Israeli Gov't Begins Testing Mandrake Linux

DJStealth writes "According to this article on Arutz 7/Israel National News, the Israeli Gov't is beginning to move away from Microsoft and is testing localized versions of Mandrake Linux in the Treasury dept. as the contract with MS expires this month. This all despite a recent defense ministry contact with MS."

Comments

Is this a growing trend in business?

[tx_kanuck]

FTA: "Microsoft heaped scorn on the Commerce Department's decision to abandon Office for the software alternative."

From other places "We'll sue our customers so that they have no money to buy our products"
"We'll charge everyone a licence fee for OSS that we don't own"

Evidently the economy has become an exercise in how much abuse consumers will take. I wonder how long it will take before consumers sit up and go "WTF Mate?"

Re:Is this a growing trend in business?

[Crypto Gnome]

Unfortunately, in showing your surprise, you're also showing just how naive you have been to date.

These are all aspects of "what the market will bear" which has been standard business practice since something like the 80s (or is that 70s?)

There is zero concept of "fair market value" in the business world today, only "how hard can we screw our customers before they're no longer customers of ours?".

Ask any economist, this is "the standard business model" today.

Re:Is this a growing trend in business?

[Anonymous Coward]

Feh. It's bad news if you work for IBM in the US. It's fantastic news if you're an Asian IBM contractee. It's not necessarily a bad thing, and if they can do the job for less more power too them. If they can't, someone at IBM will get their ass kicked, and the next round of contracts will be given to US locals.

I, for one, am sick of the anti-Asian xenophobia that rears its head on Slashdot fairly regularly.

Re:Is this a growing trend in business?

[jsebrech]

I wonder how long it will take before consumers sit up and go "WTF Mate?"

I wonder how long it will take before people will realise how insulting the word "consumer" is as a label for a customer. Businesses used to deal with customers, and treat them well, now they deal with consumers, and so all they feel they need to do is produce stuff for consumption (and are insulted when people refuse to consume it, as exemplified by the RIAA). This dehumanization of business is what makes the corporate world suck so much nowadays.

Re:Is this a growing trend in business?

[drsmithy]

Ask any economist, this is "the standard business model" today.

Uh, any economist should tell you that "what the market will bear" is one of the fundamentals of capitalism - it's hardly something that's just popped up in the last few decades.

Re:Is this a growing trend in business?

[Artifakt]

It's a fundamental, but taking it out of a broader context is something that has been developing among MBAs and pro-capitalism speakers lately. It's like the principle that there is no cap on potential investment gains. That only makes real sense if two other principles are included - 1. There is no cap on losses either - 2. Even though gain can go arbitrarily high, there are always market forces trying to bring it into line with the rest of the economy.
What the market will bear for a single quarter is not what the market will bear. What the market will bear with the government providing police to enforce it isn't what the market will bear (and isn't capitalism either once the government tries to supercede the invisible hand).

Re:Good move.

[AntiOrganic]

I really don't understand the need to mention Bush here.

Re:I don't support Zionists.

[reub2000]

Then it isn't free if you put that type of restriction on it. One of the disadvantages of oss.

OSL - licence ?

[HansF]

That's what you get with that new business model of OSL-license. The lease expires and your customer has to make a decision wether to renew the lease or to go to the competition.
It's not like in the days a staff decided that since the budget was tight, they'll do another year with their NT4 servers.
Now, it's pay or bug off.

Re:I don't support Zionists.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you suppose that is?

Because they stole their land? Or because they destroy their homes?

Because they murder and torture their citizens?

Why on Earth would anyone not want people who do such things?

Re:Mixed emotions

[Technician]

I know it's off topic and feeding the troll, however;

Wonder what a Linux-powered suicide bomb would look like.

In all reality, it would be much simpler than a windows box. It could be run without a keyboard and monitor. It could easly be operated remotely via wireless LAN or dialup via telenet. Remote kind of defeats the suicide portion of the troll.

Most important, It would be very cost effective. No need for an expensive OS for a simple job.

No need for expensive hardware to run the expensive OS for the simple job.

An old ISA based PC with a modem (real modem- ya got me on that point) or a NIC and small RAM and HD or CD without a HD would suffice. The Windows solution will not run on a minimual configuration. The NIC or Modem is safer than the sucide option mentioned.

However you could trade the NIC or Modem for a keyboard and your life for the true sucide option mentioned.

What if MS goes for code review?

[kautilya]

Many governments are going for Linux saying it is free of cost, "open software", etc etc. But, the real reason I think is they believe Linux/Open Software has less chance of any "back door". They don't want every desk in their department to get electronically bugged. Now, imagine the scenario when MS offers for some sort of international code review/certification saying that it is as "safe" as open source (I don't mean "secure" and "bug free" but intentional sabotage..). It would be interesting to see if they still adopt Linux. Now, before all this happens, this is the opportunity for Linux to grab the opportunity and establish itself. Linux should market itself hard so that in the future linux too becomes enough ubiquitious, the only strength windows has. Instead of tamely imitating windows (desktop) time to get more creative and make the OS more usable to the average clerk/secretary who wants a good mail client, a word processor and a browser. Strength builds upon strength. If Linux companies can capitalise on opportunities by skeptical governments, and establishes itself, it shouldn't to be too difficult before we see linux too as an option for an average user. Windows gets its strength from those average users.

Re:What if MS goes for code review?

[Anonymous Coward]

Code reviews by themselves are insufficient. If you want to trust your software you have to not only review the code but also compile it yourself.

I doubt any governments are dumb enough to swallow a pre-compiled binary even after seeing the supposed source for that binary, and I doubt Microsoft is going to let their customers compile their own binaries of MS products any time soon either.

Thus, verifiable/trustworthy software will continue to be a key advantages of free software for some time to come.

Re:What if MS goes for code review?

[gurumeditationerror]

But, the real reason I think is they believe Linux/Open Software has less chance of any "back door". They don't want every desk in their department to get electronically bugged. Now, imagine the scenario when MS offers for some sort of international code review/certification saying that it is as "safe" as open source (I don't mean "secure" and "bug free" but intentional sabotage..). It would be interesting to see if they still adopt Linux.

Yeah, I've thought that myself before. But for microsoft to get a government to trust the code review they'd have to give said government all the code that has been reviewed plus the means to compile it and distribute it themselves.
Other wise it is pointless. "Here are our black boxs and here is the code it runs, honest. No, you can't open them - We've showed you what's in them, really!"

Sounds a lot like the recent Powerpoint article

[Kjella]

The procurement decision relegated users to second best, said local Microsoft officials, comparing Open Office 1.1 functionality to Word 97

First of all, like has been mentioned numerous times on /., the functionality in Office 97 is sufficient for most users. Very few people use, let alone need, the extra functionality added in the later versions of office.

Indeed. It sounds much like the Powerpoint article, where the main argument is "blame the tool". In this case "blame the office suite". Of course you need the rudimentary features required to make it look like you want, but it's still the content that matters.

I really don't see why so much focus is on the tool. Your average run-of-the-mill business letter will look pretty damn near identical if written in OpenOffice, KWord, Word 97 or Word XP. The tool can't do any better than the man wielding it. In case of a word processor, I'd say that nothing the word processor will do makes a significant impact, even with Clippy ;). All the work goes into forming the letter, not formatting the letter.

Kjella

P.S. All karma generated by this post dedicated to Opera 7.20. I never could have done it with any other browser. Yeah. Right.
-

Re:Office 97 functionality

[david@ecsd.com]

That's because--let's face it--the mine of the office productivity application has been emptied of its gold. It's gotten to the point where it's pretty damned difficult to screw up something like word processors and spreadsheets. The things have been around since nearly the beginning of the office PC and the wrinkles have been ironed out. What the hell more can a company add? Talking paperclips? Christ, if I were to put down a features table of the major office apps--MS Office, Star/Open Office, Wordperfect's bundle, and Lotus Smartsuite(does IBM even still sell it?)--you'd be hard pressed to find features in one that you can't find in another. Microsoft is milking the franchise; you know it, I know it, Microsoft knows it, and now their customers are starting to catch on to the fact that there are plenty of "just as good" applications out there for cheap, liscensed in such a way that you don't have to be a contract lawyer with 30 years experience to understand the terms. (How difficult is it to understand, "Oh, uhhh, yeah, it's free"?)

Love,
Dave

Re:Office 97 functionality

[term8or]

Frankly, as a software engineer VI, word 6, Mozilla and a compiler (GNU?) would give me everything I really need.

As a writer / novelist I find that Word 2000 etc is so helpful that it gets in my way. My productivity is WAY higher using word 6. I've got everything set up just fine; why move all my macros?

Re:Mixed emotions

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't you read the bible? I think you'll find that land was given to us by god personally, and we have a right to remove any filthy unwashed non-jews killing our people and building their filthy settlements on our land.

If you read Exodus a little more closely you will find that the land was given, by God, to some very specific people. Specific pieces of land were assigned to specific groups of people. Not to some people called "Jews", a term which probably didn't exist in the Bronze age.
Indeed "God Gave Us this Land" is a claim which the Palestinians could make most strongly. They are a Semitic people, who have lived in that part of the world for a long time thus are quite likely to be the descendents of Middle Easten and follow a religion which is derived from that followed by the "Israelites".
Zionism, dating from the late 19th century, let alone the modern state of Israel Is a relative newcommer here. Let alone that most people currently claiming to be "Jewish" are from the Caucasian Ashkenazi. Claiming "God gave us the Land" is a rather silly claim when there is no requirement for someone to believe in God to become an Israeli citizen. Things get even sillier though, some of the people most critical of the modern Israeli state being Orthodox Rabbis.

Re:OSS Good

[mpe]

I happen to tell then that Microsoft probably only has the majority share of users in the US. There are other countries where users dont have money to spend on an OS.

Possibly the most interesting thing happening here is that the country in question is has very strong links with the US, is probably the US's strongest ally on the planet and would probably have little problem getting the US Government to give them whatever money they asked for.

Re:One-way economy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget that the majority of Linux developement comes from the USA. And since the government is a government of the people and I am a citizen of the united states, I realy think Microsoft sucks and any sort of use of Linux over MS products is a big win in my corner of the world.

Re:Office 97 functionality

[term8or]

I'm not sure how a post about whether Office tools have actually improved enough for it to be worth upgrading should produce a post that argues that you "have" to use visual programming tools to produce good programs. Hint: I have been known to use visual programming tools.

I have also worked on large-scale projects with little more than a debugger, compiler, and Visio (for basic design drawing). In order to say, "rich visual debugging and design tools are a MUST" you need to furnish us with some evidence, sir. You need to show at a minimum that programmer productivity has significantly improved as a result of introducing such a tool. This would be hard to do. Current evidence suggests that the value from a dollar spent on software has remained nearly static.

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/arch ives/001084.html

The productivity trends from the time that these tools started to be introduced showed a reduction in productivity

http://ftp.starbase.com/pdf/productivitytrends.pdf

And, as a general observation, advances in computing have not yet provided a substantial productivity increase. As Robert Solow says, "you can see computers everywhere but in the productivity statistics." One of the main hold-ups in benefits from computing seems to be software production. Simply put, current advances in tools have not produced a real advantage where it matters: software is still hard to construct, and no amount of tools will guarantee that the software you produce will actually work in a way that benefits the clients. You need good people to do that. Tools can help, but people can produce good programs without the tools, and tools won't produce good programs without the people.

Zealots

[tehanu]

Personally I would use the term Zealots rather than Zionists.

The Zealots were a bunch of militant religious nuts who dragged the majority moderate Jews to war with Rome, leading to the destruction of Jerusalem, the burning of the Temple and the final destruction of what remained of Israel, leaving the Jews without a homeland for the next 2000 years. They refused to abide any foreign rule because Israel could only be ruled according to the strict word of God and believed that any violent means were acceptable, to achieve their aims. The Jews bitterly regretted the Zealots during their wandering years, but obviously they haven't learnt not to allow their interactions with their neighbours to be ruled by violent militant religious nuts who believe they are on a holy quest from God to maintain the sancitity and purity of the Jewish state.

Zionism used to be quite secular and was actually despised by Jewish fundamentalists. Then it got hijacked by militant fundamentalists who want to recreate the Israel of Solomon and David. Never mind that particular Israel hasn't existed for over 2000 years and other people settled in the region over the last couple of millenia. While the majority of Israelites just want to live their lives and don't give a damn about Greater Israel, the rantings of the settlers involve lines like "God gave us this land so it belongs to us. The Palestinians should acknowledge us as the rulers or they should just get out." The fact that most people don't seem to realise that *both* sides are driven by religious nuts who are perfectly willing to use force against innocent civilians to achieve their aims and don't care a whit about the suffering of their own people just shows that the Jewish Zealots have a better PR machine.

The funny thing is now the Jews are coming to realise that if they keep the Palestinian lands, they will soon no longer be a Jewish state because the Arab birthrate is much higher. So the options are to either reliquish the land and remain small, but democratic and Jewish. They could keep the land, and remain Jewish by not allowing the Arabs to vote in a sort of apartheid system therefore no longer be a democracy (what do you call a country where the majority are not allowed to vote because of their race?). They could keep the land, and remain Jewish by driving all of the Arabs out ie. ethnic cleansing (Israel could be the first democracy to do ethnic cleansing...). Or they could keep the land, remain a democracy and the Jewish nature of the state will be wiped out in a decade when Arabs form the majority of the population,and vote in an Arab PM. Personally I'd choose (1) but somehow I have a feeling the zealots are going to drive Israel to (2) or (3). If (4) happens I'd consider it karma.

Re:I don't support Zionists.

[adrianbaugh]

Well, it seemed to be Zionists you wanted to get at, rather than Israelis in general. It seems a case of "hammer to crack a nut". Have you ever wondered whether the freedom of your country would be threatened if you had freedom of speech, civil rights and democracy (for all)?
Someone once said: "If you sacrifice freedom for security you deserve neither." I think you eloquently prove his point; moreover, I suspect that if you sacrifice freedom for security not only do you deserve neither but you will get neither.

Power to tha Duck

[capn_buzzcut]

I think it's great not only that they're looking at Linux, but also that they're considering Mandrake.

To go along with their recent financial success, a win here would be absolutely huge for them.

1 month?

[blanks]

Doesn't matter, 1 month isn't enough time to switch over a small office over to Linux, let alone an entire governments structure and closed source software.

They may decide to switch over, but it will be over a few years, and will continue using their existing OS.

Re:OSS Good

[weave]

I think that can be defensible depending on the type of class or curriculm. For a community college, for example, that teaches hands on office skills, using what the student is likely to find in the work place is probably a good idea. For other types of curricula, like programming concepts, using a certain IDE on a particular platform with a specific API doesn't seem too wise.

Then again, I work for a community college and I remember in the 80s we taught Lotus 1-2-3 and dBASE III+ in the data processing degree program. I used to bitch that it was stupid to put a particular vendor's program into a degree program. "What if 10 years from now, no one has ever heard of Lotus or dBASE?" The reply was basically that I was an idiot. Those programs have their markets sewn all up, businesses love them, businesses don't tend to change, there is no way anyone could unseat them.

When I went for my CS degree, I was all excited when it came to assembler class because I had a Mac and the University used Macs and I wanted to learn how to code assembly on the Mac (68000 at the time). Well, I got in the class and they had loaded some program that turned the Mac into a text-only console and we only learned the basics of the assembler language itself, absolutely no toolbox calls.

I was pissed off, but it turned out to be a good thing in the long run.

So, I'm agreeing with your statement, just saying I can see some (but not many) exceptions.

Life in the day of an Israeli

[TheLoneCabbage]

Sorry for the off topic, but I'm sick of this nonsense. If I can put some sense into one pea brain then I hve to . Mod me as you will.

As we know all Israeli's are evil. After living here for a year, I thought I'd translate a days activities to you:

Avi a dark skined man walks out of his mansion, onto a street filled with mansions, and climbs into his car. A 50 ton armourd bulldozer. Suddenly his cell phone rings.

Avi: Shalom! (hi/peace/goodbye)

Yitzak: Hey Avi, how's it going?

Avi: Well it was a rough day yesterday. I was too busy studying the King James Bible in english to get any real work done.

Yitzak: You know Sharons going to get really upset with you if you don't get your quota in.

Avi: How am I supposed to kill 10,000 arab children a day and still have time to spend with my wife and kids?

Yitzak: Well I was just calling you to let you know I'm building a new settlement.

Avi: Don't you already have 5 already?

Yitzak: Yeah, but I already drove the arabs out of those areas, so I thought I'd build another one. I could have chosen any of the thousands of hecktars of land that are empty, but it's just no fun without destroying a fellow human beings life.

Avi: Oh that reminds me, did you get the buliten in the mail about the last Elders Meeting?

Yitzak: Yeah, wow, were doing great! Bush even came this time! Even bowed down for Sharon. It was a real crowd pleaser. I'm telling you it's been gravey train ever since the Holocost. Best thing that ever happend to us.

Avi: Ok I gotta go, and meet quota. Catch up latter at the cafe?

Yitzak: Sure thing budy! The "Childrens Blood" is on me!

Avi: Shalom!

Yitzak: Shalom!

Wake up call.

Fact:

* Israeli's don't drive bulldozers to work.

* Israeli's are no fonder of seeing children die needlessly than anyone else.

* Jews don't drink human blood, and if you believe this it's also a fact your a moron.

* 50% of Israelis are from Iraqi, Syrian, Moraccan, Yeminite, Egyptian, Iranian, Jordainian, Afgani, Saudi, Lebanesse, and/or local descent. They tell no plesent stories from their home lands.

* No arab village has ever been raized to make way for a jewish one, except in cases where the land was owned by "Israelies" pre-48, or in cases of tacticle need. In which case it's eminant domain, and the arab land owners are compensated.

* 25% of Israelies are not jewish

* 80% of Jewish Israelies, don't practice any religion. And half of those profess radical secularism. Despite the fact that they actualy speak hebrew, most have never read any section of the Torah (old testament), and have at best a vauge idea of what it is.

* Most Israelies would rather just get on with thier lives. They neither hate nore care what happens to the "Palistinians" any more.

* Arabs can and do, walk in Zionist shopping malls, grocerie stores, parks, and public schools. Jews who walkin Arab neiboorhoods are likley to be shot/stabed/beaten etc...

If you've never been here, you have no right to comment and certainly no right to condemn. If you do live here, you still have no right to condemn, and certainly no right to spread lies and half truths.

There, now I feel better.

Re:Office 97 functionality

[ccp]

Yes, Word 6 is the best version of MS Word IMHO.

I believe that, in fact, Word peaked at 2.0.
That version was lean and mean, and did everything an Office word processor should do.
Each version afterwards just added cruft.

Writing novels shouldn't be done in Word. It's a very different problem space.

Cheers,

Re:Good move.

[Anonymous Coward]

Israel is a third world country speaking about human rights.

Re:Sharon, Mandrake

[Umber Hulk]

Israel -- In my opinion, Israel is now perpetrating its own Holocaust, and has been so for years. God will damn you, Gen. Sharon. 'Nuff said. [ Reply to This ]

Where are the death camps?

If you think Israel is perpetrating its own Holocause, are you man enough to admit also acknowledge that Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan are as well?

Re:OSS Good

[sgtrock]

It is the best bet given that 95% of PCs run MS software...

...but if your aim is to teach IT skills, then surely using the most widely-used and widely-available software is best for the student as they will have some useful skills when they leave.

They are the global leader in software and as I mention above near every PC runs their software...

I know it's hard to believe but Microsoft developers (and other staff) are also 'the people the government protects'. MS is a very American company...

Your first statement is probably true. The trend, however, is for Mac OSX and Linux combined to reach 10% penetration worldwide in a year or two. Server growth has been nothing short of spectacular. They've already reached that mark for servers. Merrill Lynch estimated that revenue for Linux server installations grew by 46% to $817 million. Not exactly pocket change. :

Your second statement is sort of valid. However, IT skills that are limited to a single computing environment are a serious mistake. Education at most institutions should be geared towards teaching you the basics and giving you the tools to learn the advanced stuff wherever you end up. This is true for all education, not just IT.

Your third statement is misleading. I will stipulate that Microsoft is the world leader in installations. I must disagree, however, if you mean that they are the leaders in technical innovation. Microsoft has been sort of successful in borrowing and stealing ideas from others. They've never really done much in the way of truly unique R&D. In fact, I can't think of a thing off hand that they came up with first. They didn't even invent customer lock in through technology. AT&T did that.

Finally, IMO Microsoft does not even come close to being a 'good' American company. By that I mean that they show no loyalty to the principles that this nation was founded upon. Intead, Microsoft represents some of the worst of America's flaws. Bill Gates is comparable to J. D. Rockefeller, a man who destroyed every competitor he had by illegal, immoral, and unethical means. The government should be treating Bill like Al Capone, not Albert Schweitzer.

No right to comment and no right to condemn

[Rupert]

How about the hundreds of dollars I personally pay each year that pays for the tanks and bulldozers that aren't demolishing the homes of those deemed insufficiently jewish to be citizens of the country in which they live? I'd say that gives me a right to comment.

Re:Office 97 functionality

[Sire Enaique]

The point isn't wether EMACS or Wordperfect or MS Word or GizmoWrite is the Ultimate and Perfect Word Processor, just that it's nice to have a choice.

Different programs behave differently, and one person might prefer to work with one and another person with a different one, that's all.

Re:Office 97 functionality

[Simonetta]

I have found Microsoft Word to be the most frustrating program that I have ever used (with the possible exception of a Commodore 64 C compiler).

Whenever I have to do something semi-serious in Word now, I always take a few minutes to get calm and detached from the anger that I know is going to come.

It helped greatly to study repeatedly (on my own time and money) several thick manuals on the subject and the 'Word Annoyances' O'Reilly book.

You just have to tell yourself "What you want to do, It can be done. Or, it's not important. Kittens, little children and blue skies are important; MS Word is not."

But then I find graphics images that I carefully pasted in a certain place moving around by themselves to other locations. Strange characters and lines appearing with no way to find out what they are and, more importantly, how to get rid of them. A Help function that doesn't help and makes you feel stupid.

And a boss (a German boss) who gives you a bad performance review because you haven't mastered this piece of absurd software. I've mastered a dozen compliers, assemblers, CAD , PCB and PLD design applications, but not the only program that the boss has ever had to learn. So, bad review.

I used to deal with the frustration of working with Microsoft Word by making a detailed list of what was wrong and possible ways that it could be improved. But I realised that it was pointless. No one would ever read it. Nothing would ever get any better. Nobody cares....

Now I spend a hour in the Daisy Kingdom after any major bout with using Microsoft Word. Calm, refocused, kittens, little children, the important things in the real world...