typewriter.

Let's hypothesize further:

The US government develops a new communication protocol stack. This New Protocol (NP) has some great features: Complete point to point encryption. Tight integration of video, voice and data. Cache based compression allowing small key bits to trigger the replay of locally cached data sets. The protocol stack is released under the BSD license.

Microsoft embraces NP and renames it MSN/NP. Microsoft substitutes a modified version of the encryption and their own proprietary cached data set. Microsoft owns 95% of the desktop space. Microsoft leverages the popularity of MSN/NP content into control of most of the server market. AOL must license the technology or risk loosing all their customers. Macromedia ceases to exist. Apple turns over 90% of their profits to Microsoft just to keep Microsoft from abandoning the Mac platform. etc...

MEANING: The BSD license can be embraced and extended. We receive no benefit for our tax dollars with a BSD license.

The GPL is a poison pill, but only for companies trying to control a monopoly share of a market. The GPL, applied to software produced at taxpayer expense, insures companies can use the software without giving them the ability to exploit the software, as the BSD license allows.

I am not a GPL zealot. I am a taxation zealot. This is MY MONEY we're talking about.

Don't like the GPL's viral nature? Then write your own damn software.

Re:All I care about is the research

[Rogerborg]

• I didn't give Sun/MS/et all my tax dollars to make them richer. I want that research GPL'ed so that I know its available, that I, as a tax payer who paid for the R&D gets the benifits,

Do you normally get copies of the proprietary binaries that government departments use? No, you don't. So why exactly would you expect to be able to get the source to any GPL replacements that they end up using?

Oh, I understand the licensing, and that if they were using (completely) free open source versions, they could choose to give you the source. But why would they? Because you ask nicely? Bwah hahahaha!

Or perhaps you think that they will proactively feed back any modifications that they make to the originator and you'll get the benefit that way? Dream on. Most government departments that I've dealt with wouldn't lift a finger to do that without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public enquiry, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters. No, they'll make their mods and sit on them. They won't (if I guess correctly) even share the source to their mods them with rival departments in their own government.

I think we all need to take a cluecheck and stop fooling ourselves that We, the People will see any direct personal benefit from governments using open source (GPL or otherwise). The benefit will be more efficient and cheaper systems, and a possible financial boost for open source vendors. That's it. It won't result in a magical blossoming of open government.

Re:All I care about is the research

[dylan_-]

Heaven forbid that a corporation should benefit from tax dollars and use that money to....pay taxes!

Wow! You must be an economist!

Re:All I care about is the research

[ryanvm]

MEANING: The BSD license can be embraced and extended. We receive no benefit for our tax dollars with a BSD license. [..] I am not a GPL zealot. I am a taxation zealot. This is MY MONEY we're talking about.

Okay, say MIT uses government funding to develop software and releases it under the BSD license. You are then free to use what "YOUR MONEY" paid for. How do you arrive at the conclusion that you received no benefit? You have full access to everything that was created with tax funding.

What you don't like is that AT&T may come along and utilize the software that they paid for (remember - corporations pay taxes too) without making everything it touches free as well.

I think you weaken your position when you claim to be a taxation zealot. The point of the GPL is to ensure that good software is improved upon. It's a sound philosophic concept and that's why I use it. It was not designed to be used as a weapon against monopolistic practices or to allow cheapskates to never have to pay for software again.

Re:All I care about is the research

[mpe]

GPL prevents the part about companies being able to benefit,

The vast majority of companies arn't in the business of selling software. For the majority of companies open source is a verg good deal. It means no expensive to administer per seat/user/machine licencing and that they can get the same competition between their suppliers with software as they can with everything else.
There may be issues for companies in the business of selling proprietary software. But they are a tiny minority, so the majority should not have to put up with furthering their busines model.

Re:All I care about is the research

[DA-MAN]

> Let's hypothesize further:

> The US government develops a new communication protocol stack. This New Protocol (NP) has some great features: Complete point to point encryption. Tight integration of video, voice and data. Cache based compression allowing small key bits to trigger the replay of locally cached data sets. The protocol stack is released under the BSD license.

> Microsoft embraces NP and renames it MSN/NP. Microsoft substitutes a modified version of the encryption and their own proprietary cached data set. Microsoft owns 95% of the desktop space. Microsoft leverages the popularity of MSN/NP content into control of most of the server market. AOL must license the technology or risk loosing all their customers. Macromedia ceases to exist. Apple turns over 90% of their profits to Microsoft just to keep Microsoft from abandoning the Mac platform. etc...

Ok, there is some seriously flawed logic in your hypothesis. It is much easier to keep things compatible if you start with the same source. For example the -ac branch is compatible with the main branch of the Linux kernel.

Easier may not guarantee the result that we want but let me explain my point a little further. It's easier for Microsoft to say that they weren't able to use any of the original source code because of the GPL and come up with a completely incompatible version than had the code been licensed under the BSD license. At least under the BSD license, they would have something to gain by keeping it as original as possible, and that is free future development. Even then, that still may not be enough to keep Microsoft from closing it, look at how they raped Kerberos. If Microsoft chooses to close a protocol, they can, it's just that simple. And at the moment, there is no way to stop them. Pressure them maybe, but not stop.

Another flaw with your logic, at least in regards to AOL is their use of proprietary only extensions. Come on now, have you ever checked your Networking control panel in Windows, they install an AOL Dialup Adapter. There is no reason they can't bind their Adapter to an already installed protocol like the MS/NP, it already binds to the TCP/IP protocol. Get what I'm saying, they have thought of these things in advanced and will probably not get caught off guard.

Regardless, this networking scenario is quite impossible in that it would require a major overhaul of the backbone routers. I highly doubt Cisco and others would rather use the MS/NP version, over the Gubmints version anyways. Even then, everyone would still have to choose to implement MS/NP over Gubmint/NP. They may own the Desktop, but they don't own the network, so they are subject to the network itself. They may dictate what wallpaper you start with, but they aren't currently able to dictate what networking protocols you use.

Re:All I care about is the research

[Perdo]

"Philip Stern calculated that AT&T's $I.4 million in campaign contributions saved it $I2 billion in taxes -a fabulous rate of return."

Interesting that you would mention AT&T... A company that is consistently in the top ten for corporate tax avoidance. My example, Microsoft, Pays absolutely no taxes at all... and graicously waived the 1.2 billion dollar refund "owed" to them by the federal government.

The problem is, they do not pay: Your point is moot.

Re:All I care about is the research

[ryanvm]

Utterly irrelevant.

As long as DUBYA and his RIGHT WING WACKOS

[Left Wing Troll]

are in control, Microsoft will always own the market, and OSS will never get anywhere. The right wing believes in BIG CORPORATIONS who can also pay BIG BUCKS to BIG CAMPAIGNS that end with the BIG SUPREME COURT deciding the BIG ELECTION.

Re:As long as DUBYA and his RIGHT WING WACKOS

[Anonymous Coward]

I make fun of you post.

Hee hee! Much fun!

Re:As long as DUBYA and his RIGHT WING WACKOS

[Anonymous Coward]

People all over the world... join hands... start a man-train, man-train!

Re:As long as DUBYA and his RIGHT WING WACKOS

[FatherOfONe]

Don't hold back. Tell us what you really think Mr. Gore...

In all seriousness it is true that the Republicans do favor business more than the Democrats. But that does NOT mean that they don't like open source software. How Bush decided to influence the Microsoft case has nothing to do with his opinion on Open Source Software. Nor is the inverse true, Democrates don't all use Open Source Software...

Now if you believe that any political party doesn't listen strongly to their big political backers then you are a fool. Every party does! The Republicans are no different with this issue.

As far as BIG CAMPAIGNS... anyone who runs for President is going to have a huge campaign.

As far as the SUPREME COURT... they really didn't decide the election, Gore just took their decision and gave up. The outcome would have been the same no matter which way the decision came down. It just would have taken longer.

Re:As long as DUBYA and his RIGHT WING WACKOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Read "Stupid White Men" by Michael Moore. Then Check his refrences to be sure he is actually telling the truth. I think youll find you may be somewhat incorrect with reguards to the Supreme Court decision.

O'well - spilt milk and all that.. but this is scary stuff.

Re:As long as DUBYA and his RIGHT WING WACKOS

[Anonymous Coward]

you are an idiot. go home and play with your guns.

Re:As long as DUBYA and his RIGHT WING WACKOS

[iggie]

In all seriousness it is true that the Republicans do favor business more than the Democrats

This statement always bothered me. A truer statement is that Republicans tend to favor certain big businesses over others. Considering that these businesses have competitors (even MS), favoring certain businesses over others is in fact being hostile to business in general.

Re:As long as DUBYA and his RIGHT WING WACKOS

[sparkz]

The Resident Shrub doesn't have opinions, he only has reactions.

Can anyone find me a quote of GWB so much as mentioning the Middle East before Sep 11th, besides defending ignoring the Kyoto (sp?) Agreement?

They should pick something and go with it

[User 956]

They should pick an OS and go with it, preferably what's best for the person that has to use it every day, regardless of cost (or in some cases, taking total end cost into consideration) I'm all for standards. Standards solve issues ranging from product compatibility to addressing consumer safety and health concerns. Standards also simplify product development and reduce non-value-adding costs thereby increasing a user's ability to compare competing products. They also are fundamental building blocks for international trade. Only through the use of standards can the requirements of interconnectivity and interoperability be assured and the credibility of new products and new markets verified enabling the rapid implementation of technology. It's too bad so many of you bearded linux hippies insist on doing things your own kludged-together way.

Re:They should pick something and go with it

[DunbarTheInept]

Standards also simplify product development and reduce non-value-adding costs thereby increasing a user's ability to compare competing products.

But apparently you only care about that goal when the product in question is an application on top of the OS. You don't seem to want it when the product in question is the OS itself.

Re:They should pick something and go with it

[hdparm]

So, what do you think - what standards should we adhere to?

Judging by the the tone of your post, you're all for 'standards' implemented by Microsoft, which nobody in their right mind can consider standards. Applications and OS are based on the most closed source in the world that makes development simplification hardly possible and then again, only for apps. What about the OS? Should we all use Windows for all of our needs? Where is competition there?

It's too bad so many of you bearded linux hippies insist on doing things your own kludged-together way.

Beards, long hair, whatever... do not have to do anything with this. Intellect and integrity do and the lack of them was the way MS has succeded in implementing the only standard there is in MS world - FUD-spreading-scared-trolls.

Re:They should pick something and go with it

[Anonymous Coward]

you don't get it. OSS is about standards...OPEN STANDARDS. OPEN STANDARDS that will be available for all to use no matter what software they're using. Open standards also provide permanance of data...so you're not forced to upgrade your M$ Office just because Bill needed a new jet..

That Perviuan dude has it down.....his three principles were rock solid, and many have missed the point...

1) Free access to public information by the citizen.
2) Permanence of public data.
3) Security of the State and citizens.

Re:They should pick something and go with it

[Anonymous Coward]

standards are also nice for meals, clothing, cars(suvs r0x0r and alfa romeos suxxxx0r, eh), fashion, housing, music(arts in general)..... you get it? (i know it's a troll.... A BIG BAD OGRE)

Re:They should pick something and go with it

[Anonymous Coward]

Standard protocols? Yes!
Standard data and file formats? Yes, please!
Standard network APIs? Definiately

Standard vendor of OS/APPS? No.

Its the difference between saying "To make it so that everyone can drive on the same roads, all cards need to be xx wide and no longer than xxx, and no higher than xx" , and saying "You can only use cars made by Ford on this road"

In that light, you can see the latter is ridiculous. Its just as ridiculous to say "To communicate here, you can only use software made by Microsoft"

It is entirely another thing to enfore standards, saying "your software must speak the protocol xxx, or save files in format xxx (which is clearly and fully documented at http://... or in public document archive xxx, or you can receive the documentation on request), that way, ANY programmer can write the software, and can compete fairly.

Re:They should pick something and go with it

[Anonymous Coward]

They should pick an OS and go with it, preferably what's best for the person that has to use it every day, regardless of cost (or in some cases, taking total end cost into consideration)

In SOME cases they should take total end cost into consideration? Are you nuts? Do you work in government? "Oh, this package was marginally better so we spent the extra 50 billion"?

Cost always has to be taken into account, if only to establish that in the particular instance the cost difference isn't a major issue.

Re:They should pick something and go with it

[flacco]

No offence, but you're not very smart, are you?

I found myself lapsing into a "Rain-Man" accent reading your post.

"They should pick an OS and go for it, definitely pick an OS, definitely. Yeah, I'm all for standards. Microsoft standards. Yeah. Wapner in five minutes."

First nigger

[First Nigger]

Strate up dogs, I be the first nigger to reply to this here thread up in this bitch!! Course, I ain't got much compitition but that be okey by me! Peace!

Iraq

[Bouncings]

I think we should definitly lift the trade embargo on Iraq, but only for Microsoft products. ;-) For obvious reasons. Just put something about billions of barrels of oil in the EULA.

Re:Iraq

[Boulder Geek]

You've got that backwards: let them buy all of the MSFT products they want. The impact on productivity will topple Saddam in no time ;-).

Re:Iraq

[DunbarTheInept]

You got it backward. "Lift the trade embargo..., but only for foo" *means* allowing trade for foo.

Re:Iraq

[misfit13b]

yeah great, so now billg will have a stronghold on software AND oil. ;^)

Re:Iraq

[snake_dad]

Noooo... don't send him top of the line mine-sweeping training equipment :)

No mention of the US?

[diatonic]

I thought it was a little odd that there is no mention of the status of Linux/Microsoft in the US. I would be interested to see what is being done with Linux at a federal level here in the US.

.:diatonic:.

Re:No mention of the US?

[PepsiProgrammer]

I hear the carnivore stuff runs linux, the FBI says they dont trust microsoft for secure operations, also most governmetn websites seem to be running on linux/unix servers, go search around netcraft.com

Re:No mention of the US?

[Moridineas]

We know a good bit--we know that the NSA develops there own version of linux. We also know that DARPA gives funding to FreeBSD for the same sort of thing--secure computing. These are just two examples I can think of off the top of my head--I'm sure there are plenty more.

Re:No mention of the US?

[ScumBiker]

I can't comment about the federal level, I work in state government. In my department, we're looking into moving our Oracle 9iAS implementation from Win2k to Linux, but that's pretty much it.

I was on the architecture committee and did everything I could to advocate Linux on the desktop. I was told by the desktop services section chief that Linux "just isn't ready" for the desktop. This was of course before the release of StarOffice 6, with it's greatly improved Office compatability. So, I've got to wait at least another year before I can attempt it again.

Sigh...

Re:No mention of the US?

[LinuxHam]

the carnivore stuff runs linux

Boy you got some free karma, because it doesn't. It runs on Win2k. If you don't mind having an FBI file, you should really spend time at this site to learn more about Carnivore.

Tax dollars should not buy Microsoft products

[restive]

Microsoft probably loves the idea, but I cringe at the statement about "taxpayer dollars".

If an Open Source option is available, tax money would be better spent using/improving those products, that benefit all, instead of a single organization declared to be a monopoly by the U.S. DOJ.

Re:Tax dollars should not buy Microsoft products

[baldass_newbie]

...instead of a single organization declared to be a monopoly by the U.S. DOJ.

Just wondering, but does the DOJ have a Monopoly on declaring who is a Monopoly?

Re:Tax dollars should not buy Microsoft products

[PepsiProgrammer]

Amen, im ready for a candidate who strongly says:

"No more proprietary software!"

Unfortunately, theyd probably end up eating those words later to

Re:Tax dollars should not buy Microsoft products

[YrWrstNtmr]

Nor should tax dollars be spent on Bic pens, or Bostitch staplers, or Lockheed jets, or any other product built by an evil moneygrubbing company!
Please...

Like it or not, years ago M$ was the logical choice for software. And, like it or not, M$ has advanced, through a common user interface, the state of desktop computing.

Now...that situation may be changing, with the advent of new open source tools and applications that actually work and can be used by the average office worker. BUT, an entity the size of (name your fave countries government) cannot change overnight.
Give it time.

Re:Tax dollars should not buy Microsoft products

[Anonymous Coward]

Just wondering, but does the DOJ have a Monopoly on declaring who is a Monopoly?

Only the DOJ can answer that.

Re:Tax dollars should not buy Microsoft products

[ChaosDiscordSimple]

Nor should tax dollars be spent on Bic pens, or Bostitch staplers, or Lockheed jets, or any other product built by an evil moneygrubbing company!

That's not a fair generalization. The government can easily switch to another brand of pen, stapler, or jet without worrying interoperatibility with a existing supplies of paper or the existing air traffic control system. There aren't alot of security issues for a government office using a monoculture of Bic and Bostitch. The government is free to disassemble any pens, staplers, or jets they buy to search it for spying devices, attempt to repair problems, hire a third party to hire problems, or customize the products for their use. There isn't alot of risk of a license audit coming from Bic, Bostitch, or Lockheed.

Re:Tax dollars should not buy Microsoft products

[IndependentVik]

Nor should tax dollars be spent on Bic pens, or Bostitch staplers, or Lockheed jets, or any other product built by an evil moneygrubbing company!

I think you've missed the point made by the parent post. Last time I checked neither Bic, Bostitch, nor Lockheed were declared guilty of illegal business practices by our own Justice Department.

Re:Tax dollars should not buy Microsoft products

[Anonymous Coward]

A Monopoly is any company that controls 80% marketshare in their market sector. It is not illegal to be a monopoly in the US, but it is illegal to abuse your monopoly position to lock out competetion in your market sector.

Re:Tax dollars should not buy Microsoft products

[1010011010]

If Bic pens worked only with Bic paper, and Bistich Staplers only worked with Bostich paper, then you'd have an argument. As it is, you don't. No one has a lock on the pen-and-stapler market, and all pens and staplers are interoperable, interchangable, nearly even fungible.

The U.S. government doesn't buy only Lockheed jets. They buy them from a number of companies, and even the British. It's in the government's (and national security) interest to have multiple providers for things.

Re:Tax dollars should not buy Microsoft products

[Anonymous Coward]

And, like it or not, M$ has advanced, through a common user interface, the state of desktop computing.

Now that's just silly. But I think you really mean it, and are not trolling. So how do you figure that?

Re:Tax dollars should not buy Microsoft products

[Anonymous Coward]

Nor should tax dollars be spent on Bic pens, or Bostitch staplers, or Lockheed jets, or any other product built by an evil moneygrubbing company!

The thing is, using any of the above products doesn't lock you into using it ad infinitum. If you "standardize" on Windows and Office, there's really not much you can do to become Microsoft-free with today's available tools. If MS changed this and made their stuff interoperable then maybe your argument would hold some water.

Re:Tax dollars should not buy Microsoft products

[YrWrstNtmr]

And, like it or not, M$ has advanced, through a common user interface, the state of desktop computing.
Now that's just silly. But I think you really mean it, and are not trolling. So how do you figure that?

The FILE menu, and the Min/Max/Close buttons. Everything else derives from those. They provide a common location for common operations, across applications. Graphics, Office, CAD, file operations...all have similar ways to do similar tasks. This allows the general user to adapt quickly to a new tool. CLOSE is always in the same place. PRINT, EXIT, NEW, etc..etc.
Think back a couple years ago with the state of open source (LINUX based) desktop tools. Some good, some not so good. But none really had anything in common, as far as the GUI, with the other. Learning and using a new tool took far longer. It is getting much better, but still a larger learning curve for multiple apps than a set of Windows apps.

Through the common Windows API's, the developer did not have to reinvent the wheel each time to do the simple, basic things.

Is there a 'better' way to display the GUI to the user? Maybe. Probably. But a few years ago, there wasn't anything in general production, that would have been acceptable to the government and large corporations. So by default, Windows was it. And the standard interface allowed users to advance their skills MUCH faster than if they had to learn a new set of commands for each application. ANd allowed the developer to dispense with dealing with such mundane tasks as writing print drivers for each and every possible printer.

This is not new information.

Re:Tax dollars should not buy Microsoft products

[quantaman]

Yeah, but what if everyone started using Bic sharpies? People would be able use copy-protected CDs in their computers and start rampantly copying them. Terrorists would then take profits from the sale of sharpies and blank CDs and start attacks and we'd have the downfall of the free world and all because you wanted your monoculture of Bic sharpies!
DAMM YOU!!!

Re:Tax dollars should not buy Microsoft products

[morie]

hire a third party to hire problems

Let's not hire any problems. We've got enough of them already...

Re:Tax dollars should not buy Microsoft products

[TheAJofOZ]

The FILE menu, and the Min/Max/Close buttons. Everything else derives from those. They provide a common location for common operations, across applications.

You do realise that's almost a direct quote from the Apple Human Interface Guidelines right? That's not something MS did, that's something Apple did, and continues to do much better than MS. With this in mind the rest of your article falls over as well.

Re:Tax dollars should not buy Microsoft products

[Anonymous Coward]

And you can't distribute a bic to every desk in the company that has a computer at almost zero cost and the click of a button

Re:Tax dollars should not buy Microsoft products

[YrWrstNtmr]

It does not matter who did it first. M$, Apple, Xerox/PARC, whoever. M$, for better or worse, made it popular on the desktop. Same with Beta/VHS. First and better did not make it 'popular'.

Now what were we talking about before?

Re:Tax dollars should not buy Microsoft products

[TheAJofOZ]

M$, for better or worse, made it popular on the desktop.

Erm, again, no they didn't. It was extremely popular when Apple produced it. MS jumped on the band wagon in order to keep up with consumer demand. Same with USB, wireless networking, video editing, the internet etc, etc. Biggest does not mean industry leader.

Mozilla 1.0 Turns the Tide

[Titusdot Groan]

As much as I despise Microsoft I have been unwilling to recommend anything other than Windows or MacOS to my friends and family.

I honestly feel that I may be able to recommend open source software to non-geeks in the near future. I'm using OpenOffice and Mozilla and both are holding up well -- indeed OpenOffice is less annoying than MSOffice 2000.

I think if UnitedLinux and Red Hat can just make that final turn into providing MacOSX like reliability then I will start recommending Linux and Macs and tell everybody to avoid Windows like the plague it is.

Sooooooo close ...

Re:Mozilla 1.0 Turns the Tide

[Anonymous Coward]

MacOSX reliability???

i would say MacOSX usability

linux and open office are already reliable. just not always the easiest to use

Re:Mozilla 1.0 Turns the Tide

[Anonymous Coward]

MacOSX reliability? You are an idiot if you think any Mac is more reliable than a proper Linux. You should not be recommending anything to anyone in my estimation.

Re:Mozilla 1.0 Turns the Tide

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is, you use Office 2000. Word 2.0 is the word processor of kings.

Re:Mozilla 1.0 Turns the Tide

[Titusdot Groan]

No, I meant reliability.

Reliability is not just "uptime". I installed Red Hat 7.2 at home for my kids to use as a surfing box -- I moved it to a different subnet and used the funky config tool to change the networking.

Hosed.

Had to "find | xargs grep" for the old ip address and finally found another config file buried in a system folder that only got set on install and not reset by the networking tools.

That's not reliable. If my brother had to change ISP's and was using Linux I'd have had to drive to his house to fix it.

Both our Mac X boxes have been configured, reconfigured and swapped between subnets without any problems.

Re:Mozilla 1.0 Turns the Tide

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me get this straight. You don't know what the fuck you're doing, so you use a crap config tool; you're trying this with an old version of a less than average distro, you're doing it for the wrong reasons and it goes wrong? nooooo slap me like a bitch and call me susan.
Then you try the most back-asswards way to fix it, because again you don't know what you're doing, and from all this you conclude linux sucks? Forgive me while I finish laughing and mop up my tears.

Re:Mozilla 1.0 Turns the Tide

[Anonymous Coward]

Until Linux users like this guy disappear (rude and arrogant unless you are using vi for everything!) Linux will never succeed in the home or business environment.

Parent poster's comment was valid! Why the heck can't he just open a GUI window and select a new ip address? Don't tell me a god-gifted Linux programmers can't open a GUI interface and read and write the ascii text files on the hard drive?

Linux is great, it provides power to do everything from the config files. Linux also sucks because I can't just tell my mom to click here and there and then type in her IP address....

Linux sucks more because jerk off here thinks everyone is a moron that uses a "tool" to do the job. I expect he uses his fist to pound in nails instead of using a crappy tool like a hammer

:)

Re:Mozilla 1.0 Turns the Tide

[Anonymous Coward]

The workstation my wife uses at home runs linux. She uses pine for her email, and Mozilla for browsing. And she is NOT terribly computer savvy.

I dont make recomendations to friends or other family members. I usually just point out tht, while Windows sucks, since MS is a monopoly, they dont really have much of a choice. I do let them know I dont use Windows, and if they were ever terribly interested Id be happy to help them try Linux.

Other than that I just leave it alone and wait.

Re:Mozilla 1.0 Turns the Tide

[Titusdot Groan]

No you turkey, from all of this I conclude it's not ready for use by my sister or my mom.

Hmmmmm, but I understand your confusion. Let's see if I can get this into a frame of reference you can understand:

You Linux guys suck -- none of you are as smart or have dicks as big as us FreeBSD guys.

How was that? Sigh. The other reason I can't in good faith recommend Linux to people is because then they'd have to deal with dickheads like you every time they had a problem.

Re:Mozilla 1.0 Turns the Tide

[daddymac]

Had to "find | xargs grep" for the old ip address and finally found another config file buried in a system folder that only got set on install and not reset by the networking tools.

RedHat *is* reliable. I can rely on the fact that my network settings for my primary ehternet interface are in:

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

What "funky config tool" did you use? Most people I know have alot of luck with vi.

Re:Mozilla 1.0 Turns the Tide

[Titusdot Groan]

Again my kids, neighbours and my mom are not going to have a lot of luck with vi and/or configuration scripts.

Your definition of reliable includes the cavet "if administered by a Linux geek who knows that the tools included are broken and just uses vi".

For the purposes of this discussion, recommendations to naive users, needing to have a Linux guy around for maintenance means it's unreliable.

Re:Mozilla 1.0 Turns the Tide

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking back earlier in the thread you are arguing that you're talking about reliability. You are still talking about usability here, not reliability. Reliability is independent of the knowledge that the user has.

Re:Mozilla 1.0 Turns the Tide

[Simon Garlick]

And this, people, is why Linux is not making any headway in the "consumer" end of the market.

From a comment from a user that he'd rather recommend Windows or MacOS to friends and family, to an insinuation that he'd be better off if he just edited text config files remotely using vi, in only 2 steps.

Re:Mozilla 1.0 Turns the Tide

[Tony-A]

Good point about reliability.
I think there's a distinction between userland reliability and hackerland reliability. Userland reliability really requires that all of the config tools work correctly all of the time. Userland reliability requires that things like browsers and mail and office software "just work". Not easy, but it's getting close.

Options.

[saintlupus]

the relative merits of using open source software rather than Microsoft Corp.'s Windows applications

Uh, there are more than two options in the world of operating systems. I'm assuming that everyone here has heard of small companies like Apple and Sun, who seem pretty effective at marketing their own OSes.

(Yeah, I know, they both fund some open source efforts too. But this whole "everything is either Microsoft or free-as-in-lint" dichotomy is too simple for anyone but retarded schoolchildren.)

--saint

Re:Options.

[Throatwarbler Mangro]

(Yeah, I know, they both fund some open source efforts too. But this whole "everything is either Microsoft or free-as-in-lint" dichotomy is too simple for anyone but retarded schoolchildren.)

In the context of the article, I think it's rather more of a Closed Source vs. Open Source debate. When we're talking about using taxpayer money, there's a very real question of what sort of Return On Investment that we as taxpayers receive.

When using Microsoft (or any closed source provider)products, the end result is that the software fulfills it's function and the government agency (whatever it may be) provides the service it is charged to carry out. By using an open source alternative (one that is equally as effective as it's closed-source counterpart, to be fair) the taxpayers not only receive the government service but also the code that now becomes part of the public domain. It's a Value Added purchase, and makes better sense socially and financially.

Re:Options.

[geekoid]

The cost for Both those product would be difficult to justify. You would have to replace software AND hardware.

Re:Options.

[essdodson]

Considering the topics of discussion and the way comments are addressed, its not too much of a jump to assume that most people here are infact retarded school children.

When millions were pumped into doing psychological tests in order to determine the most efficient presentation for a desktop operating system its called cute teletubbie crap. The mentality of "I don't like it and nobody else should" is exactly the mindset found on the playgrounds of elementary schools. I really think you're on to something here.

Re:Options.

[Anonymous Coward]

Curious, I could apply what you just wrote to just about anything in the US.......

Re:Options.

[Ellen Ripley]

But this whole "everything is either Microsoft or free-as-in-lint" dichotomy is too simple for anyone but retarded schoolchildren.

That's true, but only because it's not about Microsoft, it's about money. Microsoft is simply the exemplar.

Once money gets involved in software development -- or for that matter, once money gets involved in anything -- it has a hugely out-of-proportion influence on how things are run from that time forward. People who contribute money want a say in things; few contributors have the discipline needed to simply give. Products that bring money for their creators tempt those creators with material rewards; few creators have the discipline to question the motivation of each and every one of their own decisions.

Worst of all, money is perceived as power, and, as Frank Herbert said, "Power attracts the corruptible." Once there is money involved, legions of people who believe in or pretend to believe in such fictions as "business ethics" show up. Some number of them are convincing liars who will tell you how your desire to help more people can be enhanced by better marketing, or how having more money will let you do more... isn't that a *good* thing?

I don't trust Apple or Sun because they are in business. They're in business to make money. They're not ashamed of this. Hell, they're *proud* of it! They brag about it to their stockholders. Yes, stockholders. They're not small businesses where a desire for great software and freedom for everyone can have a mellowing influence on decisions. They're big corporations with marketing departments paying money for ads to create the feeling that these big corporations care about something besides getting even more money.

When you remember that Apple runner freeing all the brainwashed 1984 people, or read about Sun's "Connected Communities", remember that people with marketing degrees -- people who were trained for years in methods to distort the truth for business purposes -- created those images to make you feel a certain way about the companies that sign their paychecks.

One of many reasons I work as much as possible with free-as-in-speech software is that it's often free-as-in-beer, too. When there is money involved, it's *less* money. This minimizes the corruption that comes with money by simply having *less* money.

Or even *no* money. There are lots of people busting their asses making great software and giving it away because they believe in excellence in their work and in helping others. If you were designing a perfect world from scratch, isn't that the sort of person you'd want in charge of making things? Aren't *they* the people we should support?

Ellen

Re:Options.

[jedidiah]

Perhaps they object strongly to your notion of "efficient".

It doesn't how much your study cost if it's assumptions are fatally flawed.

Re:Options.

[albanac]

Much as I appreciate it as a breath of fresh air (in that you're expressing a nice idea, on Slashdot) you're a dialectic idealist.

~cHris

Just goes to show...

[PepsiProgrammer]

This just goes to show how monopolistic MS is, Intentionally and blatantly making it hard for governments to switch from Proprietary software. But even the US has started making some strides toward Open Source, last i checked both fbi.gov and whitehouse.gov are running linux/unix based OS's, must have gotten tired of script kiddies.

Re:Just goes to show...

[nhavar]

last I remember reading most of the machines being taken by script kiddies were Linux/Unix machines that admins had left open to attack because of bad security implementations. Being on a *nix based OS does not in anyway free you from being hacked.
Additionally what were FBI and whitehouse running prior to the last time you checked? Just because they are running *nix now doesn't mean they were running NT at some point in the past.

Re:Just goes to show...

[Anonymous Coward]

So you remember how many machines were taken by script kiddies huh? Or do you just look at website defacement mirrors and surmise that linux must be easy to hack from that? What you will find in most cases is the linux servers that get hacked tend to be hosting multiple sites and thus are counted for each one. In actual compromised servers, there are many more Windows systems that get nailed than linux. Though I do agree that most newcomers to any 'nix type OS are asking for trouble when setting up servers. Double edge sword, Linux excells for virtual hosting and is thus the usual victim of "mass hack" attacks. Windows does well to serve a handful of sites, but is more often rooted than 'nix systems.

Re:Just goes to show...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.whit ehouse.gov

Looks like the whitehouse has been using Linux for quite some time.

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.fb i. gov

Looks like the FBI made the switch from proprietary to open-source, but from Sun Solaris to Linux, staying with the proprietary Netscape server the whole time.

Admittedly, netcraft's records don't go back more than about 5 months... so maybe they did use NT some time in the past, but it would have been long enough back to not show on Netcraft's history.

germany

[matt4077]

There was a lengthy debate (took about a year) about the usage of Linux vs. Windows in the german parliament. They ended up using Linux for Servers and Win2k for Desktops, which was interpreted as a loss for microsoft by the media. Microsoft actually offered to let a government agency review the windows source code. They paid $$$ - lobbyists but didn't succeed. Actually, this has been seen as a sign for other government agencies and open source is 'in' right now. Let's see how long it lasts...

Re:germany

[Anonymous Coward]

ad 1:
I believe it was not w2k but winXp instead which they chose for the desktop (well, with proper firewalls under linux there should be reduced risk of any 'calling home' - event, but still..)

ad 2:
That contract between the ministerium of the interior and IBM (SuSE involved) actually might be the more important step as it is a frame agreement that paves the way for acquisitons of hardware, OS and services for central, federal and urban authorities. Exactly the sort of framework a lot of IT chiefs need to defend their migration plans against local administrations.
The ministerium mentions security as the #1 motivation, cost considerations may follow close. They mention the aspect of fostering the local IT infrastructure but apparently ignore the democratic aspects mr nunez of Peru so eloquently explained.
While the latter is a severe deficiency, as far as I am concerned, it might even turn out to be a pro, should the coming elections turn out bad and a bavarian (right-wing, rumored to be corrupt, close to M$) chancellor emerge.
As of now, there is some high profile committment to linux and, considering the speed public administration moves when they actually change direction, I believe there is a window of about 2 years: if M$ fails to _dramatically reduce the costs of licensing and address security concerns, they may loose the battle.
And, there are some countries in central and eastern Europe that might take Germany's development as a lead.

I wonder.

[brain-in-a-box]

Do they it 'cos they see the benefits of open source or are they just anti-USian ?
Like the "evil NSA key windows backdoor" rubbish.
I doubt they would ditch Windows if it was produced by a company of their own.

Re:I wonder.

[anshil]

> Do they it 'cos they see the benefits of open source or are they just anti-USian ?
> Like the "evil NSA key windows backdoor" rubbish.
> I doubt they would ditch Windows if it was produced by a company of their own.

And what if it would be that way?

As an european country I would find it hard to rely internal security soly on an american company. What if there is a bug, country XYZ can't do anything about it until some guy in the USA fixes it. Now what if the software would be used for something important? And what if we just would have diplomatic problems because of a embargo of product X? (maybe about cars, fuel, meat, who know what...)

It should be the same reason why we europeans or any other country can't use the GPS for anything important. (like i.e. steering the trains with it)
Here the situation is quite obvious. GPS can be turned of with a switch in the USA. Yes GPS is useable as comfortable add-on but non USA countries can never rely on it. Thats why the EU is planning to do it's own positing system, not because it's better than GPS, but we will be able to rely on it.

Same goes for software, a non USA country can not safely use unexchangeable parts like microsoft products for anything important. It's always important to have at least two possible sources for a product, if not more. And windows fills this requirement not.

Okay for the non-geeks, why does OpenSource software fill this need? You still don't have more than one source, _but_ you get all the construction plans with the software, plus the right to actually use them. As a country in time of need you are able to fix possible problems yourself.

Re:I wonder.

[Loligo]

>can't use the GPS for anything important. (like
>i.e. steering the trains with it)

You wacky Euros. Here in the US, the TRACKS tell our trains where they can and can't go.

-l

Re:I wonder.

[Anonymous Coward]

You really haven't been riding on an AMTRACK train recently, have you?
It appears to be prayers alone keeping them on the tracks, and that doesn't appear to be working all that well either!

Re:I wonder.

[Fred_A]

I doubt they would ditch Windows if it was produced by a company of their own.

You don't actually think the US government would consider using non-US software do you ?

Re:I wonder.

[Frasier]

> You wacky Euros. Here in the US, the TRACKS tell
> our trains where they can and can't go.

So you mean you poor things only have one-dimensional railways. I suppose we Europeans could sell you some more advanced train technology :)

Re:I wonder.

[Anonymous Coward]

In europe though, the trains have a choice of different tracks to run on.

Re:I wonder.

[donscarletti]

What, you yanks don't have trackless hovertrains?

That's one of the reasons why Europe is better (besides the Food Art and Culture)

Hackers (1995)

[Anonymous Coward]

Hackers (1995)

Thsi moovie si L33T!!! IT si al about hax0rs!! IT IS VARY TRUE U SHOOD WACH IT AND LEARN TO LUV IT BCUZ U MAY ONE DAY BE hAX0RED BY L33T PEEPUL LIKE TIHS!!

It si about a L33T hax0r namd DADE but he goze by teh name ZERO COOL when he si just a script kiddie but tehn later by teh name CRASH BANDICOOT or sometihng lkie that (I wuzznt paying too good attenzhun cuz my stoopid cat kipt buging me I told him to git away but he kipt bugging me so I shots him acroos teh room tehn he hissed an runned away stoopid cat). Dade si cool and vary smart he hax0rs stuff. In teh beginning he hax0rs some TV stashun becuz tehy R pl@ying crap on teh TV and he wants to watch OUTAR LIMITS (A VARY QALITY SHOW) but tehn some othar hax0r gets in his face and hez like GO AWAY I AM HAX0RING TIHS STOOPID TV STASHUN and teh othar hax0r is like NO TIHS IS MY HAX0RING PLACE U GO AWAY so tehn they fight and watch othar qality shows like LAND OF TEH LOST tehn CRASH gets thrown out of teh sistem by teh othar hax0r naed ACID BURN who turns out to be a VARY HOT CHIX0R but CRASH duzzent know tihs yet so he is like "SHOOTS I WILL GIT TAHT HAX0R!"

Tehn DAde goes to skool but I hates skool so I wont talks about taht part of teh moovie and it was not vary good anyway but he meets the VARY HOT HAX0R but duzznt know it STOOPID CRASH SHE WANTS YOU STUDMOOFIN!!

Tehn Dade meets othar hax0rs with reely cool handals like LORD NIKON (likes teh CAMERA) and CEREAL KILLER (LOOK OUT CAP'N CRUNCH HERE COMES CEREAL KILLER!) and some othars taht I don't remembar and were not vary cool like teh othars.

ANYway teh goes to tihs place that I thinks they owns becuz they skates around inside and there are no adults and tehre are vary big viddeo gamez and it si vary cool but I don't remembars what happens there so I wont talks about it too much excapt that DADE beets the HOT CHIX0R AT A VIDEEO GAEM!!!!!!1 U SI STOOPID CRASH U DON'T BEET CHIX0RS OR TEHY WILL HATE U!!!

Tihs KID namd JOey wants to git a handal but he haz to score a RIGHTEOUS HACK first B4 HE can be 733t. So he goes home and hacks into sum big computar and steels tehir garbage which is NOT ACTUALL GARBAGE BUT SUM VIRUS OR SNAIL OR SOMETHING I wuzznt sure bcuz my cat came back and starts to bothar me again and startid biting my leg so I kicked hims again and he runs off STOOPID CAT I'M WACHING A LEET MOOVIE GOES AWAY!

But it si VARY COOL when teh hax0r things bcuz they have tihs VARY 733t GOOEY INTARFACE taht lets them fly around insides the computar in 3D and theys shots tihns at the kernal and blows stuffs up. I wisshes I had taht gooey bcuz whenevar I boots my LUNUX macheen it duzznt have taht and I haves to types commands and that SI NOT 733t!!! MAybee I just needs to git an appal computar with a P6 chip liks they hads in teh moovie I gess tehy come with taht 733t gooey.

Tehn JOEY gets cot by the SECRAT SERVACE!!! He goes to jail and all teh other 733t peepul are like OH NOS HE SI IN JAIL TEH WILL GETs US ALL! But tehn nothing happens so tehy have a contast to bug sum secrat servace guy but then things happen and teh hax0rs have to hax0r teh place joey hax0red so tehy can gets teh rest of teh GARBAGE taht joey gots so tehy can saves teh world. Tihs part wuz vary cool and was a vary qality piece of moovie making bcuz it was VARY TRUE. Tehy HAX0R into teh bad gys place and HIT TEHM WITH TEH DREEDED COOKEI MONSTAR VIRUS but teh bad guys are sortr fo 733t 2 tehy no to jist type "COOKIE" and teh viras gos away!! TEhn tehy send RABBITS and othar animals to kills teh bad guys but teh bad guy si like "HA HA I AM WAY 733t U CANT HAX0RS ME!" But tehn they send tha CANCAR and it EETS TEH FILAS OH NO U CANT HAVE A SYSTAM WITHOUT FIALS!! But teh bad guys TRIX0R tehm again and it looks like teh bad guy is goin to WIN OH NO!! But suddanly all teh hax0rs in teh world BRAKE INTO TEH SYSTAM and teh bad guys are like OH NO TEH ARE COMING IN FROM REMOTE NOSE! TEHY ARE IN TEH KERNAL!!! (Teh kernal si a VARY IMPORTANT part of teh computar and you have to be SUPA 733t to hax0r teh kernal it si vary hard and there are MANY GUNS PROTECTING THE KERNAL!! ITs not loke Kernal Clink tho he was stoopid Hogan gots away frum him all teh time THE TUNNEL IS UNDER TEH BED U IDIAT!!)

BUt finally teh shots their way in wiht their VIRAS BULLITS and teh GET TEH GARBAGE!!! BUT TEHN THE SECRAT SERVACE CATCHES TEHM!!! Teh secrat servace si not vary 733t and tehy tihnk teh HAX0RS ARE EVAL (STOOPID SECRAT SERVACE HAX0RS ARE G00D PEEPUL!!) Tehy arrest teh haxors but BANDICOOT throws teh disk in teh trash as they are walking out. HE shouts "HAX TEH PLANAT!" as he si beeing put into teh copper car and his 733t frends here him. HAX TEH PLANAT si hax0r speek for "WE GOTS TEH GARBAGE FILE AND PUTS IT ON A DISK BUT THE SECRAT SERVACE COT US SO I SHOTS TEH DISK SI IN TEH GARBAGE CAN ON TEH SECOND FLOOR!!" and teh 733t guy finds the disk and EVARYONE SI SAVED!!!

I wuz jumping ups and downs in my living room wehn teh hax0rs won but tehn my cat came back in so I whacked it with my reemote controol and it lade down for awhile STOOPID CAT.

IN conclushun tihs si a vary 733t moovie and u shood go watch it with othar 733t frends and LEARN TO LUV IT bcuz it si SO TRUE!! And gets an appal with a P6 im getting one so i can hax0r with taht 733t GOOEY!!!!!!!1111

Scene to watch for: Penn Jillette as teh 733t securaty gard

Best Line: "Oh, it's Leopard boy. AND the Decepticons."

Things that make you go "Huh?": TEH L33T G00EY!!!

Re:Hackers (1995)

[Ironfist_ironmined]

The comment that just... |3p7 g01/\/g...

Re:Hackers (1995)

[hatrisc]

very crappy movie, very crappy acting. according to hackers (1995) i could hack the government with a series of commands like this:

$ hack gov't
Welcome to the Government!
Login:
Password:
Authorized, proceed...
# be root
Password:
Welcome root. You have new mail.
# put my h4x0r3d site up
# get me out of here

and then the government website is cracked, and a new "I cracked you" page is up.

This Is A War

[GafTheHorseInTears]

As you may have noticed, we are at war with terrorists and nations that harbor terrorists. Since GNU/Linux is a terrorist-friendly OS, any countries considering switching to GNU/Linux had better build some GNU/bomb-shelters first.

Don't recommend Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

I will start recommending Linux and Macs and tell everybody to avoid Windows like the plague it is.

Don't recommend Macs. Not worth wasting government resources, except for niche applications: Macs cost much more than PC's and are harder to support and expand. PCs with Linux are much more cost effective, because they aren't shackled to limited overpriced Mac hardware (and don't have to rely on the problem of hard-to-find Mac experts and resources)

Re:Don't recommend Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd mark this as a troll, but my moderator points were just used up.

Get real.

Yes, I can build a Linux box myself and get something that's cheaper than a Mac. It's also cheaper than a Dell. But brand-name computers all cost about the same. Apple, Dell, whatever. Mac programs often even cost a bit less.

And it's really not hard to find Mac resources. Probably at least as many websites as there are for Linux. But heck, how often do I need to look up a website to fix my Mac?

(Disclaimer... I use just about every computer OS. But I've always bought a Mac for home. Why should I spend time fiddling at home when I don't get paid for it? It just works.)

Re:Don't recommend Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's also cheaper than a Dell. But brand-name computers all cost about the same. Apple, Dell, whatever."

Dells actually cost hundreds less than comparable Macs.

"And it's really not hard to find Mac resources"

Just much harder than for finding PC resources. We're talking government users, remember. Should be enough Mac addicts to draw from in big cities to hire or use as consultants, but they will be extremely hard to find in the small towns... which are also served by government. But these same small towns will have many PC experts.

"But I've always bought a Mac for home. Why should I spend time fiddling at home when I don't get paid for it? It just works"

Only if you don't do much with it. I used to use Macs, but stopped since they didn't work well and could hardly do anything compared to PCs.

STOP WITH THE GNU/LINUX

[hatrisc]

gessh, even Linux himself doesn't believe it should be called GNU/LINUX.. (Revolution OS) and besides where in the GPL does it say anything about putting GNU/ in front of anything released under the gpl??? i'm not sure if mozilla is released under the gpl, but if it is, we don't call it GNU/Mozilla, or is that what we're doing now? i do realize that it's GNU/Linux, because without GNU Linux would just be a kernel. correct. but, this is why we have distro's such as RedHat, Caldera, Debian, Turbo, SuSE, etc. It's called RedHat Linux or Caldera openLinux, or whatever. Therefore if this trend continues, RMS will have to 1. Change the GPL -- Which would put him on the $hitlist w/ other people/incs. like M$, and UNISYS, or 2. STOP WITH THE GNU/ PREFIX!

Timothy got it wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not GNU/Linux, it is the "GNU operating system mistakenly called Linux by Linus Torvalds"

That quote is from RMS. Get the interview at 2600.com.

A good start.

[jellomizer]

Well to help get a wider accecptance it is a good thing that governments are deciding to look at alternitives to MS stuff. And this helps to push more MS People to understanding and even perhaps liking to use Linux. With more people using it more software will be made (Open Sourse and Closed Source). Thus helping of actually giving people a choice in OSes. We long got away from the Idea of the Right Tool for the Right Job. I think it is time that we come back to that Idea.

MS is like the Quizno's Ads

[mssymrvn]

For those countries sticking with MS products:

Would you like to try this great, flexible, free software? Or how about this closed, expensive buggy software with 'lettuce'?

Subject obviously prefers software with 'lettuce'.

Microsoft sees the writing on the wall

[Ma$$acre]

It's under attack for it's business practices here and abroad. It's FUD is not swaying many decision makers anymore and their "terrorist gambit" is not panning out as planned.

Because M$ has never been known as a service company it really has no model to fit into the Open Source idea. Since it has no direct way of benefiting, other than stealing code for use in their own products, they have to fight against it's upsurgence

M$ will move into the arena of small commercial packages, proprietary embedded systems and OS's and will fight tooth and nail the entire way. Of course the argument that they stabalized and helped build the current computer industry is partially correct, but had open standards been used to begin with (and not the embrace and extend crap) we might have a much more competetive landscape.

The Real Issue....

[echucker]

.... isn't one of supporting open source because it's good for your life-long karma, but having someone to hold the end-user's hand when something goes tits-up.

Microsoft comes in a pretty package, and is so widely used, that someone in a given setting is bound to have experience with it.

It's not that open source is or isn't better than MS, but which one gives the user (not the IT guys) a warm fuzzy.

Re:The Real Issue....

[pjrc]

That really should be:

Microsoft comes pre-installed on new computers, and is so widely used, that someone in a given setting is bound to have experience with it.

The pretty package probably has no real impact. Even the quality and ease-of-use are secondary to locking up all new PC sales with 'doze preinstalled.

Re:The Real Issue....

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft comes in a pretty package, and is so widely used, that someone in a given setting is bound to have experience with it.

-- Yup.... somebody around will most certainly have blindly suggested rebooting the machine and can say with great authority: "Don't do that, it hangs _____fill_in_application___ whenever I do that."

I've been around far too many offices where there are magic steps for doing things. The steps exist because at one point somebody got what they wanted done. Generally these are among the most bizantine steps possible -- think going to the supermarket by way of Kennedy,Heathrow,Ohare,Honolulu,LAX and then driving the rest of the way in reverse because you didn't know that the car would go forward.

So, in summary... yeah sure it's optimal to have the blind leading the blind.

Furthermore all software sucks. Some more and some less.

Re:The Real Issue....

[Anonymous Coward]

"...which one gives the user (not the IT guys) a warm fuzzy."

Apple.

The Peruvian Correspondence

[Anonymous Coward]

The letters between Microsoft and Congressman Villanueva give an excellent clarification of what Microsoft is about in software, and what it is like to truly look at software as a tool of the users, not as one of the vendor.

Supreme Court and electionb

[Anonymous Coward]

The Supreme Court did not elect Bush. The country did through the rather ancient process of the election and electoral college following the results. All the Supreme Court did was shut down a left-wing attempt to tamper with the ballots.

Look at how Bush won all the later counts after the Supreme Court decision.

Re:Supreme Court and electionb

[Anonymous Coward]

Democracy = Rule By the People United States = Democracy More people vote for gore than bush in the US Bush wins Anyone else confused?

Re:Supreme Court and electionb

[Anonymous Coward]

instead of a single organization declared to be a monopoly by the U.S. DOJ.

Read the Constitution. It's called an Electoral College. It ensures equal representation among the seperate states.
Did you notice how much won states by something like 2-1?
Remove your head from your ass and stop listening to Dan Rather. You fucking idiot.

Re:Supreme Court and electionb

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, you got one point wrong.. United States != Democracy... United States = Representative Republic.

All the people do is decide who makes the decisions, and if those people do not make the decisions you like, all you can do is not vote for them next election.

Re:Supreme Court and electionb

[ahfoo]

Yeah, I'm confused why you fuckhead Conservative asswipes hang around Slashdot.

Re:Supreme Court and electionb

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the constitution, you fucking moron.

You have absolutely no right to vote for President.

In fact, there are no federal elections - all elections are controlled by the states themselves (and in the case of a Presidential election, it's the state legislatures that have plenary authority, not the state supreme courts, no matter what seven kangaroos down in Talahassee think...)

In fact, the United States isn't a democracy at all, it's a republic.

So go fuck yourself and the jackass you rode in on and cry about "President Gore".

Re:Supreme Court and electionb

[Anonymous Coward]

Ouch, that was supposed to be anonymous.
I guess I'm just a dumbfuck liberal.
Oh well. Actually some of my closest friends are conservative racist assholes. It's a funny world.

Damn, sounsd like a world war...

[powerlinekid]

Haha... this is like the axis and alliance. One hand we have denmark, austria and mexico. On the other side is germany, france (who thought they'd ever be on the same side), china and a bunch more. I'm surprised Microsoft just hasn't bought a country yet. No i don't mean lobbying and free software packages or whatever. I mean legitmatly going into a nation saying "hey we got $40 billion and we want to buy you" and doing it. I think that would be more impressive than 30% market share for iis. Then again as my supervisor at the helpdesk showed me the corporate structure of Microsoft... you have your ceo and board, followed by some software groups, etc. Then in the marketing department towards the basement... you find the US DOJ. Guess thats going to help dictate whos side we'll be on.

Re:Damn, sounsd like a world war...

[Anonymous Coward]

"who thought they'd ever be on the same side"

man you are 50 years behind the times...

Re:Damn, sounsd like a world war...

[powerlinekid]

not necessarily i know a few french people and a few german people... and i may be alittle biased towards germany but for the most part the germans think the french hate them. All of them. My friend was an exchange student from germany and said when she was in france they called her and her friends nazis and shit like that.

Government administrators: It is your duty.

[Futurepower(R)]

Government administrators should note that it is their duty to insure that all government work be done on completely open systems. The citizens and taxpayers of a democracy must have full access to all documents, even 40 or a hundred years from now. There is NO room in a democracy for proprietary, hidden ways of doing things.

Re:Government administrators: It is your duty.

[ealar dlanvuli]

yes, this is the only argument that matters. It's silly to even argue in any other terms when speaking of a democracy.

Sure papers get destroyed over time, but purpously trying to make public data unreadable is illegal last time I checked. And only supporting M$ formats is a good way to destroy data on purpouse, unless your willing to let MS control your country

Re:Government administrators: It is your duty.

[Anonymous Coward]

And while your at it, please declasify the top secret military documents including plans for building our most high tech equipment and bombs. Remember, no room for hidding things!

Re:Government administrators: It is your duty.

[imta11]

You make the mistake of assuming that Government workers are making these programs. Almost all government work is done by contractors i.e. GE, Lockhead Martin etc... There is in fact a movement to use open standards, so that the code is easier to support when the contracts end.

However, there is no need for you to ask for all documents, and there are such things ass business practices, even in the "not for profit" government sector. What if some of these documents were about you? Do I have the right to view those things about your person just because my government found it prudent to take records? Clearly no. My rights end where your rights begin.

As taxpayers we get services. If you want to dictate those services run for office.

Re:Government administrators: It is your duty.

[stubear]

Citizens should learn that they do NOT live in a Democracy, they live in a Democratic REPUBLIC. Once you finally learn the distinction you will undertsand why things are done the way they are and you might be in a better position to improve the situation through reasonable compromise. Until then you are a worthless slashbot, repeating the sentiments of others here for the sake of earning karma.

Re:Government administrators: It is your duty.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, citizens should learn that they live in a constitutional MONARCHY. Long live the queen.

Re:Government administrators: It is your duty.

[Anonymous Coward]

NO, their duty is to hunt down long-hair slackers like you who want to destroy the greatest economy and nation this world has ever seen and turn it into another communist gulag, full of slave labor working for the benefit of the state. And once they find you and your terrorists brothers, their duty is to exterminate you, totally and completely. To allow even one of you lousy OSS freaks to breath my air is a crime, and I cheer each time one of your sick band decides to end his own pathetic life.

That's their duty, and you had better hope they remain so spineless that they shirk this, you pathetic little boy.

Re:Government administrators: It is your duty.

[loosenut]

"As taxpayers we get services".

One of those services is having elected officials that respond to our desires. That's the whole prinicple of democracy. You don't have to run for office to get the government to do things that you see are intellegent and efficient.

Re:Government administrators: It is your duty.

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, please publish the whereabouts of all nuclear weapons on the whitehouse front page, along with the "secret" locations for the president in times of crisis. Since this is a democracy, we can have no secrets. Also, Futurepower, please put your full address and phone number in your sig. Thanks.

Re:Government administrators: It is your duty.

[Futurepower(R)]

"Also, Futurepower, please put your full address and phone number in your sig. Thanks."

Gee, this is really nice of you guys. Yes, I know I am an impressive person *grin*, but I can't accept the praise. You are the second person whom I have had to remind that I am not the government. You, as a citizen don't need to see the source code of my programs.

This is NOT an absolute issue. Nuclear weapons are an issue that requires improvement over time. The U.S. government is the biggest proponent and builder of nuclear weapons. The U.S. government is the only organization that has ever used a nuclear weapon in war. Remember don't say "we" when you talk about this. You aren't the government either, and no one asked you what you thought. If you look over the collection of links in What Should be the Response to Violence? you will see that the secret agencies of the U.S. government do many, many things that very few U.S. citizens would approve.

No monoculture is a good thing.

[Fished]

The article makes an assumption that I don't think is very good - specifically, it assumes that a government should pick one OS and stick with it. In fact, that's the WORST thing a government can do. If one picks a single OS/Office combo, then you're stuck with it and you create an environment of increasing incompatibility with the rest of the world.

What we need is not a better monoculture, but a polyculture (is that a word?) In a polyculture, one company (MS) can't create a format that's impossible for anyone else to implement properly and expect it to be widely used, because users will EXPECT interoperability. They'd be shooting themselves in the foot. By the same token, in a polyculture you have many different products that foster true innovation. I mean ... as much as office sucks, some parts of it have been truly innovative (some parts of Outlook, Excel.)

Hell, in a monoculture half the time software isn't compatible with its previous version (think Office 95 vs. office 97.)

I wouldn't want any government to mandate *one* operating system. Instead, I think that governments should mandate operating system diversity. That's the way to get true, robust reliability and ultimately save money.

Re:No monoculture is a good thing.

[josepha48]

I believe Clinton did this in the US with Windows. He basically mandataed that Windows was the OS of the government. I could be wrong it was something someone (a goverment employee) had told me at some point. When I worked there most of the desktop computers were being converted to windows NT 4.0 (its been a while). Yes there are some offices that still use other OSes and there are some that are moving their servers to Linux or experimenting and using Linux (NASA && NSA for instance). But the majority of US goverment offices are 'supposed' to use Windows. My friend works for the DOD and he was upset when he heard this. However it seems that it did not last that long as they ended up using QNX cause windows did not do their real time stuff as needed and now they are moving to Linux and saving money (they are using the Linux kernel real time patch).

I agree though that they should not pass laws like I think the article said Peru is doing. I do think that governments should look for cheaper ways of running thier computers. Think of it this way. If there are 1,000,000 employees and they all use MS office (about $300 per user), exchange (about ? per user), and Windows OS (about $300 per user) that is about 500-1000 per user, plus possiblly other software, that turns out to be about 500 million to 1 billion dollars to Billy Gates, and software. This is of course TAX dollars that could be spent elsewhere. Linux or BSD's could be an alternative to this where people could spend the cost of the cdrom plus office and use Evolution without the connector. It could mean that 1/2 to 3/4 of the money spend on software could be channeled to other things like health care. Granted most goverments do not spend this much each year on software but they do upgrade every 2 to 3 years (in the US at least many offices do). 1/2 billion dollars in some of these countries is a lot of money that could be spent on schools and feeding its people.

Re:No monoculture is a good thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

"use MS office (about $300 per user), exchange (about ? per user), and Windows OS (about $300 per user) that is about 500-1000 per user"

Are you really that stupid? Do you really think that anyone buying 1 million copies of something pays retail? Haven't you ever heard of a site license?

You goddamn ignorant slashdotters. I'm practically speechless.

No I'm not. Go fuck your self.

Re:No monoculture is a good thing.

[Ma$$acre]

Despite the Anonymous Coward's comments, he has a point about site licenses. But the law that Peru is trying to pass would not prevent Microsoft from competing, nor would it prevent Peru from paying Money to M$ should it win a contract (in the unlikely event that M$ decided to make their source open and use true open standards). It also doesn't limit the ability of software companies in Peru from developing or selling their software locally or abroad.

Re:No monoculture is a good thing.

[sean23007]

How could a government mandate operating system diversity? If several departments were using Linux, and another wanted to switch, they would be unable to because the nation had already reached their Linux quota? That would be interesting, to say the least...

Re:No monoculture is a good thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I'm sure that order came right from Clinton's desk -- right after he had the DOJ go after them for anti-trust.

Maybe the government got into desktop standardization for the exact same reasons that 99% of corporate america did so? Cost + Only Viable Choice (1994-2000) = Windows Everywhere.

Re:No monoculture is a good thing.

[josepha48]

Yes, the descision was standardization. Which meant standardization on Windows for both servers and clients. Yes and at the time it was the only choice. But the choice to standarize DID come from the Clinton Administration. I'm sure when they found out they could not get a great 'bulk' deal they decided that M$ really did have a monopoly and their balls in a vise and did the next best thing and went after M$.

Re:No monoculture is a good thing.

[josepha48]

Yes and site licenses still cost you idiot, and yes you really are a moron. Okay maybe not $300 a pop, but it could still be $100+ a seat. While they may not be paying retail they are paying alot of money. Last I looked it was a couple of thousand for a 50 user license for exchange, server, plus the clients. Roughtly about $3000 to $5000 for 50 seats, plus the cost of the client software. MS OS / Office is still not cheap in bulk too. Yes you get a discount but do you really think that it was that good of a deal? My guess is that the gov wanted a sweet deal and M$ did not give it to them. They only deal with a 250 and over deal so once you reach over 250 the proce does not seem to change. At least that is what is on their web site(M$). Also You still have to pay for site licenses.

Re:No monoculture is a good thing.

[PugMajere]

Actually, according to a news item I saw in, umm, InfoWorld, I belive - that's about the minimum price of MS Office Standard Edition. It starts at 479, comes down to 279 per seat.

The numbers were in the news article announcing/discussing Star Office 6, and it's $75/5 seats licensing cost.

So, umm, $300 a seat is a fair estimate, even for someone buying a million seats.

That's for "correctly licensed" copies, not OEM copies. Everyone knows that MS says that even if you get a machine with Windows or Office on it, if the machine would otherwise be covered by a site license, you still have to pay for the license again, right?

Go do some research, read some news articles, get a grip on the actual prices and the controversy involved in these licenses - those numbers are fairly accurate. (Ok, the Windows OS prices may be a bit high, but the Office ones are pretty much dead accurate.)

Apple not effective, Sun is

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple and Sun, who seem pretty effective at marketing their own OSes.

Two very different companies, with very different results. Apple isn't even trying to market its OS: they are a hardware company FIRST, and they sell the OS only to run on their hardware. Want to run Mac OS? Forget it if you have PC, forget it if you have a clone. Apple fights to LIMIT marketing of its OS. In contrast, Sun's JAVA is intended to run everywhere.

Re:Apple not effective, Sun is

[2nd Post!]

Are we on the same page? Speaking the same language? In the same gene pool?

As per hardware company with an OS on top: Sun has Sparc + Solaris, and weren't going to continue Solaris for x86 *until* a surprise release of v9 for x86.

Apple has Mac + OS X, and *do* have an up to date Darwin for x86 though it's limited through driver support to a select hardware platform.

Neither is trying particularly hard to push their OSes without their hardware; both have x86 for development and testing purposes.

As per wanting the Mac OS: How do you compare Java, a runtime, programming language, and a set of libraries, with an OS? Apple has Cocoa, otherwise known as Objective C, and it doesn't run *everywhere*, but it does run on Solaris 8, Windows 2000 (x86), and Mac OS X.

So what are you trying to point out? That Sun supports more platforms with it's variation of cross platform computing? That Macs are more hardware oriented than Sun? That x86 support is the end all and be all of 'effective'?

As long as DUBYA and his RIGHT WING WACKOS

[Anonymous Coward]

are in control, Microsoft will always own the market, and OSS will never get anywhere. The right wing believes in BIG MASTURBATIONS who can also pay BIG SUCKS to BIG MAN-TRAINS that end with the BIG SERENE GOAT(se) deciding the BIG ERECTION

Microsoft World

[Disoriented]

It cited compatibility problems, namely among users trying to receive Microsoft World documents. Microsoft World Documents?? Has Microsoft taken over the World format already? Otto Schily, the German Federal Minister of the Interior, announced last Monday a deal with IBM to promote, for the pubic sector, hardware and software products that support Linux. The pubic sector?? I thought that was my private business! Oh wait, an "L" accidentally got moved. Calming down now.

Monoculture counter-argument compelling

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless of the quality of the solution, there is an argument for avoiding closed solutions from *any* single vendor. Large organizations not only expose themselves to security threats, but also economic fluctuations affecting the single vendor.

Linux Myths Explained

[Metrollica]

With all the recent attention around Linux as an operating system, it's important to step back from the hype and look at the reality. First, it's worth noting that Linux is a UNIX-like operating system. Linux fundamentally relies on 30-year-old operating system technology and architecture. Linux was not designed from the ground-up to support symmetrical multiprocessing (SMP), graphical user interfaces (GUI), asynchronous I/O, fine-grained security model, and many other important characteristics of a modern operating system. These architectural limitations mean that as customers look for a platform to cost effectively deploy scalable, secure, and robust applications, Linux simply cannot deliver on the hype.

Myth: Linux performs better than Windows NT
Reality: Windows NT 4.0 Outperforms Linux On Common Customer Workloads

The Linux community claims to have improved performance and scalability in the latest versions of the Linux Kernel (2.2), however it's clear that Linux remains inferior to the Windows NT® 4.0 operating system.

For File and Print services, according to independent tests conducted by PC Week Labs , the Windows NT 4.0 operating system delivers 52 percent better performance on a single processor system and 110 percent better performance on a 4-way system than similarly configured single processor and 4-way Linux/SAMBA systems.

For Web servers, the same PC Week tests showed Windows NT 4.0 with Internet Information Server 4.0 delivers 41 percent better performance on a single processor system and 125 percent better performance on a 4-way system than Linux and Apache. For e-commerce workloads using secure sockets (SSL), recent PC Magazine tests showed Windows NT 4.0 with Internet Information Server 4.0 delivers approximately five times the performance provided by Linux and Stronghold.

For transaction-orientated Line of Business applications, Windows NT 4.0 has achieved a result of 40,368 tpmC at a cost of $18.46 per transaction on a Compaq 8-Way Pentium III XEON processor-based system. This industry leading price/performance result from the Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC) clearly shows how Windows NT can deliver world-class performance for heavy duty transaction processing. It's interesting to note that there is not a single TPC result on any database running on Linux, and therefore Linux has yet to demonstrate their capabilities as a database server.

Linux performance and scalability is architecturally limited in the 2.2 Kernel. Linux only supports 2 gigabytes (GB) of RAM on the x86 architecture,1 compared to 4 GB for Windows NT 4.0. The largest file size Linux supports is 2 GB versus 16 terabytes (TB) for Windows NT 4.0. The Linux SWAP file is limited to 128 MB. In addition, Linux does not support many of the modern operating system features that Windows NT 4.0 has pioneered such as asynchronous I/O, completion ports, and fine-grained kernel locks. These architecture constraints limit the ability of Linux to scale well past two processors.

The Linux community continues to promise major SMP and performance improvements. They have been promising these since the development of the 2.0 Kernel in 1996. Delivering a scalable system is a complex task and it's not clear that the Linux community can solve these issues easily or quickly. As D. H. Brown Associates noted in a recent technical report,2 the Linux 2.2 Kernel remains in the early stages of providing a tuned SMP kernel.

Myth: Linux is more reliable than Windows NT
Reality: Linux Needs Real World Proof Points Rather than Anecdotal Stories

The Linux community likes to talk about Linux as a stable and reliable operating system, yet there are no real world data or metrics and very limited customer evidence to back up these claims.

Windows NT 4.0 has been proven in demanding customer environments to be a reliable operating system. Customers such as Barnes and Noble, The Boeing Company, Chicago Stock Exchange, Dell Computer, Nasdaq and many others run mission-critical applications on Windows NT 4.0.

Linux lacks a commercial quality Journaling File System. This means that in the event of a system failure (such as a power outage) data loss or corruption is possible. In any event, the system must check the integrity of the file system during system restart, a process that will likely consume an extended amount of time, especially on large volumes and may require manual intervention to reconstruct the file system.

There are no commercially proven clustering technologies to provide High Availability for Linux. The Linux community may point to numerous projects and small companies that are aiming to deliver High Availability functionality. D. H. Brown recently noted that these offerings remain immature and largely unproven in the demanding business world.

There are no OEMs that provide uptime guarantees for Linux, unlike Windows NT where Compaq, Data General, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Unisys provide 99.9 percent system-level uptime guarantees for Windows NT-based servers.

Myth: Linux is Free
Reality: Free Operating System Does Not Mean Low Total Cost of Ownership

The Linux community will talk about the free or low-cost nature of Linux. It's important to understand that licensing cost is only a small part of the overall decision-making process for customers.

The cost of the operating system is only a small percentage of the overall total cost of ownership (TCO). In general Windows NT has proven to have a lower cost of ownership than UNIX. Previous studies have shown that Windows NT has 37 percent lower TCO than UNIX. There is no reason to believe that Linux is significantly different than other versions of UNIX when it comes to TCO.

The very definition of Linux as an Open Software effort means that commercial companies like Red Hat will make money by charging for services. Therefore, commercial support services for Linux will be fee-based and will likely be priced at a premium. These costs have to be factored into the total cost model.

Linux is a UNIX-like operating system and is therefore complex to configure and manage. Existing UNIX users may find the transition to Linux easier but administrators for existing Windows®-based or Novell environments will find it more difficult to handle the complexity of Linux. This retraining will add significant costs to Linux deployments. Linux is a higher risk option than Windows NT. For example how many certified engineers are there for Linux? How easy is it to find skilled development and support people for Linux? Who performs end-to-end testing for Linux-based solutions? These factors and more need to be taken into account when choosing a platform for your business.

Myth: Linux is more secure than Windows NT
Reality: Linux Security Model Is Weak

All systems are vulnerable to security issues, however it's important to note that Linux uses the same security model as the original UNIX implementations--a model that was not designed from the ground up to be secure.

Linux only provides access controls for files and directories. In contrast, every object in Windows NT, from files to operating system data structures, has an access control list and its use can be regulated as appropriate.

Linux security is all-or-nothing. Administrators cannot delegate administrative privileges: a user who needs any administrative capability must be made a full administrator, which compromises best security practices. In contrast, Windows NT allows an administrator to delegate privileges at an exceptionally fine-grained level. Linux has not supported key security accreditation standards. Every member of the Windows NT family since Windows NT 3.5 has been evaluated at either a C2 level under the U.S. Government's evaluation process or at a C2-equivalent level under the British Government's ITSEC process. In contrast, no Linux products are listed on the U.S. Government's evaluated product list.

Linux system administrators must spend huge amounts of time understanding the latest Linux bugs and determining what to do about them. This is made complex due to the fact that there isn't a central location for security issues to be reported and fixed. In contrast Microsoft provides a single security repository for notification and fixes of security related issues. Configuring Linux security requires an administrator to be an expert in the intricacies of the operating system and how components interact. Misconfigure any part of the operating system and the system could be vulnerable to attack. Windows NT security is easy to set up and administer with tools such as the Security Configuration Editor.

Myth: Linux can replace Windows on the desktop
Reality: Linux Makes No Sense at the Desktop

Linux as a desktop operating system makes no sense. A user would end up with a system that has fewer applications, is more complex to use and manage, and is less intuitive.

Linux does not provide support for the broad range of hardware in use today; Windows NT 4.0 currently supports over 39,000 systems and devices on the Hardware Compatibility List. Linux does not support important ease-of-use technologies such as Plug and Play, USB, and Power Management

The complexity of the Linux operating system and cumbersome nature of the existing GUIs would make retraining end-users a huge undertaking and would add significant cost Linux application support is very limited, meaning that customers end up having to build their own horizontal and vertical applications. A recent report from Forrester Research highlighted the fact that today 93 percent of enterprise ISVs develop applications for Windows NT, while only 13 percent develop for Linux.3 Summary

The Linux operating system is not suitable for mainstream usage by business or home users. Today with Windows NT 4.0, customers can be confident in delivering applications that are scalable, secure, and reliable--yet cost effective to deploy and manage. Linux clearly has a long way to go to be competitive with Windows NT 4.0. With the release of the Windows 2000 operating system, Microsoft extends the technical superiority of the platform even further ensuring that customers can deliver the next generation applications to solve their business challenges.

Re:Linux Myths Explained

[Anonymous Coward]

> With all the recent attention around Linux as an operating system, it's important to step back from the hype and look at the reality.

So... What exactly do you do at Microsoft?

Re:Linux Myths Explained

[Metrollica]

Butt-fucker

Re:Linux Myths Explained

[DrakeX]

BLAH. . . BLAH. . . BLAH

as most of your exasperatingly long comment is full of sh*t you read out of a magazine - your bible or what?? I can tell from your rantings that you've never so much as installed linux let alone used it or configured it.

so get the knot out of your panties and leave the debates to the people with informed, educated, and original opinions.

You are confused

[Anonymous Coward]

Democracy = Rule By the People United States = Democracy More people vote for gore than bush in the US Bush wins Anyone else confused?

The US is not actually a democracy. It is a constitutional republic. Gore even agreed: he campaigned with the electoral system in mind. Want to change it? Fine. Just don't do it to undo the results of an election that did not go the way you want it to. Change the system before the next election if you want to. Only losers play the game under the rules and then whine to change the rules after they lose.

Re:You are confused

[jedidiah]

States were won by margins that wouldn't be considered compelling in a GALLUP POLL. Merely ignoring the issue won't magically go away no matter how much you might like to crow about your interpretation of the letter of the law.

Your crass dismissal of the opposing viewpoint conveniently ignores how remarkable the last election was.

IBM

[SLot]

Seems like IBM is making out like gangbusters in
these deals.

Perhaps there was something to that slashback article
last night....

Microsoft's response...

[Xpilot]

Meanwhile, deep in the heart of Redmond, Cheif Software Architect Gates addresses his staff.

"As my first act as Software Architect, I will create a grand army to counter the increasing threat of the Open Source seperatists"

War ensues...

Re:Microsoft's response...

[Tony-A]

Then watch as Balmer steps into a gopher hole.

Re:Microsoft's response...

[ReverendRyan]

Just then Christopher Lee (Sauron/Count Dooku) steps out from behind Bill and says, "Gandolf, you must join with the dark side of the force... I mean," *looks around cautiously,* "Linux, you must join with our EULA!"

Always remember kids!

[Thud457]

If you buy gasoline, you support international terrorism!

Buy American!



A hysterical public service message from your friends at the ministry of truth.
-- Yes, we do think you're that stupid.

Security problems of Linux-only

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't Internet worms taking advantage of *nix servers actually come way before all those nasty Microsoft Outlook worms?

Re:Security problems of Linux-only

[jedidiah]

Yup. That makes you wonder why Microsoft didn't learn from mistakes made (and fixed) 15 years ago.

When you know that something that you do causes bad things to happen, you should probably stop doing that...

Developing countries?

[line-bundle]

I am surprised at the low number of developing countries especially African countries. They are the countries which really NEED to use free software. But in my experience they are the ones least likely to. Too bad the big companies have already targetted these countries and the free software movement has no real marketing marketing strategy for these countries.

Re:Developing countries?

[WildBeast]

That's probably because developpers in poor countries can't afford to work for free.

Re:Developing countries?

[Anonymous Coward]

In order to use software you need to have computers. Other needs like clean water, vaccinations, etc. have a tendency to come first. Not to mention the fact that many developing countries are having difficulty with rigged elections, political corruption, armed violence, fraud, theft, etc. It's hard to focus on getting linux on every machine when you don't know who's going to be in power tomorrow after the next coup or coup attempt.

Re:Developing countries?

[Fished]

Of course, you need to have computers first. Then you need to have electrical power. Then, to get reliable electrical power, you need a way to get equipment and fossil fuels or whatever to the place. And, oh yeah, you have to have an industrial plant to build and fund all this stuff.

They don't call it the "developing world" for nothing dude.

Re:Developing countries?

[Anonymous Coward]

For the same reason why they keep seeing their national treasures to multinationals for a song - they're corrupt and utterly incompetent.

Re:Developing countries?

[imsmith]

Perhaps it is because developing countries in Africa are too busy trying to stop genocide, mass starvations, the AIDS epidemic, inter-tribal violence, and a general shortage of things like electricity, running water, and reliable sources of food to worry about what OS they would run on their computers, if they had computers, for their governments, if they had governments.

From a distance it appears as though a large portion of African nations are held in place by aid organizations, foreign corporations, and men with guns.

The absence of a free software movement doesn't mean that there is no future for one in Africa, but it may mean that there isn't a place for a free software movement yet.

You'll notice from the article, that many of the nationally sponsered programs to develop and use free software are in response to widespread piracy. The market for software exists. In much of Africa, I suspect, there is relatively little software piracy, an indication that the market for software in general is low. When the societies stabilize enough to become pirates, then there will be a place for free software in response to the proprietary vendors demanding crackdowns on copyright violators.

Of course, the pharmacutical industry will have to settle its own claims of piracy and patent infringement first, after that, there may not be anyone alive in Africa to pirate from Microsoft.

Re:Developing countries?

[illusion_2K]

Maybe I can add some insight here. Right now I am working on a project on behalf of CIDA and Statistics Canada to provide IT expertise to the Zambian Census Agency.

Part of said project includes training their LAN Admin's, Sysadmins and Web Developers. Now, while this wouldn't be such a big deal in North America or Europe, please believe me when I tell you that most of the people whom I am working with have little or no experience with these sorts of things whatsoever. None of them (the LAN Admins) had even installed (any) operating system until I walked them through it just yesterday nor do any of the web developers know more than the three or four HTML tags I've made them write out in notepad thus far.

Now I'm not sure exactly what your experience is with open source in Africa, but I think that outside of the more developed countries (i.e. South Africa) you'll probably find little or no acceptance of open source in the public sector merely because these people really lack the basic exposure to computers in general that we take for granted in North America and while they certainly are intelligent enough to understand how to use open source effectively. It is going to take a fair amount of time before they are truely able to use it by themselves.

Another thing that I might add which you may not be aquiainted with is that the 'brain drain' here dwarfs anything you've read about in North America. Government workers in Zambia are paid a pittance compared to private sector IT people. All the people who I've spoken with who (I think) are competant enough to really grasp things like Linux are just using their government jobs as a way to get experience in order to score a private sector job.

(But on the bright side, I do know that most of the the local ISP's/consultanting companies use Linux to a certain degree)

Re:Developing countries?

[inerte]

free software movement has no real marketing

Indeed. I would say it has zero marketing if you compare to huge proprietary software vendors.

Free) You can use it!

MS) You can fly!

Not really much of a match.

Re:Developing countries?

[tshak]

People keep forgetting that Human Resources (yes, even in Africa) cost more then software or hardware. If my software/hardware solutions is plug and play, and I need minimal support, my cost is significantly lower then free software with the need of more support. The bottom line is, take a WinXP, or MacOSX desktop and plug it in, and it will cost less then a Linux desktop to support in almost all scenarios. One exception may be a callcenter in which all you have is a web browser running Intranet apps. In this case just buy a bunch of ThinkNic's and be done with it!.

Re:Developing countries?

[Daytona955i]

So what your saying is People outside of North America and Europe are too stupid to use open source software and should therefore be forced to use windows? That is the biggest load of Sh!@ I have ever heard. Have you ever installed Red Hat?!?!? It's the easiest install I have ever seen... in fact the newer versions are easier to install than windows. If these countries are setting up networks and installing windows then I think they can install Linux. So just because the Zambian Census Agency hired incompotent IT personel doesn't mean everyone is incompotent. I seriously believe you could teach a monkey to install Red Hat...

I think you need to push a pin into that inflated ego of yours. If you can teach people to use windows then you can teach them to use linux in just the same ammount of time.
-Chris

Re:Developing countries?

[Daytona955i]

Not true, if you have a company supply linux installed pc's with all the software you need then it won't need any support because it runs a heck of a lot better than windows. I recently switched to linux (and mac os x) exclusively and now when I go to the computer labs at school I get frustrated at how buggy and slow windows can be. (and it's not the hardware) And rebooting may solve you problems with windows but the time rebooting can be better spent doing other things... I don't reboot my Linux machine unless I install a new kernel. If you hire 1 IT person for linux support, there is a wealth of information on the web and one person can handle it because most of the time linux runs quite smoothly.
-Chris

Re:Developing countries?

[Hugonz]

That's only beacuse they don't really pay for it. Most businesses and even government agencies in the third world don't license their software, merely install illegal copies.

Re:Developing countries?

[Tony-A]

So what your saying is People outside of North America and Europe are too stupid to use open source software and should therefore be forced to use windows?
"should" is the wrong word. It's more the phenomenon that the rich tend to pay less for goods of better quality than the poor. The poor are also much more easily prey to impossible promises that will never be kept, XP's "you can fly" for example. With Microsoft Windows they can set up something that will look like their part works and the problems are always somewhere else. If they're setting up networks, their odds are much better with Linux or *BSD even if the installs are "more difficult". Actually, the first round is probably easier now with Linux than Microsoft Windows. The second round, where you need to be able to see what's going on tends to be more trouble than it's worth with Microsoft Windows. If Microsoft can't or won't fix a gopher hole, the odds of Microsoft actually helping with anything you run into is pretty slim.

Re:Developing countries?

[Tony-A]

Comparing IT support for Microsoft Windows and Linux is worse than comparing apples and oranges.
First rule of effectively supporting Microsoft Windows is to crush any and all expectations of anything great. If you don't know what you're doing, you can put something in Microsoft Word and it will look halway decent. If you care about what it looks like, you will fight Microsoft and Microsoft will win. Basically my NT servers and workstations stay up as long as the power is on. It's not that Microsoft Windows is stable, it's a "don't rock an unstable boat". With Linux it pays to sets your sights higher, so more *will* be supported.

Freudian slip

[xant]

From the article (about a study in Finland): "It cited compatibility problems, namely among users trying to receive Microsoft World documents." [emphasis mine]

Re:Freudian slip

[stephenbooth]

Being serious for a moment. Does anyone happen to know if a description of the particular problems they're having is available anywhere. I've never had a problem moving documents from StarOffice to M$-Word in Word97 format. I have had problems moving documents from Word 2000 to Word97 tho'.

Stephen

Snapshots from the OS front

[Anonymous Coward]

Government officials the world over are getting drawn into the debate over the relative merits of using open source software rather than Microsoft Corp.'s Windows applications and other software developed by vendors who closely guard the intellectual property of their source code. Some countries, such as Germany, have decided to replace Windows and other commercial software products with open source applications. Other countries remain committed to commercial software, and yet others are straddling the fence. Here are examples of how some countries are dealing with the debate.

Nations wading in the Linux waters:

Finland:

Homeland of Linux creator Linus Torvalds, Finland has embarked on a government test of open source software. Twenty-eight employees from 13 government agencies (out of 100 total) completed a project in April to test the free Open Office open-source desktop productivity suite and its commercially available version, called Star Office, from Sun Microsystems Inc. The project coordinators determined that it would recommend use of the suite, mainly for users who do not exchange documents on a regular basis with users of competing software. It cited compatibility problems, namely among users trying to receive Microsoft World documents. The government has also begun hosting seminars for employees to introduce them to Linux and other open source software. About 13 percent of government servers are running Linux, but the country has no policies that mandate what software government agencies use, according to Arja Terho, a counsellor in Finland's Ministry of Finance.

Peru:

A bill currently under debate by PerFA's Congress would require government agencies to use open source software. Proprietary or commercial applications, such as those from Microsoft or IBM Corp.'s Lotus Development Corp., could only be used when no open source alternative was available, the bill proposes. Proponents of the bill, which include several congressman who have introduced follow-on legislation, say it will save the country money on IT expenditures and reduce software piracy, which in 2000 accounted for about 60 percent of all the software in use at public institutions in Peru, according to the Business Software Alliance (BSA), an industry trade group. The issue has drawn opposition from critics, who say the government has no business mandating what type of software should be used, and that the law would be counterproductive for the country's indigenous developers.

Korea:

Korea's HancomLinux Inc. signed a deal in January with Korea's Central Procurement Office to supply the government with 120,000 copies of its Linux desktop office productivity software, HancomOffice. The open source software, which is compatible with Microsoft's Office applications, including Word and Excel, is expected to save the government money in t he long run and stimulate business for local companies competing against Microsoft in the software industry.

Thailand:

A government-subsidized technology development group, known as the National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre, or Nactec, announced in Apr il that it has developed its own package of open source software for use o n government desktop computers and servers. Linux-SIS (School Internet Server) for servers and Linux TLE (Thai Linux Extension) for desktops are based on the version of the Linux operating system from Red Hat Inc, a Raleigh, North Carolina, software company. Nactec has made the software freely available to government groups and small businesses. The project , government officials said, aims to narrow the gap between pirated software and legal software use, and promote local business development.

Philippines:

Similar to Thailand, the Philippines government has an effort to develop a package of open source software products for government agencies. The Advanced Science and Technology Institute, which falls under the Philippines' Department of Science and Technology (DOST), said in February that it will release a Linux sampler to users. It will include an operating system and desktop productivity applications on a single install disk. A separate effort by DOST led to the development of an open source database that is being used by the country's National Computer Center. So far, there are no government mandates to use Linux or other open source products.

France:

In February 2000, the French Ministry of Culture and Communications decided to replace software on some of the government's servers, which were running Windows NT and AIX, a version of Unix from IBM Corp., with Red Hat Linux. It has already made the change on 50 of the 300 targeted servers, according to Bruno Mannoni, head of the agency's information systems. Software it has adopted include the Apache Web server and Zope, an open source application server. Mannoni said the effort has saved money and the new software is more reliable than what was used previously.

Germany:

Otto Schily, the German Federal Minister of the Interior, announced last Monday a deal with IBM to promote, for the pubic sector, hardware and software products that support Linux. IBM has agreed to sell the country products at a discounted rate. IBM said that it will use the version of the operating system from SuSE Linux AG in NFCrnberg, Germany. Germany's lower house of Parliament, the Bundestag, also considered a switch to Linux in October 2001, but managed to work a revised deal with Microsoft that lowered the cost of its software acquisitions.

Taiwan:

Motivated by Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission investigation of Microsoft's pricing practices in that country, legislators are seeking ways to rein in Microsoft's dominance of the software market. Some officials advocate funding development of open-source software, including Linux. Discussions within the government are still at a preliminary stage.

China:

Beijing government officials in January awarded local Chinese software vendors software contracts, passing over bids from Microsoft. One such deal was with Beijing-based Red Flag Software Co. Ltd. to outfit government computers with its version of Linux. Meanwhile, the Hong Kong government has installed more than 100 Linux servers in various departments in the past three years. Public pressure to avoid dependence on single-vendor products has prompted government interest in open source. According to government statistics about half of the US$23.2 million spent on software during the 2000-2001 fiscal year went to Microsoft Hong Kong Ltd. President and Chief Executive Officer of Red Flag, Liu Bo, said in January that by using open source software, the government would strengthen security, have ownership of the intellectual property that is the foundation for its technology, increase competence of local software vendors and cut down on software piracy, which in 2000 reached 97 percent, according to the BSA.

Nations with renewed support for Microsoft

Mexico:

An ambitious government project to build out the country's IT infrastructure and move its 100 million citizens online passed over open source software after Microsoft agreed to pump an estimated $100 million into the effort if the country adopted its software products. Through a series of deals, the software maker is donating training for tens of thousands of teachers, technicians and professionals. The project, dubbed e-Mexico, was first introduced by the government of Vicente Fox shortly after Fox took over the presidency in December of 2000.

Austria:

One of Microsoft's flagship government customers, the Federal Ministry of the Interior in Austria, is the first government body in Europe to become a member of Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative. As part of the program, the Austrian government is allowed access to the Windows XP source code. Program benefits, according to Microsoft, include better understanding of the technical underpinnings of the operating system, better protection against security vulnerabilities and a resource for writing custom applications.

Denmark:

Despite some efforts to investigate open source software for use in the Danish public sector, the country has maintained close ties to Microsoft, according to Niels Svennakjaer, president of Commercial Linux Association of Demark. Apparently, the country's job retraining agency, called the AMU, experimented with Linux at its offices in Copenhagen, and they like what they saw, Svennakjaer said. A switch, however, was shot down by government IT decision makers, he noted.

Playing both sides of the fence

Norway:

New software subscription fees that Microsoft has imposed on its customers has fed interest among Norway's government agencies and schools in open source software. Few tests of the Linux operating system or other open source products have taken place. However, there is talk among public agencies and school officials to investigate ways it could use such software, said Fred Arne Odegaard, assistant IT consultant with Norway's Department for Trade and Industry. The country is also waiting for more direction from the European Union, which is set to present what it calls the eEurope plan later this month, which will include discussions on open source, Odegaard said. Some issues that could stand in the way of open source adoption in Norway include security and vendor-level support, he said.

U.K.:

An increase in licensing fees for Microsoft software pushed the U.K.'s Office of Government Commerce (OGC) into negotiations with the software maker to lower the cost of desktop software used by nearly 500,000 government employees. Microsoft agreed to new terms with the U.K, which is expected to save tax payers there a reported $150 million over three years. Still, the government is allowing individual departments to acquire open source software in place of Microsoft products, according to an OGC spokesman. Separately, the U.K. police force embarked on a study in January to test Linux for use on its 60,000 desktops used by police officers in England and Wales.

I pledge allegiance

[freerangegeek]

I pledge allegiance to the OS of the Corporation of Microsoft, and to the monopoly for which it stands. One corporation, under Bill, with proprietary injustice for all.

I DON'T CARE!

[Anonymous Coward]

I *really* don't care what government decides to waste its money on (after all, if it wasn't Java applets, it would be platinum toilet seats or silver cigars).

But I do care when government sponsored research into software is used by companies to make >hella money. Last I fucking checked, I didn't give Sun/MS/etc all my damn tax dollars to make them richer. The fags. I want that research GPL'ed so that I know its available, that I, as a tax payer who paid for the R&D gets the benifits, and that it can be made even better by the world (and thus can help my government/business/whore house/drug house,etc).

Actually, quite the opposite is true.

[Anonymous Coward]

But I do care when government sponsored research into software is used by companies to make money.

Actually, quite the opposite is true. In the real world, real people have to charge real money for the products they peddle. Most GPL'ed software comes out of government labs [like JPL], or educational institutions [like MIT, or CMU] that are heavily subsidized by the taxpayer. If Dubyah and Congress really gave a rat's ass, they'd require all government funded software to be released under the BSD license, not the GPL.

Re:Actually, quite the opposite is true.

[littlerubberfeet]

BSD license?
BSD= Berkeley software distribution, ergo, you want those 'hippy nuts' at berkeley to own it all?

or do you mean BSD= baseline system description?
or perhaps Blue Screen of Death, now that would be bad

Re:Actually, quite the opposite is true.

[Anonymous Coward]

>they'd require all government funded software to be released under the BSD license, not the GPL.

That's fine, as I'm sure that if the government decided to do this often enough, RMS would just create an improved-but-GPL fork of the BSD programs.

Re:Actually, quite the opposite is true.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most GPL'ed software comes out of government labs [like JPL], or educational institutions [like MIT, or CMU] that are heavily subsidized by the taxpayer

BS, where do you get that from?

Re:Actually, quite the opposite is true.

[Anonymous Coward]

uhm... why license it at all? just drop it into the public domain. any type of license introduces some restrictions on how the public can use it.

Re:Actually, quite the opposite is true.

[ichimunki]

This is plain nonsense. Give me five examples of government funded software that are licensed as GPL directly upon their release (note that there is nothing to stop *me* from taking public domain/BSD-licensed software, altering and releasing the new version under the GPL-- same as a corporation can take that public domain/BSD-licensed software and incorporate it into a proprietary product).

Furthermore you have not remotely refuted the assertion that the government *should* GPL all their software. Not that I agree, since the public domain/BSD license still only allows companies to charge for adding incremental value to software. That is, if a company takes a piece of public software and adds to it, the price they can charge is the value of their additions, since the non-value-added version is available to me for free.

Re:Actually, quite the opposite is true.

[Arandir]

Furthermore you have not remotely refuted the assertion that the government *should* GPL all their software.

Here's one refutation: Microsoft, Sun, Apple, et al, also paid for that research. By placing the software under an unrestricted license like BSD or MIT, everyone who paid for the software gets to use it for any purpose.

Re:Actually, quite the opposite is true.

[belroth]

Sun and Apple use and release GPL software.
MS have paid no taxes so they get no consideration.

Re:Actually, quite the opposite is true.

[Anonymous Coward]

MS have paid no taxes so they get no consideration.

A myth.

Re:Actually, quite the opposite is true.

[deranged unix nut]

So, the 40k MS employees don't pay federal income tax?

Besides, I suspect that MS does pay quite a few taxes even if they have wiggled out of some.

Re:Actually, quite the opposite is true.

[GrenDel Fuego]

I believe he meant BSD license.

http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.h tm l

Re:Actually, quite the opposite is true.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, but we weren't talking about the employees. We're talking about the individual known as the Microsoft corporation. Since corporations are considered to have the rights of individuals (Thanks Supremes!), they should have to pay taxes too. Since Microsoft paid no taxes, then I don't see why it should have any say whatsoever in how publicly funded software is distributed. Most counter-arguments run into the stupidity of considering corporations as individuals. Unfortunately that doesn't seem likely to change.

Re:Actually, quite the opposite is true.

[Malcontent]

No they can use the GPLed stuff if they want.

Re:Actually, quite the opposite is true.

[caspper69]

Bunch of fscking idiots. According to their SEC filings, Microsoft (the Corporation) paid $1.468B dollars in Federal Income Taxes in 2001.

This is far from *none* and even further from the amount you, your family, and the entire OSS community will EVER contribute.

Good day!

Re:Actually, quite the opposite is true.

[ichimunki]

Um, as soon as I said that I went on to refute the notion myself.

The main problem with your assertion that Microsoft, Sun, Apple, etc paid for that research and therefore should be able to use it is that others have also paid for it, but the research is of particular use to existing software firms. That they have the possibility to use subsidized research (whether they've helped subsidize it and in what proportion is not relevant, what's relevant is that they weren't the only financial backers) to create a profit is a concern.

However, it's a concern that is easily answered. Suppose research project Z is produced and put into the public domain. As Z, it costs the users of the world $0 to get the utility of Z (UZ). If a company comes along and works with the free code available for Z and produces a product called Z+a, then presumably the utility of Z+a is UZ+ua. Perhaps the price is raised to $0+$a. So what? If I am content to get utility of UZ, I can pay $0. If I want utility UZ+ua, then I must pay the additional $a. In any case, the company cannot charge more than the market will bear for utility ua itself, because that is the only value they have added to the package and consumers will presumably know they can get marginally less utility at no cost.

Besides, as I said before, there is nothing to stop a Free Software developer from taking the same public domain package and adding to it, then relicensing his or her resulting work (U+f) with the GPL. The developer has therefore added utility (uf) so that the overall utility is UZ+uf. But instead of changing the price to $0+$f, the developer simply changes the license to ensure that anyone who wants to obtain utility uf must abide by the GPL. Which means that the company cannot make (UF+uz)+ua and keep ua proprietary.

Either way, the public has only paid for U and has received utility ua. If U were only available under terms such that a company making U+a had to essentially give away the utility ua, then except as a charitable act, no company would ever use resources to develop U+a.

well considering

[OklaKid]

that the cost of WinXP & OfficeXP is more than most people make in a year in *some of these countrys can you blame them... plus who want to locked in to a propriatory OS & applications that do not play well with other platforms and be dependant on one company for any patches & updates, M$FT & other propriatory OSs & software is just not worth it... OpenSource is the only way to go, it is the future of computing...

GMAFB

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate it when I hear this line of reasoning. What do you think happens when gov't funded software is used my commercial companies? They sell products, which means they employ people to do more development, ship packages, provide online support, etc., and those people pay taxes.

My guess is that every dollar spent by the gov't on software development that gets used commercially (as opposed to all software expenditures) returns many times that in the long run in taxes, not to mention the general benefit of improving employment.

But, no, that would be too open minded and long term a view for the slashdot crowd, so instead we'll just sit around mommy's and daddy's house, using their computer to surf the net, and bitching about the big old nasty gov't that's always doing the wrong thing with our tax dollars.

Re:GMAFB

[Dark Paladin]

Or I can take the software and use it in my business instead of paying the $$$ for development, I can contribute to it to make it better (and use other people's contributions for the same).

Now that $$$ I'm *not* spending on development can be spent on more employees, admins, maybe even a developer just to get in the pieces I need.

IT Depts usually do not *make* money, they *save* companies money, increase efficiency, and safeguard/provide data. Just because I don't *sell* a product doesn't mean that my *service* isn't just as valuable - or just as marketable.

Re:GMAFB

[jedidiah]

Companies don't need to act like they own a bit of software to re-use it in a modular fashion. There is infact nothing keeping all publically funded source code from remaining open while simultaneously being exploited by commercial interests. The only thing the Copyleft actually prevents is the easy creation of slightly incompatible interfaces with little or no investment on the part of the would-be Robber Baron.

Those of us that have actually moved out into the world realize this. Most "code for profit" companies actually depend a great deal on code and modules that they can't merely steal and treat as their own property.

To most coding shops, dealing with the LGPL is no more burdensome than dealing with Microsoft licenses.

Re:GMAFB

[albanac]

Unfortunately, in most companies, your service is *not* valued *or* marketed. It's *assumed*. In the same way that a guy who comes round to fill the water cooler is assumed. IT is something that is just supposed to exist. IT engineers are people who fix your IT. Very few manglement, (90% of whom seem to be salesmen by profession... ) have ever actually wondered what the hell they mean by IT.

~cHris

MS fees in United Kingdom excessive?!

[fortunatus]

in general i support _both_ MS and open source OS choices - i feel that Microsoft's level of integration in their products is well worth a maintenance fee. but the article mentioned that the UK negotiated a savings of $150,000,000 over three years for 500,000 seats: that's $100 a year per seat savings, which means the fee was well over $100/year! that seems like a HUGE fee!! $5, or even $20 a seat/year would be more like it!

at that rate they won't keep me on their good side...

Re:MS fees in United Kingdom excessive?!

[abdulwahid]

which means the fee was well over $100/year! that seems like a HUGE fee!! $5, or even $20 a seat/year would be more like it!

I don't think that your conclusion is right for following reasons:

1. A typical seat would not only involve an OS (probably something like Windows XP or NT4 client because Windows 9x/Me don't give the necessary security and control a big establishment needs) but it would also involve things like MS Office Proffesional, MS Publisher and perhaps Visio, Project, Anti-virus software etc. All of these cost big bucks.
2. On top of that, you would need file servers and database servers that are going to supply the core office functionality. Now we are talking hefty license fees. For 500,000 seats, we are talking a lot of servers.
3. You have to have people to manage the licenses which for 500,000 seats is a full time job.

As a result, the $100 a seat is quite realistic when you take everything into account.

Re:MS fees in United Kingdom excessive?!

[Anne Thwacks]

For that money, you could easily hire the country's top 1,000 IT consultants for 3 years to develop a UKBSD, with all the apps the govt would ever need.

Currently, 333 of those IT professionals are probably unemployed anyway, so you would be saving their dole money.

And thats from the SAVINGS, after 3 years, you'd never pay B Gates another dime.

Clearly its FAR TOO MUCH.In fact, there is NO QUESTION AT ALL, that the government are guilty of gross neglect of duty paying MS for its appalling crap when we could have British Appalling Crap (TM).

Enough with GNU/Linux

[mcspock]

I'm sorry, i can't stand it when people call Linux GNU/Linux. I fail to see why people feel the need to bow to RMS's ego; the GNU utilities are primarily rewrites of existing utilities, not innovative new technologies. All the comparisons of lines of code are pointless - the kernel is one single chunk, making it much much more complex to work with than any of the hundreds of GNU utilities packages in the standard distro.

Seriously, if you are going to start referring to it as GNU/Linux, you should change your website's name to Apache/Slashdot; maybe you should start telling people who use slashcode that they have to have 'Slash/' at the beginning of their website name. It's just as retarded.

Re:Enough with GNU/Linux

[kyoko21]

I guess people take the name 'gnu' for granted. The 'real' GNU/Linux is Debian. But it's just a name, and a name for a distribution.

Re:Enough with GNU/Linux

[fr2asbury]

Well, personally I don't often refer to Linux as GNU/Linux, but I'm not about to tell someone else that they can't.

Cheers,
Jonathan

Re:Enough with GNU/Linux

[fortunatus]

yeah! RMS's got a stick up his -- well, he seems not to be able to relax. i blow my nose on kleenex - even though it's actually Weyerhauser Hygenic Paper Products Facial Tissue... after, all who doesn't know that GNU gave it all to Linux? who doesnt' type "gcc" to compile on Linux? you'd think success would be enough...

Re:Enough with GNU/Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again for the idiots:

LINUX WOULD NOT EXIST WITHOUT THE WORK OF STALLMAN AND OTHERS CREATING THE GNU TOOLS NECESSARY FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF LINUX!

To call it anything but Gnu/Linux shows extreme ignorance of the platform and open source software in general.

Only clueless idiots will fail to call it Gnu/Linux.

Re:Enough with GNU/Linux

[fortunatus]

once again for the idiots:

WE ALREADY KNOW LINUX OWES IT ALL TO STALLMAN AND THE FREE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION!!

no need to be mad about folks calling it what they want to. i'm sure Canon doesn't like office workers calling Canon copiers "xeroxes", but there's nothing you can do - it's the way human language functions.

Linux has been a great part of Stallman's tremendous success in his goal of promulgating Free software. i think he's the one that needs to embrace reality about the name, and realize that we are already grateful to him (and so many others) even though we use "Linux" to refer to GNU systems with the Linux kernel.

Re:Enough with GNU/Linux

[mcspock]

True, i'm not about to mail timothy personally and tell him to change his ways, i just get annoyed and deterred when i see the GNU/Linux name. It's like it wasn't enough for RMS that the linux kernel was released under the GPL and was a major catalyst for open source in general.

Re:Enough with GNU/Linux

[samael]

The Kernel is somehow innovative? I could have sworn it was deliberately a recreation of unix kernels.

Re:Enough with GNU/Linux

[infiniti99]

The problem is that the term "Linux" is too loose. It could mean anything! My 486 router box runs Linux, as does my desktop and my Sharp Zaurus. These 3 systems are used in totally different ways.

If anyone asks, I say the router is running Slackware 7.1, my desktop runs KDE, and my Zaurus runs Qtopia. I have been known to say "KDE/Linux", but I only append the term "Linux" at the end as a form of credit. Practically speaking, the kernel itself is largely irrelevant on my KDE box. For all anyone knows, I could be running FreeBSD.

I had used the term "GNU/Linux" long before I heard RMS might have anything to do with it. I use it because it better describes the system, not because I am bowing down to anyone.

Re:Enough with GNU/Linux

[mcspock]

I would agree that the initial effort was to recreate existing unix kernels; there's a lot of baseline functionality that is common to most any OS, so there will be nothing innovative about that. However, as the kernel grows and the complexity of various problems increases, the level of original thought (such as that put into the VM system) increases, which is what i was trying to get at with the 'innovative' comment.

Re:Enough with GNU/Linux

[MSG]

For many of those who use the term GNU/Linux, it's not about credit, but accuracy.

Personally, I try to always say what I mean:
GNU when I'm talking about the user tools, usually in contrast to the BSD tools.
Linux when I'm referring specifically to a kernel capability.
Red Hat Linux when I discuss the distribution I use, and the features thereof.
GNU/Linux when I'm talking about GNU/Linux systems in general.

Linux by itself does not fulfill the requirements of a UNIX operating system. GNU/Linux does.

When you understand the term GNU/Linux as the full name of a UNIX platform, rather than an ego-stroking byline, you can see that suggestions like "Apache/Slashdot" aren't valid criticisms.

Re:Enough with GNU/Linux

[kiris]

**DISCLAIMER -- Debian user**

Your argument is riddled with holes. First, let's start with the backend. The websites are, just that, websites. The webmasters are the ones who provide the content and therefore the naming priority is with them.

Now, about the GNU utilities. They are indeed rewrites, but they do expand on some of the old utilities in many ways. Heck, info pages make things a lot more friendlier.

But on a final note, if you really don't like the whole GNU/Linux thing, then use just linux and forget about the whole argument. See how far you can get.

Re:Enough with GNU/Linux

[Anne Thwacks]

if you really don't like the whole GNU/Linux thing, then use just linux and forget about the whole argument. See how far you can get.

Try using BSD without GNU for that matter.

Thats not the whole story though. There are zillions of versions of tar/grep/*sh/etc around. I have written quite a few myself in the past. We are all happier using the gnu ones, not cos their better but because standards are a good thing, and Gnu stuff is already ported.

Gnu HAS made a major contribution to computing, but the reality is that the only important Gnu contribution is gcc, and gcc is infested with RMS rants. Sure there are zillions of other Unix utilities, but there is no real NEED for most of them, as there are plenty of public domain alternatives. This cannot be said for gcc. RMS/GNU have made a contribution, and are entitiled to credit, but RMS is over stating his case, and alienating the people that matter.

Re:Enough with GNU/Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Hehe /Slash.... SlashSlash....

Hehe....

Re:Enough with GNU/Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

> Linux by itself does not fulfill the requirements of a UNIX operating system. GNU/Linux does.

Linux by itself does qualify as an OS, with file system, memory management, process management, and drivers. We studied this stuff in the first OS class.

a "UNIX system" is more than just the OS. It's all these utilities, libraries, and API's too.

You are correct, GNU is UNIX.

Re:Enough with GNU/Linux

[DA-MAN]

> a "UNIX system" is more than just the OS. It's all these utilities, libraries, and API's too.

> You are correct, GNU is UNIX

Hrmm, how in the hell is GNU Unix?!?! to quote the first line from www.gnu.org, "GNU is not Unix!". GIU just doesn't look as cool as GNU.

Re:Enough with GNU/Linux

[el_chicano]

Heck, info pages make things a lot more friendlier.

Info pages suck -- I prefer "old school" man pages myself.

Anyway, if you are going to the trouble to format your help pages why not just use HTML instead?

Secrecy is a BIG problem: See this link.

[Futurepower(R)]

If you look at stories from the best news sources that are collected at this link, I think you will agree that secrets cause more harm than good: What Should be the Response to Violence?

The stories say, basically, that if there were less secrecy, there would be far fewer reasons to have bombs.

Re:Secrecy is a BIG problem: See this link.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please post a list of all your usernames and passwords (and don't forget to tell which site/box each of them belong to).

Penguin Prostitutes

[Anonymous Coward]

Practitioners of the oldest profession have been found at work on the icy shores of Antarctica plying their trade in a dress of black and white feathers - they are penguin prostitutes.

The first recorded examples of bird prostitution have been observed in colonies of Adelie penguins on Ross Island, about 800 miles from the South Pole, by Dr Fiona Hunter of Cambridge University and Dr Lloyd Davis of the University of Otago, supported by the New Zealand Antarctic Programme.

They observed how male Adelies pay for sexual favours with rocks and stones, a limited resource that can prove crucial for the survival of broods. In no other bird have such extra-marital exchanges been recorded, said Dr Hunter, a post-doctoral researcher who has made annual visits to Antarctica to study their sex life.

She described how, at the start of the breeding season, the penguins hunt for stones. Once all the loose rocks have been collected, they attempt to peck them out of the frozen mud to construct a nest platform, crucial to keep eggs high and dry above mud and chilly melt water.

Stones are so valuable that they will steal them from each other, though they risk being attacked by the owners of the hard currency. In the journal Auk, Drs Hunter and Davis describe how females have developed another strategy: they lure nearby male penguins for sex in exchange for the rocks. "Females have figured out that one way to steal the stones without being attacked is to swap copulations for them," said Dr Hunter.

They slip away from their partner and wander over to the nest of an unpaired male. Standard courtship follows, with a dip of the head and a coy look from the corner of her eye. If he shows interest, she will lie prone which, in the language of penguin love, is an invitation to mate or carry out what the scientists call "extra-pair copulation".

Once mating is over, the female picks up her payment, a stone, and carries it to her nesting platform. Sometimes their customers are so satisfied that the females can return for second helpings of stones, without having to offer more sex. Other females found that a little courtship was enough to persuade a male to allow them to play with a rock, then cart it away. One especially teasing female managed to collect 62 stones this way, said Dr Hunter. "The males were probably duped into thinking that she was a possible partner."

The zoologists are now analysing the benefits of penguin whoredom. While the male may lose some of his rocks, he gains the possibility of fathering extra chicks. The benefits to the females are less clear. "I don't think that she is just after his stones," said Dr Hunter. "Perhaps the female mates with an extra male for another reason, say to increase the quality or genetic variability of her offspring. This seems reasonable given that not all males actually father the chicks they help to rear."

Another reason for seeking male company could be to form a relationship with a potential mate for the next season if her partner dies. The team is now planning another trip to the frozen continent to uncover more details of the penguin's complicated love life.

Word 2.0 is Processor of Kings

[Anonymous Coward]

By the time I had Word 2.0 all figured out, I'd gone through as many wives as Larry King, my hair looked like Don King, and I was as articulate as the Scorpion King.

You know..

[mindstrm]

saying "Countries deciding" is kind of misleading.

Government, as an office/business that needs to use computers & software, is debating using Linux.

Saying it's "Countries" makes it sound like countries are passing laws requiring EVERYONE to use it.

Finnish initiatives

[magi]

The article mentioned a few developments in Finland.

There's also a newer one, made by a member of Finnish parliament Kyösti Karjula (Center Party):

"Member of Parliament Kyösti Karjula and three other members have made an initiative for the government to take practical measures towards to adopt the Linux operating system in public administration. According to the members, the advantages of Linux are financial savings and better security than in Windows.

'There is also a significant technology political reason for changing over to Linux, because a system based on open source makes it possible to advance [Finnish] know-how. ...' " (references to German decision, etc.)

In December 2001, the IT Department of City of Turku published their final report on adopting OpenOffice and Linux for the city computer systems. The report takes a "negative" approach, listing the problems encountered, so it's rather interesting read. In the conclusions, they recommended the adoption of OpenOffice and Linux, and to proceed with an extended study and a pilot period.

Turku (my home city) has a population of about 160,000 and the city has about 3000 computers. However, if Turku adopts Linux, dozens of the surrounding small (and large) munincipalities will follow.

How about one of these

[Target Drone]

You forgot "indivisible." Windows isn't modular, remember? :)

I pledge allegiance to Windows XP,
and to the operating system for which it stands,
one software, indivisible
with Internet Explorer for all.

Or the alternate form...

I pledge allegiance to Microsoft
and the Monopoly for which it stands
one indivisible OS, bundled w/o Netscape,
with Windows and Internet Explorer for all.

Re:How about one of these

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this really that amusing?

Re:How about one of these

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this really that amusing?

Not really, and who the hell wants to run Nutscrape on Windoze in this day and age for Christ's sake??

Re:How about one of these

[Anonymous Coward]

yes

Re:How about one of these

[Anonymous Coward]

Your use of mis-spelling really proves your point.

Re:How about one of these

[Anonymous Coward]

Feel free to suckle my penis at your earliest convenience. Once your mother is done swallowing a couple gallons of my spunk, of course.

Re:How about one of these

[Anonymous Coward]

It is for those of us who have an education and can think for ourselves and didn't spend lots of $$$ on some stupid MCSE so we could RTFM....

Re:How about one of these

[Simon Garlick]

What crackhead moderator gave this "-1 Redundant"?

Re:How about one of these

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't do 3" penises but thanks for the offer.

Choice isn't necessarily a good thing

[jcsehak]

I think I am glad that the computing world really offers OS choices as it once did so many years ago.

Not me. I'd be happy with the Windows monopoly, if it was open-source. Imagine if Windows was the only OS that existed. The computing world would be slow, full of security holes and crash often right? But now imagine if Windows was open-source. I'm sure it'd be as tight as Linux by now. And life would be a lot easier--software developers would have to code and test less and get a larger audience, there'd be no more platform arguments in the office, no more "how many times do I have to tell you to send .rtf, I can't read .doc!" As an Apple user, I've been having cross-platform issues since I first touched a mouse. I would love to see the world using only one OS. But only if it was free and open, of course.

Re:Choice isn't necessarily a good thing

[Anonymous Coward]

> send .rtf, I can't read .doc!
> I would love to see the world using only one OS.
> But only if it was free and open
>
Your reason is a valid one, but your "solution" isn't. Rather than having just one way to do it, so that there won't be compatibility problems with the 2nd, the 3rd etc. way, I'd much rather see one common and open *standard* for a given task. Namely file formats. Just as with W3C HTML, there should be one common standardized file format for Wordprocessing, for spreadsheets etc.. Only then do users have the choice among many different products, that each handle it in their own way, but are compatible nevertheless because they all speak the same "language". Kinda like trains...no matter what company you order your locomotives from, they'll all have the same width of track.

MS Shared Source Program

[thasmudyan]

As part of the program, the Austrian government is allowed access to the Windows XP source code. Program benefits, according to Microsoft, include better understanding of the technical underpinnings of the operating system, better protection against security vulnerabilities and a resource for writing custom applications.

And yet within other context they say that publishing source code (e.g. as in Open Source) is a huge security risk!
And aren't all three points originally part of the Open Source agenda? And didn't they say that while based on closed source the Windows API is supposed to be so very comprehensive and well documented that it's allegedly no problem for other software vendors to develop their own products (antitrust trial)?

Apocalypse...now?

[Helmholtz Coil]

Don't worry, it all works out in the end...

Daniel 11:40
And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him: and the King of the North(west) shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall (buffer)overflow and pass over.

Who knew?

Government administrators set the standards.

[Futurepower(R)]

"You make the mistake of assuming that Government workers are making these programs."

Government administrators don't write the programs, they set the standards for what is used and what is written.

Few and many, FUD and FUD.

[Anonymous Coward]

The general consensus is that Linux users Microsoft users. Perhaps it shouldn't be labelled a consensus, because it's pure unadulterated fact.

Some people seem to have paid for their copies of MS Windows with their brains, though. Look at the exponential growth in Linux usage. Look at companies rallying 'round a certain red fedora.

To say that Linux isn't 'popular' is such utter stupidity that it actually manages to escape fitting words to describe it.

To say that Linux isn't in a position to threaten Microsoft is also foolhardy. Already, many small companies use Linux for mail serving, firewalls, et cetera. And many large companies are jumping ship as well. Some might say that this hurts other Unixes more. Feh. Every box that isn't running NT or 2k is money that Microsoft isn't making.

Fud. Ah, such a glorious word. We all know Microsoft sleeps, eats and breathes it. But few seem to realize that Linux users and corporations do the same.

Let's get this straight: Linux is not, and never will be, the answer to everything.

Let people use what they feel best suits their needs, be it Linux, be it a Microsoft OS, be it something else. Or would you cry about freedom, while forcing everyone to use one single operating system?

I suppose I shouldn't worry about that path, though. No amount of foaming zealotry will ever convince a company to deploy Linux. Do you know why companies deploy Linux-based boxes?

Because it suits their needs and distributions tend to include some damned high quality software.

US is victim of ill eagle FUDgePacking scam

[Anonymous Coward]

that's write, in a GNU report justin issued buy the Tux de Linuxville Foundation, the kingdumb's ill eagle payper liesense bugwear is being rejected en masse bye the the glowbull ecomommy, with the US trailing weigh behind doo to so much FraUDuleNT corruption buy "our" lamo fuderal gov't., whois a puppet of the naykid furor, .asp well .asp those felons over at wall street of deceit.

see ALL the details (eXcePt anything about this massive stock markup FraUD) tonite on the blather at 6.5 b.m..

Argentina

[InodoroPereyra]

The IDG overview does not mention Argentina. There is a fairly big movement, and a new bill has been introduced to congress (the old one expired).

Re:Argentina

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent!!! This is good for the country and I hope the new proposition becomes a law. Good luck.

Stupid White Man = Michael Moore

[Anonymous Coward]

Read "Stupid White Men" by Michael Moore. Then Check his refrences to be sure he is actually telling the truth. I think youll find you may be somewhat incorrect with reguards to the Supreme Court decision

He's a boob, clear and simple. He backed Darth Nader, then goes and says that Bush got fewer votes than "his side". Moore is a humorist, sometimes funny. Don't expect anything like fact from him. His book would ring true if it included stuff about some of the stupidest white men around today: Chomksy and Nader. Hmmmm.

Re:Stupid White Man = Michael Moore

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Moore devotes an entire Epilogue to the issue of his support for Nader. It isn't as simple as you would appear to think.

Thankfully I don't live in the US, but some of things that were done to the electrol rolls in Florida were just downright scary. I hope nothing like that ever happens in any election I care about!

Mostly Schools and Universities

[WillSeattle]

When you get down to where the most change is happening, worldwide, it's in the educational system, which appears to be jumping ship from MSFT to Open Source (BSD, Linux) in droves.

Think of the list of countries and look at where the largest number of seats and shift has occurred - and it's schools and universities.

MSFT has dug it's own grave in this respect, and have only themselves to blame.

-

Microsoft World?

[mikerackhabit]

From the article:
>It cited compatibility problems, namely among users trying to receive Microsoft World documents.(emphasis mine)

Gad, I hope this guy doesn't have an inside on The Next Big Thing from microsoft that I don't. I suppose it'll be Microsoft Galaxy documents in a few years too. Or a Freudian slip perhaps?

The left hand should speak to the right hand...

[Soko]

Whoa! Bill should pay attention to what his marketdriods say. To wit:

Austria:

One of Microsoft's flagship government customers, the Federal Ministry of the Interior in Austria, is the first government body in Europe to become a member of Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative. As part of the program, the Austrian government is allowed access to the Windows XP source code. Program benefits, according to Microsoft, include better understanding of the technical underpinnings of the operating system, better protection against security vulnerabilities and a resource for writing custom applications.

*blink* Wha...? *blink*

Microsoft admits - in full view of the world - that having access to the source improves the security and useability of an Operating System. Didn't some two bit think tank outfit just say that having access to the source was bad?

That's a keeper if there ever was one - Microsoft just made the case for Free Software in spite of itself.

Soko

Re:The left hand should speak to the right hand...

[peddrenth]

Damn. Well noticed. Although according to microsoft, having access to the source code gives Austria enough knowledge to cause unspeakable damage to other users of windows (reference: the Ms/DoJ testimony), so I suppose this gives Austria a military advantage over any U.S. departments dim enough to use Ms/Windows software...

Interesting

Re:The left hand should speak to the right hand...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a big difference between giving the source code to an operating system to a government institution and making it available to every twit, idiot and moron with an itch to wreak havoc.

Microsoft's claims that having access to the source is bad is only in respect to everyone having access to the source. Major universities have had access to MS source for YEARS!

Re:The left hand should speak to the right hand...

[aaarrrgggh]

giving the source code to ... every twit, idiot, and moron...

Sounds a lot like most of the government institutions I have seen... ;)

Re:The left hand should speak to the right hand...

[inerte]

It also gives USA a head over other countries, if they ever want the source.

Couldn't an argument like "MS, look. Terrorists are using Windows, give me the source" be used?

Two things:

1) Under North American new laws and current enviroment, looks like it can happen;

2) Bush likes corporations so it won't mess with MS.

Re:The left hand should speak to the right hand...

[tshak]

This type of thing has been going on with Univiersities and countries for quite some time, however, the license is restricted. The "two bit" article you mentioned is based on the GPL, and how you may be forced to release sensative code if you intermingled it with GPL'd code. This is not on the contrary to MS Shared Source, which allows you to read "the vast majority" of the source code. Both .NET, and WindowsXP (both "open source") do not have 100% of their source as readable via shared source, as certain "critical but not usefull to the end-user" parts have been intentionally left out.

Re:The left hand should speak to the right hand...

[sarastro]

Austria's minister of the interior answered a parliamentary question with the following information:

• the ministry cannot ensure that the code corresponds to the operating system
• presently, three employees of the ministry have access to the source
• access is not available on a tape or such but only over the internet, protected by a chip card and pin code
• the ministry does not intend to investigate security relevant parts of the operating system
• the ministry does not expect improvements in the security of the 'shared source' systems, compared to previously used systems (NT4)

To me the kind of access offered by Microsoft seems pretty useless since searches for malicious code patterns, cross-correlations of code, and other important analysis jobs probably cannot be done by those means.

Note that this application is apparently a closed internal system without direct connection from outside. XP might be safe enough for that :-)

Re:The left hand should speak to the right hand...

[Brendor]

Dr. Bill Gates: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Dr. Steve Balmer: What?
Dr. Bill Gates: Don't release the source.
Dr. Steve Balmer: Why?
Dr. Bill Gates: It would be bad.
Dr. Steve Balmer: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean "bad"?
Dr. Bill Gates: Try to imagine the Windows monopoly and the city of Redmond stopping instantaneously and every dollar in your bank account exploding at the speed of litigation.
Dr. Paul Allen: Total portfolio reversal.
Dr. Steve Balmer: That's bad. Okay. Alright, important safety tip, thanks Bill.

FYI

[T3kno]

# telnet www.lp.org 80
GET /index.html HTTP/1.1
Host: www.lp.org
Blah...
Server: Apache 1.3.23 (Unix) PHP/4.1.2
More Blah

# telnet www.democrats.org
GET /index.html HTTP/1.1
Host: www.democrats.org
Blah...
Server: Apache/1.3.22 (Unix) mod_perl/1.26
More Blah

# telnet www.gop.org 80
GET /index.html HTTP/1.1
Host: www.gop.org
Blah...
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
More Blah

What does this proove? That all three parties do what they say they will do. The libertarians dont want to spend money on proprietary software because they believe in absolute freedom for each and every person.

The democrats use free software because they hate big corporations and want communism. I have heard open source software described as being communistic in nature, and I dont entirely disagree.

The republicans are rich, like big companies, and like to support big companies. True capatalists, not nessecarily a bad thing.

My vote goes to the Libertarian Pary. Just my $0.02.

Re:FYI

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, this proves nothing. The three parties you listed could have their web pages hosted by web-hosting companies. The Libertarian and Democrats could have just chosen some local ISP and they use some form of unix which could be Solaris, AIX, Tru64 or some other form of unix. Those commercial versions of unix are just as propetary as MS Windows is. The Rebublicans could have chosen an ISP that uses Windows. The head of those parties probably don't pick which OS they have their web-pages hosted on. Whomever they hire as web developers may choose it, or they might not even care. I'm not saying that which OS they use wasn't selected for reasons close to the ideology of the party, but it easily could not have been.

Re:FYI

[Arandir]

What does this prove?

It proves nothing. I seriously doubt that the chairman of the GOP specified IIS, or the chairman of the Dems specied Apache. I suspect, instead, that either their webmaster, or their web hosting service, made that decision for them.

p.s. Go find out what OS is running www.stallman.org. It wasn't GNU/Linux last time I checked. Again, proves nothing.

First Linux is Dying Post

[Stock Quote Troll]

The following information wanted to be free:

The Pro-Linux Camp is HURTING!

Sun Microsystems is down 0.12.

Another Good Day for America

Luckily Microsoft (MSFT) is up by 0.61. This is obviously good for the economy and our country. Microsoft obviously is against all open sores software and is being rewarded for it's choices. Amazon.Com, Inc. (AMZN) is up by 0.15 today. Record scores of open sores users who pirate legitimate intellectual properties from Amazon.Com, Inc. have been caught and are facing jail time. One only hopes that they are not thrown into the slammer with RMS. After a weak start, Vivendi Universal's stock (V) price got a boost from data released by IDC about the number of Linux installations - they went down which is great news! Currently V is trading up 0.65 at 29.30.

This is a no brainer descision.

[Misuta Supakulo]

This should be really simple. Microsoft has already said itself that some of its code is so broken and vulnerable that it would endanger national security to reveal the source. Now, given the option of going with A) open source code you can review yourself (and believe me, a government has the resources to do a fairly complete critical review of all the code they need) or B) code you know is insecure and that comes with zero guarantees about that level of insecurity, the choice is so blindingly obvious it doesn't need further explication. Heck, even after a patch, upgrade, version change, complete code rewrite, whatever, without the code you're still going on MS's word as to whether it's really secure or not. Considering their track record, I wouldn't trust 'em.

This is a profit war.

[SHEENmaster]

I started my first job yesterday, and I am forced to use Windos at work. My employer is wasting thousands of dollars in M$ licensing fees. His server crashes 3-4 times a day, and my workstation crashes even more often. How can you still say that that fits anyone's needs?

Why waste money on an inferior product? Why lose money because of that investmenet?

Too many windows users are convinced that it is s better choice because more people use it. They are relying on the opinions of people as clueless as themselves. I have used both operating systems. I know that unix is superior to windows, and I know that linux is the best unix available.

This is a war of profits, yes.

But more importantly, this is a war about ignorance.

Re:This is a profit war.

[YrWrstNtmr]

I started my first job yesterday, and I am forced to use Windos at work. My employer is wasting thousands of dollars in M$ licensing fees. His server crashes 3-4 times a day, and my workstation crashes even more often.

You need better admins, plain and simple. I can't remember the last time my Win2k workstation crashed.

Re:This is a profit war.

[silicon_synapse]

I started my first job yesterday, and I am forced to use Windos at work. My employer is wasting thousands of dollars in M$ licensing fees. His server crashes 3-4 times a day, and my workstation crashes even more often. How can you still say that that fits anyone's needs?

If your workstation crashes that often, you've got some serious configuration problems somewhere. Windows isn't perfect, but it has its uses. Personally, I think Windows is great for many applications. It's Microsoft I hate, not Windows.

Re:This is a profit war.

[Anne Thwacks]

Why waste money on an inferior product? Why lose money because of that investmenet? YOu might want to look up "payola" in your dictionary.

Re:This is a profit war.

[Qrlx]

His server crashes 3-4 times a day, and my workstation crashes even more often

It sounds like you don't have any admins at all. This is all too often the case, esp at a small company. You don't think your car can run forever without taking it to the shop, do you? Get a experienced professional to come in for four hours a week and whup things into shape.

Side note: By "server" do you mean the box everyone refers to as "the server" even though it's a Pentium 60 running Windows 95? That could be your problem...

Re:This is a profit war.

[DrakeX]

In partial defence of the newly employed one:

when i got into the industry about five years ago - with absolutely no formal introduction or experience with computers, I too went the way of windows. Since such time, I have done ongoing contract work for a local school division, was employed by the local college and am now a sysadmin for a ever growing health district. I have configured and administered Linux (whatever flavor) -> Novel -> UNIX (Solaris) -> Mac? -> MS Windows.

At the Workstation end, I like Window 2000 (very stable) especially since workstation users typically only use one or two apps - ever. At the server side though, I am LINUX all the way. it uses fewer resources; its better adaptable to multi-platform networks; no need to reboot for reasons other than adding/replacing hardware (Novel is the only thing i've seen with better uptimes than linux); it's also more securable and more scaleable.

I dont see Windows severs "crashing" too often but we have all seen the swap on NT fill-up (running out of virtual memory)and needing to be rebooted simply because it stops responding. thats the way of windows. Not to mention since MS' VDM, many still used DOS
apps are now utililizing 98-100% of the CPU - whats that about??

MS should stick to thier niche and improve upon that - the desktop; 'cause they're very good at it -
But they're archaically behind on the server front and should leave it to Unix/Linux.

Re:This is a profit war.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey sweet-tits.

Yeah you, twinkle-toes. Let's just prove how much you don't know.

I started my first job yesterday, and I am forced to use Windos at work. My employer is wasting thousands of dollars in M$ licensing fees. His server crashes 3-4 times a day, and my workstation crashes even more often. How can you still say that that fits anyone's needs?

Why waste money on an inferior product? Why lose money because of that investmenet?

1. I hope to God you're not a proofreader.
2. The server crashing nonsense is bullshit. You're trying to push GNU/Lunix propaganda, I can tell. If a company's server crashed that often, they wouldn't be in business.
3. Learn to spell. What do you do, work the 'computer' that's really 'a McDonalds cash register'??


Too many windows users are convinced that it is s better choice because more people use it. They are relying on the opinions of people as clueless as themselves. I have used both operating systems. I know that unix is superior to windows, and I know that linux is the best unix available.

HAHAHAHAH! I think I just wet myself laughing.

1. It is a better choice---depends on what you are doing.
2. I know that unix is superior to windows, and I know that linux is the best unix available

Uhh, no, it's not. Use the right tool for the job. Uhh, wait, nevermind, I forgot that you're a 13 year old 31337 |-|/-\x0r.

If you knew even the slightest bit about what you are trying to say here, you'd know that Linux isn't even a UNIX, so it couldn't possibly be the best available.

Now, go jerk it to pix of the Olsen twins.

Re:This is a profit war.

[Zeinfeld]

You need better admins, plain and simple. I can't remember the last time my Win2k workstation crashed.

Most likely the guy has a hardware problem. I upgraded to WindowsXP because I had a major problem with the system crashing under 98. Only to upgrade I had to ditch the 3DFX VooDoo card which was not supported by XP (company gone under).

There was a gap of about six weeks between installing the new video card and moving to XP. The system did not go down once in that time which makes me think that the 3DFX driver was the problem all along. I haven't had any problem with XP, only crashes I have ever had are due to the (unsigned) Archos device driver which brings the machine down if the device is plugged in and the batteries run down while it is in use. The crash is complegtely repeatable and I suspect will shortly be fixed by Archos.

I used to see the same thing at the AI lab. People there would suffer crashes every 3 to 4 hours on their MACs.

Backlash to M$ actions

[cpct0]

Basically, I do think it is time Microsoft gets the results of its actions.

Why was M$ so successful? Because people were pirating their software throughout the world. Everyone copied DOS for all the possible reasons (how many times did you do "format a: /s"?). Everyone copied Windows 3.0, 3.1 and 3.11 for all reasons. Then, as soon as it was made possible, everyone copied Windows 95 and 98. THIS is how they made their user base. A lack of useful protection made it possible. It wasn't encouraged but it was certainly mainstream.

And for businesses and new computers, of course, "strange" practices with agreements asking for the latest M$ software being installed on new computers made it real... not forgetting a few years ago when every computer was bundled with M$ Office.

... Yes, it's the same thing for M$ Office. Why is it so successful? Because mainly it was made available without paying, as bundled or as a copy. Because it was the "de facto" choice, everyone had it.

Now, M$ wants everyone to buy... and everyone to pay for all their software... and finding ways to inhibit/prohibit copy of their precious Windows and Office. It's fine but it won't work with people. That's why a lot of my friends still have Windows 98, Windows ME and Windows 2K. No copy protection. That's why everyone I know still have Office 2K.

The only people I know that have XP are bundled with new computers (no choice now, isn't it strange!). The only people I know that have Office XP are... mmm ... Do I know someone? Nope!

There are other arguments too... For example, I have a small company (let say I never unregistered a name, it's dead since a few years ago). I received a letter from M$ saying that I should check all my licenses for their products, that I could be screened. I _HOPE_ I am screened, simply to tell them I never bought and I never will buy any of their crappy software (I run a Powerbook G3) and they should stop bugging me. -- That is the first argument, they harass people.

There is also that unwritten law stipulating that every new computer should have a M$ sticker with its WinXP serial number on it. What is that? I imagine hell in big companies where the unscrupulous employee will simply go and get that serial number for his home, and the company's face when the serial # for that computer will stop working.

So now, companies, gov'ts and people in general are seeking ways to get rid of that cumbersome giant. If they could find a way to get rid of it, they would. Because it's simply stupid to have to buy a piece of software as costly as a XBox simply to run a machine (Windows XP)... and totally stupid to have to buy a piece of software that is also totally mainstream with a price tag as hefty as a full-featured color WinCe PDA (Office XP).

What's left with Linux to do ? It have to be tested, recognized and endorsed by the general public. One first step in my opinion would be to make a X-skin for Windows, where Windows would work precisely as your favorite X, with all the features. A full office suite should be available for that precise X-on-Windows. And it should be user-friendly (let me rephrase: dumb-friendly). Finally, it should be free and compatible.

For me, M$ are shooting themselves in the foot with all these actions. And it's not by harassing people and companies they will get the result they want. I'm sure of it.

Have a nice day
Mike

Re:Backlash to M$ actions

[MsGeek]

No copy protection. That's why everyone I know still have Office 2K.

Actually certain versions of Office 2K has Activation...after 50 uses of the software, it will shut down and tell you to activate the software. From what I understand it is easier to fool this version of activation than Office XP's version, but it's activation nonetheless.

It's actually Office 97 that you don't have to activate. Funny, it's very hard to find that at the computer fairs nowadays...;-)

Microsoft made its monopoly on easy-to-pirate software. If anything, they should loosen, rather than tighten, their "security". Get them another raftload of more hooked users.

set irony mode off.

Re:Backlash to M$ actions

[cpct0]

Precisely my point... :)

... uh, and I hope people don't think I'm for piracy. I do make (C) software myself and would be left w/o a job if only one copy was bought. I buy most of my wares and pay for the shareware I use.

I simply don't like to be treated as a thief even if legit. Innocence presumption still exists in theses countries, no? Why do M$ has to check on all the computers that are sold? Why are they checking inside companies for unlegit software? Why do I have to buy THEIR software in order to be legit? Can't I install OS2 Warp on my new P7 35GHz if I want to? If they want to be the De Facto standard, I guess they should GIVE their software with new computers, like Apple do with theirs.

... if you've made your reputation with crime, I guess you can't expect people to be legit with you when you've made your moneyload.

Have a nice day
Mike

juvenille...excuse me, serious...

[yukonbob]

with the phrase "So Microsoft's... excuse me, the AdTI's..."peppering the Roaring Penguin rebuttal, how are we (Open Source community) expected to be taken seriously? Grow up. This is like spelling Microsoft "Micro$oft". The weaknesses of the original document stand out fine enough on their own.

-yb

tee hee.

[sylvester]

Otto Schily, the German Federal Minister of the Interior, announced last Monday a deal with IBM to promote, for the pubic sector, hardware and software products that support Linux.

teee hee. [blushes like schoolgirl]

Decisions are made higher up - user's don't choose

[Anonymous Coward]

People will use whatever software that best fits their needs..choosing one thing simply because of some set belief that one is superior is dumb and p0intless.

The average person uses what they are given and do not have a choice in the matter. What to use is often decided higher up, either by goverment or by a company's board of directors. The higher-ups are where the decisions are made and decisions at this level are often not pragmatic; they are often (and need to be) forward-thinking.

Huge savings for taxpayers

[uncoveror]

If the US government would switch to open source software, it would save billions of taxpayer dollars. This should have been done the day Microsoft claimed that it's source code must remain secret because it is so flawed that revealing it could threaten national security. At my employer, we just configed a huge order of IBM desktops and notebooks for the USDA Forestry Division. Each one had Windows 2000, and other Microsoft apps. How much did all that cost American taxpayers? Way too much I am sure.

Re:Huge savings for taxpayers

[Serial Troller]

OK, so it saves billions of taxpayer dollars. Whoop-de-fucking-do. Do you actually think the people are going to get that money back? No, the billions will be pissed down a hole elsewhere, like building that national surveillance database Herr Asscroft wants, or bombing some country that Average Joe can't even spell, but he's damned sure it's full of Fanatics and Enemies of Freedom.

Re:Huge savings for taxpayers

[Anonymous Coward]

Hehe. Look at the "Denmark" section.
AFIK they have the highest taxpressure in the world and a HUGE public sector for only 5 mill people. Wander how much is going to pay Bill's

Microsoft World

[0x20]

compatibility problems, namely among users trying to receive Microsoft World documents

So... the rumors were true. They've finally seized power! Everyone burn your RHCEs and report to the island of Ballmeria for mandatory dance lessons.

Re: RIGHT WING WACKOS

[wytcld]

The point is that Bush's administration is much less friendly to free trade than Clinton's. This isn't a matter of exchanging favors for money or votes, but of principled belief in following the best course for the country economically. Bush, much more than Clinton, doesn't care about the country's long-term economic viability because no matter how bad it gets people of his class will have fine lives. That's why he does nothing about global warming - his friends can just buy new ranches in Canada. And that's why he can't be counted on not to sell out to MS - his friends consider Gates a sterling member of their private club.
___

Possible remedy: open documents.

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

First, a funny....
It cited compatibility problems, namely among users trying to receive Microsoft World documents.

My sentiments exactly.

Second... now I haven't thought this all the way through, but one way of helping the software community would be to open up the Word and Excel format, give detailed specs of the formats to all past and current formats, and then require any changed to that format to be released as spec form for n months before the release of Office apps.

The closed nature of Word Docs (especially, though other Office docs have issues too) has several problems:

• No interoperability with other software. Can't migrate from Word to other software.
  
• No interoperability with other versions of Word. Everyone has had one of those Word files that were all gobbledegook because it was one or two versions old. This....
  
  • Forces upgrades, if one person gets the new Word, everyone does.
    
  • Makes archiving near impossible. Anyone here can open my old Word 2.0 for mac?
    
  
  

So with those, you get a monopoly on Office software, tremendous lock-in, and money to burn to try to open up other environments. Now, not that they don't have the right to sell software, but they are a monopoly. I believe this will do more to end that monopoly than hiding IE on the desktop.

This also helps Microsoft in a way. There are some people who don't want to use Word because they're worried about having their information locked in to a proprietary format. This will endure they can always get at their data.

Questions, comments, snide remarks?

MS Sells GPL SW

[SubtleNuance]

Relating to Mr. David Skoll's quote: "Well, some large commercial entities like HP/Compaq, IBM, Dell and Sun are quite willing to use, produce and/or distribute GPL'd software." (Dave: Thanks for RPPPoE!)

He might also like to mention MS's own SFU*and Interix

Have a gander at that little GPL sidebar..

* MS's Shut the Fuck Up... "Netscape eng are weenies wit" at its best)

They bought Vincente Fox

[Anonymous Coward]

...and through him, Mexico.

vote Green

[stego]

Nader said something along those lines recently... and has been since at least 1998. There is an article co-authored by Nader here that starts off "Everyone who uses a computer or depends on computers has an interest in seeing Microsoft's anticompetitive and anticonsumer practices curtailed by antitrust authorities."

Huh? check again

[Anonymous Coward]

"This isn't a matter of exchanging favors for money or votes, but of principled belief in following the best course for the country economically"

That describes the Bush administration exactly.
" That's why he does nothing about global warming - his friends can just buy new ranches in Canada."

How about the real reason... there is no evidence for global warming.

his friends consider Gates a sterling member of their private club.

Gates is actually left-wing politically.

Re:Huh? check again

[Anonymous Coward]

How about the real reason... there is no evidence for global warming.

Hahahahahah! HAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You keep telling yourself that kid. Still, if you and your buddies-in-denial ever figure out why huge iceshelves keep breaking away from the Artic and Antarctic, let us know please?

Just in case you Don't Get It (TM), the US is almost the only country in the entire damn world, that appears to have a vocal minority of citizens that deny global warming is real. Everyone else on this planet figured it out decades ago. Now, why do you think a minority of people in the US think it isn't real?

link

[stego]

(should have used Preview...) http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9811/11/nader.id g/

Yes. Linux(TM) is an OS. GNU (TM) is a system(?).

[Anonymous Coward]

look up the Trademarks yourself.
Or just follow the mob, and call it what ever the bearded guy says.

Microsoft hates Free Software not Open Source.

[jbn-o]

Contrary to the Free Software community press on these articles, Microsoft loves the Open Source movement. They love it because it speaks to their interest: proprietorship. Microsoft wants people to follow the advice of that movement and release software under the licenses most heavily advocated by that movement—the X11 and new BSD licenses. Microsoft rails against the GNU GPL and the Free Software movement because they don't want users to have software freedom. They want everyone to use software they're not free to inspect, share, or modify. Microsoft is capitulating by distributing GPL'd works (not what you'd expect of the company that called the GNU GPL a "cancer") but few bother to expose how Microsoft isn't following its own advice. Microsoft doesn't have a good answer to the multiple ways the GPL enforces software freedom so we get another round of anti-GPL FUD and rebuttals that don't understand the difference between the Open Source and Free Software movements.

What a wonderful world...

[Poro]

Germany is a quite interesting country.

A quote from the article:

Otto Schily, the German Federal Minister of the Interior, announced last Monday a deal with IBM to promote, for the pubic sector, hardware and software products that support Linux.

I wonder what kind of hardware and software are used in the pubic sector.

Crap

[dybdahl]

This idg overview is extremely undetailed and not very useful. With several countries, like Denmark, it didn't cover all the Linux activities going on. The German parliament is actually going to use Linux on their servers, and their focus on multiple vendors in government IT spending isn't mentioned.

"Snapshots from the OS front" is actually a precise description of the content.

greens.org

[stego]

The site www.greens.org is running Apache/1.3.24 (Unix) PHP/4.2.1 on Linux

see for yourself

Protracted debate

[RuntimeError]

Governments

Governments are thought of as slow changing, generally conservative, bureaucratic, monolothic and corrupt bodies that hardly ever do anything useful. They bow down easily tothe whims and fancies of special interest groups. After all, governments are run by politicians and civil servants. There trusted and liked by the people only a little less than lawyers.

The British prime minister openly adimitted just before the last general election (Jun 2001) that he was totally computer illiterate. I would not be at all surprised if most of the cabinet are in the same boat. I do not expect the situation to be any different any other government in the world.

Yet the government is a monstrous institution. It was government efforts that saw the rise of the modern computer, the internet and so on. A rich and powerful government like the US government can make or break an industry.

Tender procedures

Most governments use tender procedures for all forms of procurment. This concidered to be transparent, and is meant to keep the governments corruption free. Under these schemes, the cheapest bid that meets the minimum requirements always wins the contract. In theory this should help the open source community. In practice, though, few governments follow tender procedures to the letter. Most often, it is not the lowest bidder that wins, but the one who makes the highest bid to buy the relevant officials.

...and... GNU+LINUX WOULD NOT EXIST WITHOUT UNIX

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again for the idiots:

GNU+LINUX WOULD NOT EXIST WITHOUT THE WORK OF K.THOMSON, D.RICHIE AND OTHERS WHO DESIGNED THE UNIX OPERATING SYSTEM NECESSARY FOR THE
DEVELOPMENT OF GNU+LINUX!

To call it anything but UNIX/GNU+Linux shows extreme ignorance of the platform and software in general.

Only clueless idiots will fail to call it UNIX/GNU+Linux.

GNU mob, please note, RMS now calles it GNU+Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Please rewash your brain accordingly.

What about the name?

[anonymous_wombat]

Are they also debating whether to call it just Linux, or GNU/Linux?

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

The general consensus is that Linux users Microsoft users.

WTF is that? Please translate, thanks!

Re:Yes. Linux(TM) is an OS. GNU (TM) is a system(?

[hatrisc]

fine. whatever. you can use GNU/Linux, i'll stick with Linux.

Peru not moving to monoculture.

[phriedom]

Peru is not moving towards any single OS. That is exactly what they DONT want. And it isn't really about the money for them either, though I'm sure that factors in. What they want is control over their own IT, and that means an open source so that you are not dependant on any one company. That doesn't block out Microsoft. Microsoft can certainly compete to serve Peru, but they must open the source on whatever they offer.

So, Linux is now a Religion...?

[Anonymous Coward]

You get the feeling around here that Linux nutjobs are founding a religion based on hate (for MS) and geekdom (working with an oudated software OS). They exhibit all the symptoms, including devotion, ferverence, reverence of special iconic figures, and a rabid dog approach to spreading mis-information and blatant attacks (true or not) on anything that might threaten their holy ponderings.

It's sickening.

Confusion?

[Futurepower(R)]

I think you have me confused with the government. It is the government that must be as transparent as possible. I am not, at present, the emperor of the world.

GNU and Linux and Microsoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

or were you bowing down to the ramblings of a certified lunatic by sticking GNU in front of Linux?

Debate more complex than simply choice of OS...

[Woodie]

This debate is far more complex than a simple choice of what OS to use at a government level.

This isn't simply an OS jihad. Where Linux == Good and Windows == Bad. Making business (cause that's what a lot of government is) decisions based on software "religion" is stupid and misguided.

The points that the congressman from Peru (I forget his name) made about using open source software were some of the most valid, and well reasoned ones I have heard in a long time. But - clearly his argument progresses beyond simple selection of the operating system to the systems used to create, maintain, and access the data used to run a govenment.

Here in the USA - govenment money is used to fund all sorts of private development. Look at defense research. Boeing, and all those guys are _private_ companies that acquire patents on inventions that were paid for with government monies. They then sell finished product to the govenment, further profitting from this relationship. As a tax payer you might be more than a little outraged by this.

So the question you have to ask yourself is: Do you want your government funding the r&d of proprietary software? That's one aspect of this debate.

Another question is: Do you want your government using proprietary software? If they are, then it has a cost over time in licensing fees. It also leads to the following -

Do you want your government to store data files in a proprietary format whose layout is held by some private company? (it's one thing if the gov. develops it's own data formats and properly documents them, it's a whole nother game when the format is externally owned).

Probably, in many cases your answer is "NO" to all three of these questions. But, then you have to ask yourself whether or not there is a serious open source, free software alternative to some of the commercial offerings. In many cases, yes. But, in just as many, no.

Other questions that come to mind are: Would you really want your government systems run off of current open source/free software systems? Being fair, you have to consider the bugs in those systems (beyond the simple anecdotal evidence) - and the "spit and polish" of those systems.

Do you really want your government in the "software" business? Maybe, maybe not. There's a reason so many governments sub-contract work out to professionals and specialists. Sure, the gov. usually attaches all sorts of conditions (specs and requirements) so that the end product is well documented - but private companies do the work. Given how effective government is at some tasks, I'm not sure I want them writing software!

...Food for thought...

governments choosing the OS

[Anonymous Coward]

i really don't like this anonymous but i think you'll understand. i had thought of submitting this as a story, but i think it is just here.

i work as the chief software architect for a small software and services house with offices and contracts throughout europe. we have clients that are goverment ministries, un offices, etc. recently we had an RFC for a government to provide certin services directed towards automating one of that government's functions. after reviewing the requirements i was ready to suggest linux, on a network computer, until i was informed that there was already decision made on OS.

you see the implementation and services are being funded with a loan from the world bank; the OS is windows. now how fscked is that?

Proprietary software hides the workings of gov.

[Futurepower(R)]

Every time someone posts something about democracy, someone posts a comment about the U.S. being a republic. Yet everyone knows what is meant: All citizens are expected to share in the responsibility of running the government. We cannot do that if the workings of government are hidden from us. Proprietary software hides the workings of government from the citizens.

My karma on my other account is at 50. (If there were no karma cap, it would be about 150.) My karma on this account is at 50. I'm not worried about karma.

Re:Proprietary software hides the workings of gov.

[Arandir]

Proprietary software hides the workings of government from the citizens.

Are you sure you don't mean "proprietary formats"? Who gives a rat's ass what program created the document so long as the document is in an open format?

GNU/Linux?

[Syberghost]

They're not just considering Debian, they're considering RedHat, SuSE, and others; so why does this say GNU/Linux?

Maybe it should say "GNU/Linux vs. Microsoft/Microsoft".

GNU/Linux is not all of open source.

[Enrico Pulatzo]

Come on, there are plenty of great alternatives to both MS and GNU/Linux. Just because its open source doesn't mean it has to be Linux.

GNU/Linux is crap!

[L1nUx h4x0r]

I hate the 'slash' thing. Lets just call it the "GNU OS". Easier, right?

I went to your website

[Anonymous Coward]

And I compiled and ran your cool 'prime number calculator'. I was given a menu which allowed me to choose one of three choices. I typed in 'a' and the program crashed horribly. Is this intentional, or is there no error-checking on purpose? How would you go about writing code in C to handle error conditions such as I described? Thank you. You're not as cool as you think you are, son...

Pledge

[HiyaPower]

I pledge allegence to the Bill
Of the United States of America
And to the Monopoly for which he stands
One system to rule them all, endivisable,
With updates and blue screens for all.

Excellent Point.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm so sick of Richard Stallman's marxist crusade that I'd forgotten that software doesn't need a license in the first place.

Re:Excellent Point.

[Anonymous Coward]

The way things have been going, it's good that there is a strong pull to the left. Maybe it will help us move thing back towards the center.

Free, as in "free of dumb features"

[Ilan Volow]

All good points, but I disagree with government doing a worse job with software. Government software has two things going for it:

1. no incentive to add usefuless features which don't add to (and in some cases severely detract from) from the total user experience.
2. no marketing department to push a piece of software out far before it is ready.

Government lacks the financial incentive needed to screw up software.

Even truer

[Anonymous Coward]

This statement always bothered me. A truer statement is that Republicans tend to favor certain big businesses over others

It is even truer yet to say that Democrats tend to favor certain big businesses over others, and these big businesses might be different from the ones the Republicans favor. The same is also truer of the Greens (Nader investing in Cisco while fighting against Microsoft)

"Considering that these businesses have competitors (even MS),"

The government ruled that Microsoft is a monopoly, so it has no competitors.

But even a 7-year-old can earn MS certification!

[tibbetts]

Quoth Reuters:

Indian Boy in Gaza Earns Microsoft Certificate

GAZA (Reuters) - The seven-year-old son of an Indian diplomat in the Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip has been awarded a Microsoft certificate which is so advanced that some U.S. universities require that their students earn it to graduate.

Anudeep Bhaskar obtained a Microsoft Office User Specialist (MOUS) certificate after passing the Microsoft Office 2000 Word exam in May by scoring 891 points, surpassing the required 770.

I don't know about you, but that "a Microsoft certificate which is so advanced that some U.S. universities require that their students earn it to graduate" line sures makes me shudder.

Zealotry

[crazyj]

My question is who will be the first geek to emigrate to another country because of that countires position on MS?

Until

[Anonymous Coward]

you get OWNXOR3D by some kiddie

Like democracy? Don't vote Green

[Anonymous Coward]

The Greens are advocating having political parties and candidates (starting with themselves) be government controlled and funded.

Nader is a rich hypocrite. He has his already (money and power), so he doesn't care how he damages things. He is a big investor/supporter of Cisco, which is more of a monopoly than Microsoft is.

Over the last several years MS paid NO taxes! -nt

[Anonymous Coward]

No Text.

NOT about trade protection

[digitect]

I have to say, as an American, that politically in this country we miss the point of this argument because of our trade protection concerns.

But to me it's just the same as our automobile strategies of the 1960s-70s. We imposed penalties to foreign makers simply because they were foreign. When the oil crisis happened, America was hit hard simply because the environment of limited competition that we had fostered prevented gasolene conserving cars from being imported.

I believe the Open Source v. Microsoft arguments being made by our politicians center around the same myopias. We desparately need to understand that Open Source is *not* about ruining American companies (ie, Microsoft) or even giving up control of our software. It's about freedom, choice and competition... the very things the country was founded upon.

Steve Hall

Government computer programs implement policy.

[Futurepower(R)]

Citizens should care very much about how the program works, in many cases. Programs written especially for government implement government policy. Citizens should be able to know if the program works the way the policy says. The only way this is possible is through open source software.

File formats are not a simple situation, either. The problem with Microsoft Word, for example, is that the file format is not only in the format itself, but in all the bugs and quirkinesses of the way a particular version of the Word program uses the format. Word is very, very buggy and quirky, in my opinion, but the bugs are more hidden than in Internet Explorer, for example, which has 18 security bugs (at the time this was written) that have not been patched. These are active security risks different from the recent 15 that have already been fixed.

Why would a company that has 40 billion dollars in the bank let itself get an extremely bad reputation because of software bugs? It doesn't make sense, and Microsoft is not the only software company that is self-destructive in this way. Proprietary software is subject to the self-destructiveness that sometimes comes over companies. Open source software protects us from that; if a company becomes self-destructive, someone other group, or even a single programmer in some cases, can take over and help.

Re:Government computer programs implement policy.

[Arandir]

Citizens should be able to know if the program works the way the policy says. The only way this is possible is through open source software.

I'm really confused here. For some software (voting tabulators), it makes sense to have a specific policy. But in most cases (MS Word) it's silly. It's not the government's job to dictate policy on how MS Word works. The last thing the Open Source community needs are reams of government specs that they have to follow before their software gets used. If the feds issue policies so detailed that you need to source code to figure out if it's being followed, then that will kill Open Source for government, because no one will be following it. The last thing Linus Torvalds (as an example) wants to do when deciding on which VM model to use is to consult some government policy manual.

File formats are not a simple situation, either. The problem with Microsoft Word, for example, is that the file format is not only in the format itself

But MS Word files are not in open file formats. Government documents should not be in Word format. I think you missed my whole point.

Take a simple ASCII file. Does it really matter that the file was created with Emacs, vi, Notepad or Word? No! Who bloody cares what program created it. One hundred years from now you will still be able to read that file without having to have the program that created it.

Re:Yes. Linux(TM) is an OS. GNU (TM) is a system(?

[Anonymous Coward]

The bearded guy now calls it the "GNU operating system mistakenly called Linux by Linus Torvalds"

MS World

[ProfKyne]

Twenty-eight employees from 13 government agencies (out of 100 total) completed a project in April to test the free Open Office open-source desktop productivity suite and its commercially available version, called Star Office, from Sun Microsystems Inc. The project coordinators determined that it would recommend use of the suite, mainly for users who do not exchange documents on a regular basis with users of competing software. It cited compatibility problems, namely among users trying to receive Microsoft World documents.

If I had a nickel every time someone tried to tell me that .DOC is some kind of world standard -- now this!

Apple appears to have been pretty darned effective

[werdna]

Notwithstanding the hardware "limitations," Mac OSX/Darwin is probably among the most pervasively-used Unix distros out today.

actually

[C_nemo]

a group of programmers etc. in norway is working on theire own linux distribution called "skolelinux"(school linux) wich is tailored for norwegian schools. i think they are nearing a final release date

This is so ironic...

[EzInKy]

From the section on Peru:

...Proponents of the bill, which include several congressman who have introduced follow-on legislation, say it will save the country money on IT expenditures and reduce software piracy, which in 2000 accounted for about 60 percent of all the software in use at public institutions in Peru, according to the Business Software Alliance (BSA), an industry trade group...

The BSA is creating more open source advocates than any die hard Linux user possibly could.

Pubic sector?

[Rakshasa-sensei]

Otto Schily, the German Federal Minister of the Interior, announced last Monday a deal with IBM to promote, for the pubic sector, hardware and software products that support Linux.

Please don't...

Except it's the leftist Dems who begat DMCA

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's nasty little cousins, to boot.

GNU/Linux *is* enough

[Redline]

I fail to see why people feel the need to bow to RMS's ego; the GNU utilities are primarily rewrites of existing utilities, not innovative new technologies.

I say GNU/Linux, and I hardly consider it bowing to RMS's ego.
The GNU tools are a *huge* part of the Linux experience. The gnu compiler toolchain, the shell utilities, the autoconf/automake system, and the almighty emacs are like old and dear friends that make my workday more streamlined and productive every day. I find it such a culture shock whenever I work on a *BSD or Sun machine that doesn't have the GNU tools installed. The little inconsistencies and the smaller feature sets of non-GNU unixy tools all add up to make one realize exactly how convenient and powerful GNU software can be. Without GNU, Linux is just like a strange *BSD or a bloated minix.

The other reason GNU software deserves all the respect in the world is the portability. There are lots of portable utilities, but the GPL license and the high-quality of the GNU tools ensure they are available nearly everywhere. When I am far from penguin-land, I can still take comfort in having all of my favorite utilities available. Cygwin gives me a *real* shell with tools on Windows, autoconf makes my software build on OSX with zero changes, and a tiny little GNU sed even edits on my Palm3x!

And finally, GNU actually brings people to Linux. A friend of mine recently told me how much he like the PRC-Tools for developing PalmOS applications, and how he just discovered the same toolchain for Gameboy programming. He couldn't believe such good tools were available for free. I told him that he was using GNU, that GNU was awesome, that Linux is mostly GNU tools, and I can even make Windows binaries under Linux using yet another iteration of the same toolchain! Four hours later, he calls me back and asks "In going to install RedHat. Is that a good Linux?" I just smiled knowingly and said "That's a good GNU/Linux."

Apologies to any accidentally offended BSD users.

Taxes shouldn't be spent on closed architectures.

[pbryan]

Nor should tax dollars be spent on Bic pens, or Bostitch staplers, or Lockheed jets, or any other product built by an evil moneygrubbing company!

Tax dollars should not be spent on products with closed architectures. As far as I know, Bic has not vendor-locked a government to use only its pens.

Like it or not, years ago M$ was the logical choice for software. And, like it or not, M$ has advanced, through a common user interface, the state of desktop computing.

I don't necessarily disagree with this opinion. But in order for your statement to be credible, back it up with supporting evidence. Otherwise, you're just trolling.

The off switch

[binkless]

A US based application of GPS is just as vulnerable to the official who controls the off button as an application based in Brussels. The fact the US security apparatus controls GPS affects all GPS users, not just those in the US. An EU based system would not likely be any better in this respect. On second thought, maybe if EU "consensus" was required to shut it down we could all rest easy, knowing that it will never happen ;-)

Re:The off switch

[Anonymous Coward]

So true, so true

I am a quitter!

[Anonymous Coward]

I quit using tobacco 2 years ago, and I quit using Winders about four years ago. I and my wallet don't miss either.

Open source is not a monoculture

[Vicegrip]

It is a standard that defines the expectation of people receiving software products from a company.

There is a ton of variety in the world of GNU/Linux with a multitude of different vendors competing for the attention of Linux users. It is, in fact, the monoculture that Microsoft causes its products to exist in (by making interopability as difficult as possible) that is at the root of the discontent we are seeing around the world that is shifting the momentum away from Microsoft.
In fact, open source is the opposite of what you argue. By following standards, open source guarantees its users they will continue to have choices.

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux still has virtually no market share compared to Microsoft.

Security is more important to governments

[Jungle guy]

With open source, governments can review code and make sure there's no backdoor in the software. With closed source, it's all a matter of trust in the company - and that's why the Chinese government is pumping up OSS.

I live in Brazil and Conectiva, leader in the (tiny) local market of Linux, got a great contract with the Navy to develop VPNs and things like that. The militaries wanted to make sure the software they were installing didn't have any secret tricks planted by alien governments (yes, these guys build a career out of paranoia feelings).

In some cases OSS can be cheaper, if you can pick in the internet a robust project with many contributors from around the world. But in other cases it can be more expansive, eg, if you can buy a closed source software off-the-shelf but choose to develop and open source program.

Re:Security is more important to governments

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey soccer-boy, or should I say 'futbol?'

Listen here, if we need to worry about any government putting back doors in software to snoop on others with evil plans in mind, it sure is those god damn rat-bastard pinko commie Chinese assholes. They can have their open source.

Re:Security is more important to governments

[Anonymous Coward]

I can feel your anger.

You need a hug.

{{{ YOU }}}

You're welcome :-)

You seem very angry...

[Futurepower(R)]

You seem very angry in the post, AC. If you read What should be the Response to Violence? you will see that it is angry people who created the terrorism, and that the U.S. government's secret agencies seem ruled by angry people. Arguably, the U.S. government's secret agencies are the world's most active, most highly-funded terrorist organizations. The U.S. government has killed more (many more) than 3,000,000 people in the 30 years. None of those people threatened the United States. Now, the sons and daughters of people the U.S. government killed are beginning to try to kill people in the United States.

pledging allegiance to MSFT

[Junior J. Junior III]

I pledge allegiance
To the Gates
of the Microsoft States of America.
And to the company
For which he chairs,
One monopoly
Under Ballmer,
Indivisible,
With forced upgrades, and blue screens for all.

None of this causes problems for Linus Torvalds.

[Futurepower(R)]

Governments have very complicated software that implements social security and Medicare and driver's license issuance and other government efforts. The software is written by outside companies usually, and it should be open source, because then citizens can inspect it for the shortcomings that allow government corruption to occur.

None of this causes problems for Linus Torvalds. Linux is the backbone of open source, it seems. A lot of people know how to convert Linux programs to the OS of their choice, so Linux sets a standard that makes programs easy for everyone, even if they don't want to use Linux.

Don't forget, there is no way to put Linus under pressure. He does what he thinks is right. If the German government wants something different, it can fork the code and bring out its own version, and call it GerGovix. If the German government comes to Linus and makes a technically unsound request, I doubt that it would cause anyone anything more than amusement. If the German government writes drivers to make new hardware run under Linux, I think its contribution would be accepted with thanks.

I agree, government documents should not ever be in Microsoft Word format, or in any format defined in secret by a proprietary agency.

Democracy defined

[smiff]

Citizens should learn that they do NOT live in a Democracy, they live in a Democratic REPUBLIC.

Please stop using this stupid argument. We may not live in a "Direct Democracy", but we still live in a "Democracy":

1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.
2. A political or social unit that has such a government.
3. The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.
4. Majority rule.
5. The principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community.

The "we don't live in a democracy" argument is a bald faced lie, invented by politicians as an excuse to disregard the will of the people.

Microsoft is shooting itself in the foot

[Auxon]

All of this FUD against OpenSource and Free Software that Microsoft is spewing only seems to be forcing countries to pick sides.

This is destructive to MS, because to making countries' leaders decide whether or not Open Source is "OK" will surely lead to what this type of people know best: legislation.

Since the argument against Open Source is pretty weak, it seems the leaders would choose Open Source as being a wise alternative, economically, educationally and in a host of other ways.

At the very least, no one likes to be bullied with scare tactics to choose one way over another. It breeds rebelliousness.

As long as Microsoft tries to push this angle, I expect more and more countries to offically sanction Open Source and unoffically (and perhaps officially) condemn Microsoft proprietary software.

Just my two cents.

The last election was remarkable

[Anonymous Coward]

"States were won by margins that wouldn't be considered compelling in a GALLUP POLL"

Yet they were won. That is what counts. It does not count that the other side lost and can't stop whining about it.

"Your crass dismissal of the opposing viewpoint conveniently ignores how remarkable the last election was."

Nothing is as crass as Gore's low-down dirty attempt to steal the election by filing frivolous appeals/suits and having David Boese lie in the courtroom. At least Gore gave up when wiser legal minds decided that the legal election process was the way to go. If I were him, I would have hidden out for months after this and gotten fat in shame too. No controlling legal authority!

"you might like to crow about your interpretation of the letter of the law."

Who cares what my interpretation of the law is. All I care about is what the law really is.

Apple ineffective

[Anonymous Coward]

"Notwithstanding the hardware "limitations," Mac OSX/Darwin is probably among the most pervasively-used Unix distros out today."

King of the anthill is still king of the anthill. If Apple would allow licensing of this OS for other hardware, the "pervasiveness" would multiple by magnitudes. Instead, Apple has chosen to limit this OS's availability.

Not Entirely True

[Derleth]

The libertarians dont want to spend money on proprietary software because they believe in absolute freedom for each and every person.

No, that would be Anarchy. Libertarians, to put it in a nutshell, think the only valid function of a government is to prevent coercion (coercion via force and coercion via fraud). So they do want to limit people's rights to hurt each other and lie to each other.

The democrats use free software because they hate big corporations and want communism. I have heard open source software described as being communistic in nature, and I dont entirely disagree.

The Democrats, AFAIK, don't have a single party line, but most of them are not Communists. Open-Source Software is not Communistic, either, as it gives programmers a great way of earning income (developing on contract and/or acting as consultants). Some proponents of OSS may be Communists (RMS fits this, I think), but that does not paint the whole philosophy.

The republicans are rich, like big companies, and like to support big companies. True capatalists, not nessecarily a bad thing.

A simplification. Republicans tend to want less government regulation of business except when it comes to moral issues. So they aren't true Capitalists. Libertarians fit that description pretty closely, however.

Just so all my cards are firmly on the table, I'm a proud Libertarian.

No inconsistencies

[mgkimsal2]

Pretty easy to get around this though, because they claim it gives 'better protection'. It doesn't actually make the OS *better* or *safer* or *improve it* in any way. Having the code simply means Austria can know more about what's going on inside and potentially protect themselves against problems they can predict based on knowing the code.

Austria isn't 'improving the security and useability' of the OS because they have the code. MS is not being inconsistent here.

You can be more helpful than that.

[Erris]

I have been unwilling to recommend anything other than Windows or MacOS to my friends and family.

Why not help them chose for themselves? You know, use an old 4 gig hard drive to set them up dual boot and let them figure things out for themsleves? The only thing really difficult with any Linux distro these days is talking to cameras and what not. Let them keep their M$ partition for that, but for email, browsing, word processing, desktop management and other general stuff, Linux kicks ass. It only takes about 1 visit to an advert heavy site without the adverts to make someone love Mozilla. You only have to look at Window Maker to love it. Some people even know how to make their Linux boxes sing and dance. Not me, sigh, but I'm never ever going to use MSIE to surf again.

... indeed OpenOffice is less annoying than MSOffice 2000.

This observation is far from unique =:>

not a real solution

[pixel fairy]

remember, this is microsoft. they can make the "word format" and lie about it. easily. (oops,were not to spec, boo hoo), make it complex enough that its nearly impossible to use and by the time you have a decent parser written, your two versions behind. legal remedys have a pattern of never being more than a slap on the wrist for them. they always find loop-holes, outsmart them etc. its as if they buy out thier legal problems (or in the case of the gates foundation, try to buy out the pr problems that come from being assholes) and then its business as usual.

anyway, it seems enough of thier formats can be used by open office for now. hopefully that will become the de-facto standard... (ok, maybe its wishfull thinking, but open office is the most suited for being a de-facto standard). that would be a real solution. then even microsoft would have to make thier office suite compatable and we would have real choice instead of microsoft speak for choice.

until then, if you want to make sure you can use old documents, ascii (plain text) is the most widely compatable format. (cr/lf are trivial to translate) thats why the ietf uses it for rfcs.

for your old mac word files, try strings(1)

I must be missing something.

[eric_ste]

Governments usually have the "large end of the bat" in dictating whatever they want from whoever they want besides maybe other governments.

WHen I read that a governments allows the use of linux as long as the employees don't exchange microsoft proprietary format documents on a regular basis, it just makes me laugh. They could say something like: we only accept documents in pdf format, xml format, html format, rtf format or whatever format there is with open format specs. On top ov being portable from one platform to an other, standard formats are usually less prone to viruses than the microsoft formats. I have yet to receive a macro virus in a pdf file.

kill two birs with one stone and get rid of microsoft formats in governments and corporate communications.

At work, I have taken the habit of returning documents in non standard formats, educating the sender that it is very rude to send a proprietary format document especially one that can transmit viruses. I usually get a good response and more people are using other formats. I would never send a staroffice document to someone and I expect the same courtesy from others.

Thailand

[Daengbo]

from the article:
"Thailand:

A government-subsidized technology development group, known as the National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre, or Nactec, announced in April that it has developed its own package of open source software for use o n government desktop computers and servers. Linux-SIS (School Internet Server) for servers and Linux TLE (Thai Linux Extension) for desktops are based on the version of the Linux operating system from Red Hat Inc, a Raleigh, North Carolina, software company. Nactec has made the software freely available to government groups and small businesses. The project , government officials said, aims to narrow the gap between pirated software and legal software use, and promote local business development."

I submitted a story on this a while back, so I will elaborate here. The agency is actually NECTEC (not Nactec), and they have developed a Thai language distro. Thai is problematic because of it's eight bit characters, and vowels that can appear in front, behind, above, or below the consonant. Modifying the many English 7 bit centric apps in RH to work with Thai was no small feat. They also have a web page devoted to training ex-windows users. At this point, it is incomplete.
This is an attempt to curb the estimated 93% piracy rate in the country. It is causing all kinds of problems with the WTO. This distro has been featured front page in four major computer magazines in the last three months. The general review by all the magazines was that it is good, but shouldn't replace Windows. In a primary example of the poor quality of the reviews, the reviewers were unable to mount their windows partition or change the encoding on a web page in konqueror. I am using this distro right now, but have used the apt-get utility which comes pre-installed to dist-upgrade to RH7.3, and everything still works.
Tangentially, Sun has released an all Thai version of open office, called Pladao ("Star Fish") for free, and it is being widely accepted by the mainstream media because it runs on Windows. Solaris and Linux versions are also available. I use this program regularly along with OO 1.0.0 (why the extra 0?) on my machine. It is being written of and reviewed as open source, even though no source is available, so I am confused. I suspect people are confusing OS with "free to use."
Thailand is committed to OS, and has computer standard for OS retail machines and advocacy programs in place. The government wants to stop sending so much of its meager supply of cash to the west.

The pot and the kettle....

[Anonymous Coward]

"No offence, but you're not very smart, are you?"

So what is this, retards-making-fun-of-retards day? You're either British, or can't spell for shit. Judging by the content of your previous posts, I'd bet on the latter. Ironic.

Re:The pot and the kettle....

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop using the word 'ironic'. You don't know what it means.

Malaysia, Open Source & Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr. M, has instructed Malaysian Administrative Modernization & Management Planning Unit ( MAMPU) to look into replacing all WinTel machine with Open Source solution. It was told that three weeks ago Bill Gate$ made a personal call to Dr. M, asking for a favor not to go with the rebel.

The Internet is Jesus

[dnoyeb]

Just you wait. The internet will be the second coming of the messiah. Nobody can stop it! of course their will be a time when we will have to die to keep it going, but thats not quite yet.

its red hat, not linux

[pixel fairy]

all the other distros handle that just fine. with all the complaints red hat must of gotten by now, i hope they rewrote thier network settings gui. in 7.2 it was a strange mess that was actually harder to use than the windows 2000 one. (which is strange for linux distros) and did not work as advertised. 7.3 did not seem to improve much.

whats sad is that this is probably giving red hat a bad name that they otherwise dont deserve.

And the secret plot behind it all....

[evilpaul13]

..Is Richard Stallman submitted this story to get it called GNU/Linux in the story's headline ;)

Re:None of this causes problems for Linus Torvalds

[Anonymous Coward]

Governments have very complicated software that implements social security and Medicare and driver's license issuance and other government efforts. The software is written by outside companies usually, and it should be open source, because then citizens can inspect it for the shortcomings that allow government corruption to occur.

Are you out of your mind? If you open-source Social Security (frex) admin software, the Bad Guys will be all over it way, way faster than any fix can be made. Obscurity (like not even knowing about the software) is a key line of defense here.

Don't forget, there is no way to put Linus under pressure. He does what he thinks is right. If the German government wants something different, it can fork the code and bring out its own version, and call it GerGovix. If the German government comes to Linus and makes a technically unsound request, I doubt that it would cause anyone anything more than amusement.

I think you're missing the point here; Linus (or someone) would have to make all those silly gov't changes if they wanted the gov't to use the code. Why should the government get involved in the code at all? The guy was right who said publish doc formats and that's it.

Going Metric

[Nishi-no-wan]

Like the rest of the world going metric, the U.S. (and other MS supporters) will eventually find interoperability to be a problem.

Competitive purchasing is the key

[dybdahl]

Both Ralph Nader (USA) and the German government are focusing a lot on the fact, that there must be an alternative to Windows, and that prices must be set by having a competitive market, not by judging how much money you are capable of spending on an OS.

In order to create such a competitive market, the products need to become more interchangeable. You can do this by letting several companies sell Windows (like the judge Jackson split would have made possible), by standardizing the Windows API as an ISO standard (somebody actually tried this once!), or by making sure that most software products on the market run on at least two operating systems.

Linux is getting there - even MS Office runs on Linux. This is why the German government introduces Linux as the purchasing alternative to Microsoft and uses resources (tax money) to make it a real alternative.

There is no problem with having Microsoft around and Windows installed on a lot of PCs, as long as it's not the obvious choice.

GPL it for us; sell it to those that want to pay

[jerryasher]

If the taxpayer has the copyright on it (NASA, Mil, Gov, ...) then I think we should dual license the software.

GPL it for those that want a GPL, and sell it with a proprietary license for the highest we can sell it for to those that want to take it and make proprietary things with it.

The GPL'd versions will benefit us in ways we can all count, and more, the GPL'd versions will almost certainly keep the proprietary versions true to the GPL'd versions. And when the proprietary versions stray, the GPL'd versions will catch up in time.

Will this work? It seems to work for GhostScript. Are there any other examples?

It's always been like that

[Anonymous Coward]

Denmark i traditionally a very "conservative" country when it comes to computers
"Nobody has ever been fired for choosing Microsoft"

It was like that back in the 8bit days too... You practically couldn't get anything but Commodore 64 in Denmark. In our neighboring countries Germany and England there was a large culture for other platforms (Atari, Amstrad, BBC...)

One of the problems in Denmark (today) is the all the non-socialist parties are of the oppinion that since politicians don't understand Information technology anyway the should leave the area to the experts (that the business itself according to the current Danish goverment).
When people suggest that there a problem with the Microsoft monopoly they are told that the business should solve the problems itself.
The only parties who have an opensource policy are the two left most socialist parties...
Strangely... not many computer scientists are socialists.
So who should we vote for??

Stupid Moore

[Anonymous Coward]

Moore claims "We are in the majority", yet he backed Nader, who has the support of about 1% of the people.

Global warming myths

[Anonymous Coward]

"Just in case you Don't Get It (TM), the US is almost the only country in the entire damn world, that appears to have a vocal minority of citizens that deny global warming is real."

Sometimes the US is way ahead of other countries. No need to follow the lemmings off the cliff of bad science.

"Now, why do you think a minority of people in the US think it isn't real?"

Because a majority has been fooled by bad pop science. Good thing our informed President has holding back.

Stands tall like a tree

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Resident Shrub doesn't have opinions, he only has reactions"

He has informed opinions in reaction to situations in the real world.
"Shrub" name? Used often by left-wing wackos like Molly Ivins. It is the equivalent of right-wing wackos who used the term Slick Willy.

"Can anyone find me a quote of GWB so much as mentioning the Middle East before Sep 11th, besides defending ignoring the Kyoto (sp?) Agreement?"

Huh? You are implying that Kyoto is in the Middle East with that question. Anyway, the President's campaign included speeches in front of certain groups interested in the Middle East, and it would be certain that he mentioned it in these speeches.

The Kyoto Agreement is worth ignoring. It allows "greenhouse gases" based on politics, not science. The scientific basis of it overall is unsound.

Microsoft is not using the BSD stack

[solman]

This is a myth, and has been debunked so many times that further repetition can only be the result of intentional ignorance. I don't see how this Microsoftian FUD helps the open source cause.

Here is one of the better posts on the issue by screen name "adamba":

I worked at Microsoft for ten years, most of it on the core Windows NT/2000 (hereafter referred to as NT) networking code. [...]

I know a lot about the TCP/IP stack that is running on NT. Here is a short history of it (some of this may also be told in the book How the Web Was Won, but I haven't read it):

The original plan for NT was that a few members of the core NT team (which numbered about 15 developers) would write all the networking code. However, in 1990 a small team was started up in the LAN Manager group at Microsoft to do some of that NT networking work. Eventually that team moved over to be a part of NT (this coincided with the IBM-OS/2 "divorce", if anyone is interested).

Microsoft's networking software at the time ran over a network protocol called Netbeui, but it was decided that TCP/IP was gaining in importance, and should be included in NT. In addition, the user-mode API associated with Netbeui, which was called Netbios, was too Netbeui-specific and couldn't be adapted to allow user-mode access to TCP/IP. As a result, the decision was made:

1) To put a TCP/IP stack in NT

2) To adapt the sockets user-mode API for NT

#1 was solved by licensing code from a company called Spider Systems. However, Spider's TCP/IP stack was written to run within an environment called STREAMS, which was a wrapper that specified how the various parts of the stack would communicate with each other (TCP/IP is really several pieces of code -- two of which are TCP and IP -- layered on top of each other. Most network protocols are like that, which is why they are referred to as "stacks"). As a result, STREAMS also had to be ported to NT.

#2 involved the creation of the winsock API, which persists today.

It was recognized that using Spider's stack was a temporary measure, because nobody really wanted a stack that depended on STREAMS and its associated overhead. So, a short time after this, work was begun on a new version of TCP/IP, written entirely by Microsoft.

Along with Spider's stack came versions of various TCP/IP-related utility programs, such as ftp, rcp and rsh. Those were ported from BSD sockets to winsock (not a huge change) and bundled with NT.

Now, some of Spider's code (possibly all of it) was based on the TCP/IP stack in the BSD flavors of Unix. These are open source, but distributed under the BSD license, not the GPL that Linux is released under. Whereas the GPL states that any software derived from GPL'ed software must also be released under the GPL, the BSD license basically says, "here's the source, you can do whatever you want, just give credit to the original author."

Eventually the new, from scratch TCP/IP stack was done and shipped with NT 3.5 (the second version, despite the number) in late 1994. The same stack was also included with Windows 95.

However, it looks like some of those Unix utilities were never rewritten. If you look at the executables, you can still see the copyright notice from the regents of the University of California (BSD is short for Berkeley Software Distrubution, Berkeley being a branch of the University of California, for some reason referred to as "Berkeley" on the East Coast and "California" on the West Coast...and "Berkeley" is one of those words that starts to look real funny if you stare at it too long - but I digress).

Keep in mind there is no reason to rewrite that code. If your ftp client works fine (no comments from the peanut gallery!) then why change it? Microsoft has other fish to fry. And the software was licensed perfectly legally, since the inclusion of the copyright notice satisfied the BSD license.

I won't even swear on a stack of bibles that the "new" TCP/IP now shipping in NT/2000/XP and Windows 95/98/Me is completely free of the old code from Spider. Since I don't work there I don't have access to the source code. Certainly some parts of TCP (the checksum calculation comes to mind) are the same everywhere and once someone has written an optimized version, why rewrite it? And once again, this would be perfectly legitimate for Microsoft to do under the license.

But it is certainly misleading of the Wall Street Journal to say that BSD code is used "deep inside" the NT networking code, unless they mean the STREAMS wrapper itself, which I believe is still there in case someone wants to write a transport using it (I think there is an OSI TP4 STREAMS transport lurking somewhere out there, if anyone cares - but I just checked, nobody does). But the TCP/IP in NT certainly doesn't use STREAMS.

And implying that the TCP/IP stack uses BSD code is also false. As I said above there may be small vestiges of it in there, although I doubt it. Anyway the FreeBSD programmers who reported all this to the Wall Street Journal can't see the NT TCP/IP source either, so they can't have been referring to that.

Another Anschluss?

[Prof. Pi]

From the article:

One of Microsoft's flagship government customers, the Federal Ministry of the Interior in Austria, is the first government body in Europe to become a member of Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative.

Wasn't Austria the first government in Europe to become a member of another initiative by someone interested in total control?

OTOH, it's interesting to see Germany high on the open-source list. From my personal experience, Germans are the most anti-Microsoft of all computer users. And their biggest computer magazine (c't magazine) is one of the few that isn't afraid to risk their ad revenue by giving MS products negative reviews. Perhaps the Germans understand the dangers of putting too much power in one person's hands.