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Mozilla Foundation Seeking Switch Success Stories
maggeth writes "mozillaZine has a story about how the Mozilla Foundation is looking to know if any organizations have switched to Mozilla products. Is your organization among them?" Can anyone point out an example of a library system switching? Lots of public libraries use PCs set up as kiosks running a web interface to their catalogs, and they all seem to use IE -- so, no tabbed browsing.
Why does tabbed browsing keep rising to such prominence as a must-have feature more than simple standards-compliance and reasonable security does?
You see, with tabbed browsing, you can keep all the popups and annoying spyware in separate tabs, while you focus on what you want to do. Productivity at its best!
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
I'd also be interested in a campaign revealing success stories on corporations that switched to Linux.
IBM could be a good start, when they get there.
> IE can be locked down
IE can be *what*? +1, Funny.
> Does anyone know if it is possible to do similar thing with Mozilla
> (ie. Default start page, proxy setttings, etc)?
To lock that stuff down, you're going to have to lock down the user's account
at the OS level better than is possible with any version of Windows I've yet
seen. If you think you have these things locked down, your users maybe just
aren't imaginative enough to use Google to find out how to get around it.
Forcing a certain start page seems pointless. Forcing proxy settings is
most easily done at the router, by blocking outgoing traffic. Otherwise,
like I said, you're going to have to do some seriously heavy-duty stuff in
terms of locking down the user's account, the kind of stuff that makes the
system virtually worthless to the user because they can't even save a file.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
I too roll my eyes when I hear Microsoft apologists claim "...Windows and IE as the easiest way to get something done and (somewhat reliably) working." This is flat out wrong.
OSX is the easiest way for 'average users' to perform any 'average' task. Period.
If these 'average users' want a superior solution then they must pay for it either with cash (Apple) or their time (GNU/Linux). Neither of these alternatives have a real incentive to compete with Microsoft on price. Apple aren't going to be selling budget $200 Macs anytime soon; FOSS developers won't be making hand holding wizards instead of man pages.
However, other parties (SuSE, Mandrake, Lin(dows|spire|dash), etc.) are trying to compete with Microsoft on price and ease of use. Whether or not they are ultimately successful remains to be seen but any competition to Microsoft's monopoly is a good thing for the consumer.
"The number of Unix installations has grown to ten, with more expected." (Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd ed.; june 1972)