Slashdot Mirror
More Linux Activity in German Government
"9 more cities in Rheinland-Pfalz, including the capital Mainz, are seriously considering to replace most, if not all of their Microsoft software with Linux after their current contracts expire in early 2004, noting that there are many other cities in a similar situation, and with similar plans.
Meanwhile, the police in Niedersachsen (german) is busy rolling out RedHat Linux on 11,620 desktops and 120 servers, running both standard Linux software and a custom information system called "Nivadis" based on WebLogic and Oracle running on Itanium servers, citing savings of about EUR 20 Mio compared with a Windows-based solution.
In a less desktop-related project, the state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern started a project with SuSE, IBM and others porting a mission-critical system called ProFiskal from Reliant Unix to Linux on zSeries, again citing cost as the primary reason, but also noting the benefits of using open standards for both software developers and users."
I own you all. Please visit www.goatse.cx!
- chendo
World War III be a war between the good (Linux) and the bad (Microsoft)?
Things are shaping up.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Which applications will it be running?
If these initial deployments are successful, and the organizations see real benefits from their switch to Linux then it could be the start of a wave of Linux deployments across Europe, at least in public organizations such as these.
.... So we can only hope it goes well!
However, if there are problems with some of them it could hold up the acceptance of Linux (etc.) for some while
Something inane aquires Linux.
Slashdot posts.
Giant security holes become prevalent.
Entity drops Linux.
It would be funny if the rest of world used Linux while the United States uses Windows. It would be just like the current state of measurement in this world, where the United States uses imperial and the rest of the world uses metric.
The decision of da bavarian capital city Munich switch they desktop systems Linux has caused a lot of discussion, 'n has been widely regarded as an important step fo' Linux on da desktop, know what I'm sayin'? And even if Microshizzle tried hard make they offerings mo' attractive since, including a special license contract that could save da public sector 'a lot of paper' according interior minister Otto Schily, that shiznit looks as if Munich wuz only da beginning n' shit.
Making a killing from "licencing fees" on all those illegal Linux boxes
Just my stab at SCO for the day.
AC writes "The decision of the bavarian capital city Munich to switch their political systems to Communism has caused a lot of discussion, and has been widely regarded as an important step for Communism in Germany. And even if the Nazis tried hard to make their offerings more attractive since, including a special license contract killing that could save the public sector 'a lot of money' according to interior minister Bill Gatez, it looks as if Munich was only the beginning."
It's easy when you know how.
The more they cut prices in order to stave off linux, the more evident it is how overpriced their list prices are. Instead of trying to compete on price, they should be trying to compete on features such as easy management, and security...
Unfortunately for Microsoft, security isn't exactly their strength, and neither is easy management now that Linux has matured so much.
While historically (as short as that may be), people
ventured to America for myriad reasons; political,
religious, economic, prosperity etc. Many of those
things aren't really tangible except in the minds of
the people. The first time in America's history,
people migrate to Russia, Europe and China for
technological freedom among other associative
properties like jobs. I'm certainly keeping my
options open, getting a CE degree what good is
it in America when all the jobs are going overseas?
Maybe there is some use to the two years of foriegn language required in US academic institutions.
MODERATERS ARE ON CRACK! MOD PARENT UP. CHECK OUT THE LINK FOR AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW OF SLAHSDOT. SEE HOW IT SOUNDS TO US BROTHERS, YOU RACIST MUTHA!
;alskdjf;alksdjfa;sldkjf;alskdjf;alskdjf a;lsdkjf;alsdkjf
And thanks to Munich FFII Germany has the strongest anti-swpat movement...
In Munich they demontrated together with a social democrat politician Lochner-Fischer (Member of Bavarian House of representatives) that capaigned for Linux! See this picture with her election campaign banners.
Also European MEP Wolfgang Kreissl-Dorfler hold a speech at FFII demo munich.
German Wiki page about Munich demo
Note: As a Northern German I don't like Bavarian culture, but Munich is special, less ultra-conservative than the rest of Bavaria. As an European I am proud of the leading role of Europe in the current silent Open Source revolution.
Has anyone experienced the same??? After running Windows Update BOTH of my open source browsers, Mozilla and Mozilla Firebird stopped functioning! When I try to launch the program, I get the hourglass pointer for a while and then nothing... WEIRD, REALLY WEIRD! Did Microsoft update screw them up somehow? It really looks like it. Internet Explorer is the only browser that works on my computer now.
AKA a nazi fanatic loser.
....
...etc.
1. You rejuvenate and dance when you hear a windows flaw exposed, but you conveniently ignore the thousands of security flaws exposed in linux.
2. You yell loudly TROLL! at any person's post or at any person you see posting facts that you do not want to hear about your oh so cool linux.
3. You know it's a classic case of penis envy, you don't have all the support, software and hardware available for linux and you have to let that anger out somewhere, but you don't have the brains to admit it.
4. You hate windows, hate Microsoft, but race to emulate windows, have programs to run office from within linux, and spend a $300 on a Windows emulator, only Windows fools.
5. You cannot admit that you don't have professional usage of Linux outside server markets.
6. You cannot admit that most of the joe user out there when told that there is linux will respond, what is that?
7. You cannot admit that there is no professional printing capabilities in linux.
8. You cannot admit that you are a masochist (otherwise why would someone spend hours playing with scripts,
and recompiling programs that are available for Windows?)
9. You cannot admit that there is no professional desktop publishing done on Linux.
10. You cannot admit that no one in their right mind would do professional video editing in Linux.
11. You cannot admit that linux sucks when it comes for gaming/home entertainment or education.
12. You have problems in understanding Windows, and you will blame your own incompetence on Microsoft.
13. You have problems in pointing a clicking, but have no problems in wading through cryptic scripts written by lunatics.
14. Nothing will get past that shit that fills your head, you will not admit to any facts.
15. You can't admit that naming of linux components, packages, and others are weird and fits profiles of troubled teenagers. gentoo, lgx, rpm
16. You feel angered because you were left out by microsoft's Media technologies, they support Mac, Sun sparc, but not linux.
17. You feel inferior deep inside but unable to admit it, you don't have a database as easy and powerful as Access.
18. You cannot tell that not a single office package outside Microsoft's is worth looking at or bothering with.
19. You don't know that your CD recorder software sucks.
20. You don't have DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD-RW support in your pathetic OS.
21. While the rest of the world moves on, you're stuck in a stone age technology that needs third party software to boot into GUI.
22. You act out of prejudice, you kill file domains and users of specific news readers while you ignore the bullshit that your fellow linux losers post.
23. You don't know commercial support in Linux is almost non existent.
24. You miss the fact that companies are leaving linux because of the chaos, and the cheap linux losers who are unwilling to pay and support hard work, Corel, gaming companies,...etc.
25. You are unaware that linux has no terminal services (there is a lame one that no one uses), and commercial support for it is not happening.
26. You are unaware that setting up servers on Windows takes couple of minutes while on linux, good luck playing with configuration scripts.
27. You cannot admit that support for USB on linux is laughable at best.
28. You think that Linux is better because slashdot told you so.
29. You spend countless hours flaming people because they post their opinions about your oh so cool linux and your attitude, instead of researching things for yourself and understanding fact in order not to look this stupid.
30. You think that anyone who uses linux has a clue.
31. You think that linux cannot crash.
32. You think that everyone is interested in your conspiracy theories about Microsoft (or should i say M$ in order for you, teenagers to understand?), and how they destroyed linux,
33. You keep ignoring the fact that thousands of linux servers get hacked every year, but it takes one Windows server hacked to get you and your fellow linux idiots to dance and celebrate.
I'm not Seth.
Replace my Windows with Linux? They can pry it from my cold, dead fingers...
HEIL LINUX!
... since here (Germany) exists (at least from my point of view) the tradition to invest large amounts of money in 'government software projects' that turn out to be scrap in the end. If it works fine, this for sure will boost the acceptance of LINUX since the public sector (still) is an important customer to deal with. CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
...citing savings of about EUR 20 Mio compared with a Windows-based solution.
Is that 20 M Euros or 20 Mibi-Euros? Either 20.000.000 EUR or 20.971.520 EUR. It's important to know these things.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
We were a former colony and have been using metric units for a long time. People would laugh if you used Farenheit.
This is indeed only the beginning. People all over the globe are becoming sick of paying big bucks for buggy OSes. (Particularly the kind of OS that forces reboots for program crashes.)
Microsoft better get their act together if they intend on staying competitive. Linux is slowly eroding their market share.
!@#$% whole-grain cereal. When I want fiber, I eat some wicker furniture. - G. Carlin
It's 2:30 in the bloody morning on a Sunday! Why is anyone sitting here refreshing Slashdot? And of all topics, German adoption of Linux. The nature of this topic only proves that all /.ers are Linux nuts. Mod me -5:Troll if you wish, but you know I'm right.
"No beer until you finish your tequila!"
-Leela's Dad
"No beer until you finish your tequila!" -Leela's Dad
http://www.lochner-fischer.de/themel/linux1.htm
Lets's have a look at the source code....(http://www.lochner-fischer.de/the/thefri
My stool is mostly yellow liquid.
Yet, I can't stop drinking.
which isn't totally owned by the industry and where the goverment strives to work in the interest of their citizens. The situation in the US is much worse they even start wars just to give some companies more revenues. This makes me wonder when France starts to adopt Linux.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
Microsoft has adopted an extremely powerful public relations method, but it is a self-destructive one: Microsoft has declared that its software dies, regardless of how many users it has.
Linux, in contrast, offers software that lives forever, if an organization wants to support it. This makes a big difference to large organizations. There are many, many situations where a 350 MHz Pentium I computer running some data entry system is just fine, especially when it has been completely debugged and is giving no trouble.
When Microsoft enforces software death, those organizations must disturb something that is working well. As you can imagine, they are extremely reluctant to do so. The issue is often not money. The issue is often management capability. There is plenty of work to do without disturbing something that is working well.
From the IT World article:
"The cost of licensing Microsoft products and the lack of support for some of them, such as the NT operating system, which is still used widely in many city administrations, are among the chief reasons for the nine German cities to mull a switch from the U.S. software giant to providers of open-source products, he said." [My emphasis, of course.]
Not only do Microsoft's products regularly die, but Microsoft has a schedule of assisted suicide: Windows Desktop Product Life Cycle Support and Availability Policies for Businesses. Bill Gates has become the Dr. Jack Kevorkian of software. Mr. Gates has, for example, decreed the death of Windows 98, which is used by at least 50,000,000 people throughout the world.
Alternatively, in English:
;-)
Rheinland-Pfalz => Rhineland Palatinate
Niedersachsen => Lower Saxony
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern => Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania
Next you'll be spelling Hanover with two ns
SuSE ? Redhat ? Mandrake ? Lindows ? Does anyone has an idea on which company will get the deal ?
However I think Microsoft will win the battle : this company is associated with Siemens (a local hardware manufacturer) and can cut this price iff 90%. No company can compete with it anyway.
even if Microsoft tried hard to make their offerings more attractive since, including a special license contract that could save the public sector 'a lot of money' according to interior minister Otto Schily, it looks as if Munich was only the beginning."
IMHO I think this is somewhat of a political move coming out of Germany, combined with the fact that MS has had MAJOR problems within the past few months with worms and all...
Now when I say political I mean maybe Germany doesn't want to spend their money on US products based on the tension between the US and Germany that started with the war somehow. It would also be benificial to Germany if say they were to choose SuSE for a distro of choice, maybe that would become a Euro standard distro of sorts. Something similar to what US companies think of when Linux comes to mind... Redhat. Sure geeks think of other distros, but have you ever mentioned Slackware, or Stampede to a CEO? Chances are he's heard of Redhat but not Slack, Debian, etc.
Let's not forget that nice little letter that went out earlier this month to the Dept. of Homeland Sec., which vendors asked the US gov to reconsider their use of MS products. Hell if US companies are turning their backs on MS, then why would foreigners want to use it.
MoFscker
I think this is common in all places of the Aerth. However, the Green Party proposed a Bundesstiftung Open Source. This may be very intresting as far as Open Source programmers don't have to work according to the V-Model of software development.
Put GNOME on their Desktop and they rush back to Microsoft faster than the time needed to install Linux. They even agree to pay them 25% more to Microsoft afterwards due to good services. All this hacked and crashing shit is nothing one can use to do business job. At the end their money savings will come us more expensive than assumed in first place. Not to mention that it may cause a total economic disaster.
...man, am I happy that this article has shown up when the most americans were sleeping.
;-)
Imagine the pro-US propaganda those in majority "educated" minds would have spammed us with. Even if that would mean defending M$ against a non-US firm like SuSE.
I mean those never ending rhetoric questions like: "Why do germans use their own german distribution instead of our fine US product? Have they software-fascists now or something?.. blablabla".. you know it... that FUBAR stuff they say sometimes
What our friend Elektroschock fails to mention is, that Bavaria is the most successful state in Germany, with low unemployment, low state debt and good education - especially compared to northern states.
So please spare us the rhetorics about bavarian conservatism and catholicism.
Bavaria feature also a high percentage of IT industry: Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, Suse, Ingram Micro etc. have all their german HQs in Bavaria.
And Bavarians are as corrupt as anyone else.
If you have a problem with people loving their Laptops and Lederhosen, like Scotts like their Kilts and Whiskeys, then you should reeducate yourself with cross cultural understanding.
Bavaria is simple a state/tribe with a high cultural identity plus some some business sense. Plus most foreigners identify Oktoberfest, Lederhosen, the Alps, Jodeln, Beer (Law of purity) and Humpa music with Germany, although these are local bavarian traits.
orangeguru - neither a big fan of Bavaria nor King Stoiber
... Microsoft has recently added BMW boss Helmut Panke to its board of directors [1] - a move to get more insight into the German political system?
And a German Member of Parliament, Ekin Deligoz, recently said (on TV) that she thought it was frightening "if you think about how much money Microsoft invests into their parliament work". [2]
Both links in German language only, unfortunately:
[1] Heise
[2] 3sat
Trusted Computing FAQ | Free Dawit Isaak!
I think one oft-unspoken reason overseas governments contemplate wholesale adoption of open source solutions is that doing so creates a lot of high-end local IT jobs (e.g., software development and support). This offers the prospect of creating more in-country "silicon valleys" and the possibility of local "dot.boom" economies.
Open source may have the advantage of better access to legacy civil documents and lower TCO, but the real motivation of politicians is getting re-elected, and job creation is always a good way to do that.
I hope that after I die the one word people use to describe me is "resurrected."
This also raises the issue of interoperability in-between (the different levels) of authorities.
Given the (low) budgets this may end in a 'victory' for LINUX (within 10 years or so).
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Canada, having one of the most active e-governments in the world, is also being actively woo-ed by linux. At the chateau laurier in ottawa I attended the linux conference by IBM and while they did seem to ramble abit, they were being taken very seriously by the people in attendance. I guess the high amount of online government computers for vital functions probably plays a big part in most peoples minds about what sort of security and stability they want when it comes to their servers.
The point of both the Slashdot story and my grand-parent comment is that Microsoft is killing future profits completely by being aggressive. Supposedly the aggressive behavior is an attempt to get more profit, but in reality it is a strong bid to get zero profits, and fast.
Once the German government switches entirely to Linux, Microsoft will not make another penny from that source. The draconian, one-sided licensing changes would not in themselves be enough to push customers away from Microsoft. It is software death that is perhaps the aggression that is most disliked by customers. The Microsoft license cost is small compared to buying 20,000 new computers because Windows XP won't run on hardware that works well with Windows 98. That's the sort of problem huge organizations face.
Of course, fundamentally, licensing and software death are not as important as the fact that Microsoft's international government customers are under the control of a foreign company controlled in part by a foreign government that runs the biggest spy organizations that have ever existed. Who was using the Microsoft security vulnerabilities before they became publicly known?
Anglo-Saxons are also Germanic.
I really hope this movement will change the opinions of most teachers here.
In our schools here in Germany, they teach you the
'work' with Windows as it is the industry standard and got no alternatives.
At least at our school we got one teacher who really is pro-linux. He uses Debian, doesnt like Microsoft, is happy about the current movement and teaches the histroy of Linux, installation of Debian and configuration/installation of various services.
And beleive me, thats thousand times more interesting than clicking through a Windows application installer...
--
One by one the penguins steal my sanity...
management purchases are for. They already have Office + Exchange locking in lots of folks. Just as alternatives to those begin looking realistic, might as well tie them to accounting...
Blogging because I can...
The Market is taking off anytime soon over here. I just had a 2 hour talk on the phone with one of the large players on the german internet bookmarket. One thing that everyone with knowlege of the material predicted shows clearly:
The people are fed up with proprietary software inable to takle proprietary problems and won't take MS & co. any much longer. The market is clearly shifting to a much more service oriented one with OSS taking a lead in that area and Germany, as many thought would happend, is one of the first to adapt to that. I'm kinda glad I saw that coming 2 years ago.
It's just like John 'Maddog' Hall said at the Keynote at Linuxtag this year: Software needs to be free, the solutions built with it need be proprietary.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
The project proper will not be contracted out before 2004, folks, even if the press would like to use the hype for more. What exactly will be done, and what Office suite will be used isn't decided yet. So keep cool.
open (SIG, "</dev/zero"); $sig = <SIG>; close SIG;
In Soviet Russia, the goatse plugin runs in you!
-1 Offtopic
But let's not forget that part of this tradition is to always involve the Deutsche Telekom AG as contracter, which always done to make sure that it really get screwed up.
(For the non-German readers: The Deutsche Telekom is the leading telecommunications provider in Germany, and developed from the government-run post and telecommunications authorities. Since privatization it uses its still nearly-monopoly to annoy everybody whop wants a phone landline with bad service.
The Telekom also does IT projects and was involved in several major screw-ups: Last year, the failure of a 10-year project to put all the different states' policy IT systems on a compatible standard, and this year the miss of the deadline for the new radio transmitter based truck toll system, now costing Germany hundreds of illions of Euros in lost toll income. (Of course, in all these, the Telekom was only one contractor, but still, to me, a paatern emerges.)
Luckily, up to my knowledge, they don't engage in Linux.)
Mod down this racist piece of shit!
It's simple economics. Why send money out of the country when you don't have to? That is truly a testament to the power of Microsoft's monopoly.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Or will you tell me that there will be no Bush, Clinton or Kennedy in office in the next 20 years?
This is probably only the tip of the iceburg. Apparently if you haven't yet seen Micro$oft's EULA's that they now include in all their updates, you have missed the boat off this island.
They now are installing software to "check your license validity" with all the updates, and you have to agree to this in order to install and use the updates.
I happened to paruse the EULA's with Directx 9 and Media Player 9, and both of them contain these requirements that you click through and allow them to spy on you, and what you have in your computer. On one machine, I allowed it and had Sygate installed to catch stuff, and sure enough, some stuff was trying to get out to the internet as soon as stuff was finished loading. I didn't have time or a way of looking at the packets, and what DLL's were doing it but suffice to say my suspicions were raised when the machine starts up and takes an unusual amount of time to boot, and my HD light was on for a really long time.
Talk about the "New World Order" or what???!!!!!!!! Bastards.
I'm very closely scrutinizing my Laptop since it has Windows XP Pro on it, and already discovered NOT to trust the Microsoft firewall that comes with XP!!! Apparently they might be caught with the pants down if you have Sygate, or ZD's firewalls, and if people are actually willing to try them also.
I have to try the new browsers soon as I'm going back to experimenting with Linux and BeOS (rogue versions and my legit Pro 5 ed).
Cheers;
Jeff
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
Okay, so apparently slashdot displays times using a timezone that depends on whether or not you are logged in, causing great confusion among pinheads. Samoa, I apologize.
(Support costs are a red herring. Auto companies don't re-engineer cars after the warranty/recall period, and they don't even stock parts after a decade or so. There is a large network of independent mechanics and parts vendors which support old vehicles long after the maker has stopped spending a cent on them. There is no reason that Microsoft couldn't do something similar with old software.)
We're looking at the same thing with software. The upgrade treadmill and patch-compatibility problems drive people nuts and impose huge costs, and they're looking to get off. But upgrades and maintenance are the only way that Microsoft can have a consistent and growing revenue stream; Microsoft's business model is directly opposed to the interest of their customers. Something's got to give under all this pressure, and right now the bulging inner tube poking through the rip in the tire sidewall has a smiling penguin on it.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
And everybody not having enough money to lobby will be named "serf" while the other depending how much money thay have will be named "count", "duke", "baron" and "king". There is a reason some country are in democraty/republic. One of such was to have each citizen equal to each other independantly to possession/birth/religion. Your "too bad" for me is really a synonym of what has became far too bad in our society. And this is something innecceptable.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
A simple economic motion and the entire domino theory is proven, only the trouble starts in Western Europe this time instead of repeating itself in Eastern Europe.
One wise little action and the entire connotation of the word 'Munich' changed. I'm sure Chamberlain's descendants are breathing a collective sigh of relief.
If we continue marching backward through time what else do we see happening in Munich?
Germany was hundreds of principalities with no sense of nationalism until the fire of the French revolution followed by Napolean drove them to it. Perhaps we should all be seeing Darl McBride in a triangular hat feather and his hand tucked into his pants?
One has to look at Micrsoft's behavior in the same sort of manner as the German barons of the East Elbe during the beginning of the 19th century. Tax farmers, they are, treating the peasants as chattel. And the end of this whole mess is started by one rebel in the Baltic. Isn't the German/English meaning just delicious - those East Elbe tax farmers were known as "Junkers".
The parallels are there - history DOES repeat itself, although in this case instead of a GNU like recursion we're seeing a strange sort of historical palindrome metaphor.
I am very easy to get along with, but I don't have time to waste being nice to people who are being stupid. -Theo
swept through europe a long time ago, it is now haunting America. w00t!
Same the world over, the source of the problem usually being a combination of corporate lies ("our software will make you more productive!") and the fact that the high up people making the decisions often know very little about the subject they are making decisions for.
Bush and Blair ate my sig!
In a nutshell.
http://www.bluelinux.org/ might be the next stunner for linux on the desktop, if you think about it, mandrake and redhat.. mandake is trying to be everything, a developer os, a server os and a user OS at once, giving you bloat, unneeded services, longer boot time with services no desktop user is going to use, etc.. redhat, server os, why is it on the desktop? Lindows, no. just.. no. SusE, dunno on this one, I've never ventured into it at all. maybe it'll be a little unheard of distro that might help linux get on the desktop, it has the stuff. since it's targeted towards education (desktop users, basically) it's perfect for a desktop OS. who knows? we'll see what will come out on top.. the next decade is going to be VERY interesting. well, we'll find out in 2013. ;)
Using OpenOffice was an option that I stated a few months ago. Since I'm in part responsible for the software used on the computers available for students I've talked about that with a few of my colleagues.
Unfortunately, since I'm in the chemistry department we need to do lots of data analysis like linear regressions, determine measurement errors and stuff. At the present day, OpenOffice doesn't have a data analysis system. OO spreadsheet can draw a regression line on the graph, but doesn't give me any other data such as the equation, or regression error. So, it isn't for us possible to use OpenOffice without increasing (too much) the work that as to be done.
So, for now I still have to use MS Office once in a while... But, when OOo starts having the data analysis, I'll have no problem using it... For my personal documents, I already use it...
"Eminent" means distinguished. I think you meant "imminent", which means going to happen very soon, or inevitable.
Like it or not, Windows is predominant on the desktop. If you want to teach students basic computer skills, Windows is the pragmatist's choice. Besides, some things are equal for both operating systems, so adjusting to Linux isn't that hard.
I don't see why this is such a big surprise.
This is just a kind of knee-jerk reaction against
American business and capitalism (in general).
All this proves is that there are a lot of
leftist/socialis/marxist types running around
Germany.
Supermarkets have to take back any unwanted packaging, and many consmuners unpack their goods when they pay for them.
Shops have to close early on Saturday afternoons and cannot open on Sundays.
I cannot think of appropriate words to describe the difference in driving techniques on freeways.
America may yet be surprised by "old" Europe.
State elections were held in Bavaria today. The social democrats fell from 28% to 18% and the conservatives achieved a 2/3 majority in the house of representatives. So much for Lochner-Fischer ...
As far as real-world IT competence, I would go with an American IT person anyday, or possibly somebody from Asia. Anyone else is generally in IT because they heard you can make a lot of money convincing management fools that they know what they are doing. The language barrier helps out a lot in this regard, as does a low salary.
Oh, but back to Germans. Most of them like to do 'strategic planning' for a few years before the release of anything new. I remember they were planning out their Active Directory since about 1996, with frequent trips to the US required so they could purchase blue jeans and laptops.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
In the US, the most common unit for beer is the "can" or "bottle", which is standardized at 12 fl. oz. Of course, you usually don't want 16 oz of our beer because it is awful if it is not cold enough to freeze your taste buds. At 12 oz, you can drink it before it warms. Most places even serve draft beer in 12 oz mugs.
There is also the "large" size, which is 20 or 22 oz, for only $1 more. But that is for after your taste buds are destroyed.
The one consolation is that better places serve Guinness. If they have it on draft, you are usually stuck with a 12 oz mug. Sometimes they serve a 16 oz can and an empty 12oz mug, but then you cannot pour it properly. The best places (usually Irish pubs) will have Guinness (and Murphy's!) on draft and serve a 16 oz mug and know how to pour it.
Several friends have been to Ireland and say that everywhere serves pints and they know how to pour a Stout.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
> How is Microsoft coercive? No-one's forcing you to buy and use their software.
."
Oh, really? Have you been living under a rock?
From the Microsoft strategy paper known as the Halloween Document:
> OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market.
Microsoft memos from the DOJ case Findings of Fact:
> "We will bind the shell to the Internet Explorer, so that running any other browser is a jolting experience."
> Gates wrote, "Apple let us down on the browser by making Netscape the standard install." Gates then reported that he had already called Apple's CEO (who at the time was Gil Amelio) to ask "how we should announce the cancellation of Mac Office . . .
> In Waldman's [Microsoft executive in charge of Mac Office] words:
> "Sounds like we give them the HTML control for nothing except making IE the "standard browser for Apple?" I think they should be doing this anyway. Though the language of the agreement uses the word "encourage," I think that the spirit is that Apple should be using it everywhere and if they don't do it, then we can use Office as a club."
Microsoft memos from evidence in the Java case:
> "Strategic Objective [to] kill cross-platform Java by grow[ing] the polluted Java market"
> As reported to Bill Gates in April 1997 by the manager responsible for execution of Microsoft's strategy:
"When I met with you last, you had a lot of pretty pointed questions about Java, so I want to make sure I understand your issues/concerns...
> 1. What is our business model for Java?
> 2. How do we wrest control of Java away from Sun?
> 3. How do we turn Java into just the latest, best way to write Windows applications?"
> "At this point its [sic] not good to create MORE noise around our win32 java classes. Instead we should just quietly grow j++ share and assume that people will take advantage of our classes without ever realizing they are building win32-only java apps."
Microsoft has tried to sabotage every major competitor on the PC, from WordPerfect to Netscape, in order to make it impossible for anyone to use PC hardware without also using Microsoft software.
I think the word "coercive" doesn't go far enough.
I would use words like extortionary, fraudulent, and criminal.
Conversion to metric went pretty smoothly here, phased in over 10 years. People still use Imperial sometimes, but its pretty rare. Trying to explain Imperial to my kids is pretty bizarre because I really really hated it. "Yeah, you know 16 ozs to the pound, 14 pounds to the stone. 28 pounds to a Quarter. 112 pounds to a hundredweight and 20 hundredweights to a ton. Nowhere as much fun as: 1000 gm to a kilo and 1000 kilos to a tonne." As for acres, rods, poles, perches ... I never got the hang of that shit -- and a 100metres X 100 metres = 1 hectare is just bliss.
Bitter and proud of it.
Linux adoption in Canada is sadly lacking. The Federal Government may be looking at it, but industry and Provincial Governments are staying really close to Microsoft. Numerous reports and 'findings of fact' have concluded that it is bad bad bad. Usually the consultants are made up of people working for Microsoft, Gartner, or Microsoft and Gartner. The 'serious' people you mention...were they perhaps worried about job security and their lack of Linux skills rather than actual adoption?
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
1. Bavaria is mostly CDU/CSU state, and this parties actually were about to support the US with the war. (just today they won state parlament elections with overwhelming 60% majority (next nearest about 20%)
2. It does totaly make sense to pay less to foreign company for the product and give this money to the locals who will support the system.
3. As to the other distros, as I understand they do not really make much effort to become certifyied for enterprise scale applications. SuSE and Mandrake did.
...a stunned silence fell upon the hall.
The first city to change over and develop any specialist software for the German local government environment will have an opportunity to defray some of its costs by selling the application to other government bodies. After all their own apps don't have to be GPLed.
Bitter and proud of it.
I thought the parent post was over the top ... but this just reveals it as total crap.
Bitter and proud of it.
Australia is pretty much all metric now. About the only thing that is still measured in imperial units is peoples height. Mainly because "5 foot fuck all" and "6 footer" sounds much better than "152 centimeters fuck all" and "a 183 centimeter-er".
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
These anecdotes don't really speak much for linux, but more against Microsoft in Canadian education.
In elementary school we had a lab full of PowerMacs (well, the lab got put in eventually - I had to work with an Apple II or something equally slow).
In high school, all of the labs had Windows 95/98. However, the file server and I think proxy ran Netware. The windows computers happened to be the worst setups ever - running copied versions of other lab computers that were already screwed up. No defrag in two years, and two years of software students installed (clueless student - comet and spyware). The tech guy only knew how to work with windows and netware, and his hours were cut by the government.
In university, all of the servers are non-microsoft afaik. The computer science server runs Tru64 unix, and the comp. sci.-only labs have thin clients. All of the general purpose labs however do run windows. But they are only used for internet, email, and word processing.
So windows is being used (in those situations, and *probably* many others), but only for general purpose labs. They really ought to try a thin client & server method; I'm finding it works out quite well in my comp sci classes. (would it be cost justified to turn 60 computers running windows 98 and office into 60 thin clients, one powerful server, and the manhours to get it setup correctly?). I think microsoft might be on the way out in canadian education.
What is the imperial unit for the magnetic field or the permittivity? What about the disintegration rate (activity) in nuclear physics, or the mole in chemistry, etc, etc. These and many other units are old (say 100-150 years old) and DO NOT HAVE Imperial equivalents.
The metric system was "adopted" by the UK in the XIX century as part of negotiations with the French to ensure the meridian 0 passed through Greenwich, not Paris.
The British actually enacted the agreement into law (people have been taken to court for that) but was not widely enforced until recently.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Yeah right. Like IBM and Oracle are German companies.
MS has got no right to police my computer. If they want that right, though luck because I will not install any of their products for only that reason (which I have not done for 8 years).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Tomorrow you will have a visit of the companies that sold you your TV, fridge, sofa and bed.
They have the right tp check you bought legally all the stuff. Good luck findg proof of purchase of all of them.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Does anyone know why the 114ml "discrepancy"?
Lemme guess. The pilgrims took a pint with them, spilt some on the way, and, made a real mess of things?
The linux affect started quite some time ago, and simply reflects the kind of change and adoption of new operating systems that occured from cpm to dos and dos to windows. Microsoft is not being ignorant in what they are doing, everything they are doing is planned and calculated to generate the maximum short term profit. Microsoft new it was going to lose against Linux years ago, compulsary registration substantially increased licence fees etc. were not about increasing customers but about extracting the maximum amount of profit possible from their existing customers. Their only in intent is squeeze the maximum amount of profit possible for as long as possible from Windows NT and MS Office. All their annoucement's about new products are becoming nothing more than vapourware in order to maintain some sort of marketability in the longevity of their current product range. As such any investment in MS products now is a poor medium term investment unless they declare their willingness to port their existing product range to Linux, which of course they can't do without initiating a Linux stampede. What would be interesting would be a betting pool on when MS annouces ports MS Office to Linux (before open office etc. to much damage to MS office and TCO is calculated with the cost of retraining in MS software - Linux in Government = Linux training in schools)
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
The Governments are in big biz pockets. Heaven forbid something that's stable and works should make it onto their desktops for free. Thats what taxpayers are for!!! I tried online tax payment 3 years ago with Linux and Netscape. I had higher encryption levels than required but couldn't connect. Government help desk drone states, " Ummm, whats Linux?" Tried again last week, different drone - same comment.
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs back 123456789