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Open Source Spreads Beyond Software
B'Trey writes "Britain's Prospect Magazine is running an article entitled 'The Microsoft Killers.' The article covers the success of Open Source software in particular but also looks at how the methods and practices of Open Source are moving outside the software environment."
prices COULD be a lot lower since advertisement would be word-of-mouth not multi-million $currency campaigns.
the only thing that might prevent this is Opencoke having higher operating costs due to small-scale production.
The GPL is based on using copyright as a shield against those who would use copyright as a weapon. The underlying situation is one that is often reflected in the physical world and often noted in literature: the knife cuts both ways.
The Creative Commons licenses could eventually have an even greater impact on the world than the GPL although the latter's impacts have only begun to be felt.
Word of mouth will always be the best advertizing method. IF the advertizing is good, of course. When people spread the word about something they really believe to be of benefit to themselves, it naturally brings in new customers. And it doesn't matter what the "thing" is either. It could be religion, cars, long-distance, restaurants, or whatever. And since this kind of advertizing costs nothing to the company, they can try maintain lower production costs.
If people could put up with the crappiness of DOS and Win 3.x (the infancy of MS operating systems), why is Linux being bashed constantly during its infancy for stuff MS got away with? Because Liux is being continuosly compared to Windows.. When DOS and 3.1 were around, there was nothing to compare them to. People did not have any expectations, so whatever Microsoft did was sen as a giant leap forward Linux has to catch up to Microsoft becuase that is what people expect from their computers. Once that is done, it can go past. But you have to have the little stuff working first....
When DOS and 3.1 were around, there was nothing to compare them to.
Ehem. Apple Macintoshes. They had nice friendly GUI's, but more people bought PC's with the "cryptic" DOS and the "inconsistent" Windows 3.x.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
You might be abe to run this sort of thing in the model of the CAMRA 'Real Ale' or Micro-Brew campaigns. Kind of a local coke micro-brew.
But I still find it a bit ironic that the folk wittering on about open source can then segue instantly into complaints about lack of jobs, outsourcing and such. This morning a guy contacted me saying he was unemployed and wanted some advice on starting an open source project that might establish his reputation.
Well what happens if everyone does that?
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
"Oracle's dominance in databases is coming under attack from MySQL..."
Please. Oracle's supposed dominance in databases is under far more threat from Microsoft and IBM than it is from MySQL **at this point in time.** IBM earns more database revenue than Oracle, so it's not even fair to say that Oracle dominates.
Report to Mandrake about the Camera, They cant possibly try every single camera about there. PLease visit The bug report page about it. You can also try the latest beta of Mandrake to see it if it works out of the box. If it dosent, then report a bug. Part of the Open Source movmenment is that EVERYBODY needs to take part. If you dont report bugs and problems, then dont complain about them!
found here
Yup, Mac's were great, but beacuse they were in locked down proprietary mode, while IBM PC's were being assmbled by eveyone and his dog, they got left wayy behind...
And yet curiously it does not work the same way with software. Now, it is Windows that is locked down in proprietary mode, with expensive and draconian licenses. Linux distros can be assembled by everyone and his dog, but yet, it is still a mostly a niche OS on the desktop.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
Not only is it premature, it's STUPID. Why do people keep associating OSS with anti-Microsoft? As I said yesterday, OSS is about choices, not about putting MS out of business. No matter how much any of us dislikes or even hates MS, that should not be what OSS is about. That is anything but a noble cause.
A noble cause is providing free choice to people. That's what OSS is and should be about and someone needs to get this message to the media. MS should rise or fall based on their own merits, even if those merits are questionable or at odds with the OSS community. If Microsoft falls because of OSS, so be it, but if that's the cause, and Microsoft falls, then OSS no longer has a cause. The cause to provide choice will always be there.
Forget Soviet Union and all the evil that lived there. Learn about the original ideas of communism.
Read Stanislaw Lem's "Magellan Cloud" (or something like this, I don't know how they translated the title) - it depicts a world in which people were responsible enough for communism to succeed - a world in which one likes to live. No propaganda, slogans, terror, stiff norms. Just "open source" in all domains of life.
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