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Is Fear Reducing the Publicity for Open Source?
sebFlyte writes "Are companies deliberately keeping quiet about moves to open source because they are afraid of the reactions of proprietary vendors they still have relationships with? ZDNet raises and tries to answer this question in a two-part special report, 'Open source behind closed doors'. It comes to the conclusion that, in all probability, companies are keeping quiet to avoid reprisals of one sort or another. One part of the fear of publicizing migrations is nicely summed up in the second part by Tristan Nitot of Mozilla Europe: 'Guys are really shy -- it's the Munich Linux thing. They start talking about it and suddenly Ballmer comes in and twists your arm until you cry.'"
Of course, yon't want to piss off the janitors. That "something died in the wall" smell will never leave your cube if you do.
This is the single worst thing I have heard. Wake up, hello! this is the 21st century and not the 17th. We live in the world of democracy not morachs. If nothing the anti-trust law-suits on MS should prove that.
I have come to the conclusion that Slashdot is just full of shit. Full of bias. If something really needs to change is slashdot. Open your eyes guys.
So does MySQL do named query parameters? I wrote a webapp in asp.net 1.1 using mysql to see if I could really replace MS SQL with MySQL. The first thing I noticed is that
SELECT * FROM forum WHERE ForumID = @ForumID;
no longer works and must be changed to:
SELECT * FROM forum WHERE ForumID = ?;
Now this my be fine for really simple queries, but alot of more complex queries are a real pain in the ass to write without named parameters.
Sorry, but any DB that can't handle named parameters feels more like a toy than even Access.
Btw, check out the QueryAnalyzer built into Visual Studio 2005. It actually does syntax checking for whatever DB you are using (even MySQL) and when used with datsets can eliminate *alot* of DB related code.
When I rewrote my webapp using asp.net 2.0 / MS SQL express and I felt like I had just traded in a Huffy for a real mountain bike.
Bill Gates never called you a communist. I'm pretty sure he never said that "people who use Linux are communist". If Bill Gates is going to call you anything, he should really call you a dipshit.
MS is amongst the top of the sleaziest corporations.
The sleaziest corporations in the US pollute without remorse resulting in thousands of illnesses and deaths. They buy off politicians so that they may continue to pollute and kill unabated. Get some perspective before you start making wild accusation.
about "ethics": a quick summary of the MS monopoly trial
Netscape and Real Networks each made a product which was inferior to Microsoft's. IE was superior to Netscape Navigator since version 4 or so, and WMP has been superior to Real Player ever since Real Networks became a scumware company. Hell it was harder to find the free version of real player on real's own website than it is to find it on a computer where it was installed.
Rather than compete on features these companies chose to try to force MS to stop bundleing its superior products with its popular OS. Is it just me, or shouldn't a $140 OS come with a web browser and media player?
Both companies were instrumental in anti-trust lawsuits against MS. Considering that Real "Check out how we spam you from your system tray" Player is often the first thing I uninstall after a system restore and Netscape never managed to be nearly as fast as IE or Opera the motives for such a letigious strategy should be clear.
MS is sleazy, but the people who sued them on the premise that MS's superior products were beating them due to unfair competition are far sleazyer.
Microsoft is still, to this day, being held accountable for the monumental incompetence and world-class idiocy of IBM, Oracle, Netscape, and AOL and probably will for eternity. Microsoft products, compared to their competitors, don't suck. Given that Microsoft spent close to ten year straight selling beta as release and splooging the market with it, you have to be big time stupid to fail against it. Well, IBM, Oracle, Netscape, and AOL were and still are big time stupid.
Why should I be surprised? The people most given to hating Microsoft for being smart where their competition was stupid are themselves geeks and nerds, the people who are themselves most often hated in school for being stupid instead of dumb like a lot of others. Don't abused peole themselves learn to become abusers? Seems a lot of people who do well but are disliked for that out of envy do the same damn thing...
On topic to the article, it doesn't surprise me that they are afraid but I think they are more afraid of committing to open source and then eating the blame when it backfires and fails. Open source does cost more to support because you're generally going with *nix and that means a smaller talent pool, more expensive to aquire *and keep*. Business doesn't make profit by spending money without getting money back. Support manpower is not a money maker it is a money eater and thus the imperative is to lower it at all costs. You don't do that by going with the smaller talent pool which tips the balance towards an employee's market. MS allows an employer's market and it will likely stay that way.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)