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Just Say No to Microsoft
Ben Rothke writes "Load up a computer today with a basic set of applications software, and there will be a de facto Microsoft tax on that computer. Add roughly $100- for the Windows XP operating systems and $350- for Microsoft office, and you have a significant initial financial outlay. If one would use an open source operating system and set of office applications, the cost savings would be enormous. That is why the option of open source is so financially compelling to the both the consumer and organizations have thousands of computers. And open source is corresponding such a threat to companies such as Microsoft. The idea of saving money and never having to worry about a blue screen of death is the proverbial win/win scenario." Read on for Ben's review.
Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think
author
Tony Bove
pages
243
publisher
No Starch Press
rating
7
reviewer
Ben Rothke
ISBN
159327064X
summary
Open source alternatives to Microsoft operating systems and applications
With that, Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think would seemingly be a most valuable book in helping consumers and corporations rid themselves of the Microsoft tax. Unfortunately, the book spends far too much time slurring Microsoft and Bill Gates.
The books main charges are that Microsoft has been far too predatory and that Bill Gates is not the technical genius that he is made out to be. Microsoft's questionable business tactics are not without ethical lapses, but it must noted that Microsoft is simply one in a long line of companies that have used their size and deep pockets to quash the competition. Microsoft is not alone and joins companies such as American Airlines, Ford and General Motors, Wal-Mart and more that have engaged in practices that while good for their stockholders, have not been good for the competition.
Bove is correct that Microsoft's practices over the years have discouraged innovation and stunted competition. But then again, that is true of Ford, GM and other such companies. The innovations of Ford and GM for example have been mostly superficial, without any significant improvement into crucial issues such as gas mileage and more.
Two of the companies that Microsoft has been accused of destroying are Novell and WordPerfect. Yet much of the blame for the demise of these two companies goes to their management that did not know how to properly market their products nor deal with a competitor such as Microsoft. This is not meant to imply that Microsoft is blameless, rather that Novell and WordPerfect had plenty of opportunities to fend off Microsoft, yet did not rise to the challenge.
Aside from the pervasive anti-Microsoft tone and style and the book, Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think provides a good starting point for those that are looking for a cheaper and safer alternative to Microsoft products.
Chapter 1 start with an overview of the history of Microsoft and how it grew to be the largest software company in the world. In chapter 2, All You Need is a Mac, Bove feels that the quickest route to Microsoft freedom is by purchasing a Macintosh. While a Mac is not necessarily cheaper than a Wintel system, the Mac OS X is considerably more resilient against attacks. In addition, the concern of malware such as viruses and spyware are much less of an issue on a Mac.
Chapter 3 deals with what worries Microsoft the most - Linux. Bove notes that large companies that deal with thousands of end-user desktops are discovering the advantage of migrating to Linux in a big way.
Chapters 4 and 5 deal with Microsoft Word and Excel. Word documents have become the de facto standard for document exchange and are what has locked many people into staying with Microsoft Word. Excel has a similar power in being the de facto spreadsheet. Most people think that the only alternative to Word is WordPerfect and simply don't know about OpenOffice Writer and Calc or other open source alternatives. The two chapters show how it is possible to effectively collaborate on documents without having to use Word.
While the book does not get into every open source alternative to a Microsoft product, Bove's web site has a comprehensive list of open source alternatives to Windows products at www.tonybove.com/getoffmicrosoft/home.html#windows
Chapter 4 concludes with a look at the technical and practical problems with PowerPoint. Bove notes that the corrupting power of PowerPoint is so strong that otherwise normally articulate speakers turn into zombies mumbling the bullet points that appear on the slides behind them. It is not clear though how Impress, the open source alternative to PowerPoint is necessarily better from a presentation perspective.
The next few chapters deal with Outlook, the application that has launched countless viruses and worms, and also detail other network-based problems with Microsoft protocols and applications. Issues such as the never enduing cycle of Microsoft patches are also discussed.
Chapter 10 provides a 10 step program (fashioned after the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 step program) to free the reader from their Microsoft addition. While the steps are brief and effective, it would have been better had there been more technical details on how to migrate out of a Microsoft environment. For the person with thousands of documents and files in various Microsoft formats, it is not as effortless as to simply copy your old files onto a USB drive and move it to the new open source based host.
The book contains four parts, and there are four cartoons at the begging of each part that Bove wrote. The cartoons are quite funny in their own right and Bove should also consider a career as a cartoonist.
Ned Ludd said that the machine was the enemy, and Tony Bove feels the same way about Microsoft. For evidence, check out his campaign to stop the spread of Word documents at www.tonybove.com/getoffmicrosoft/stopdoc.html.
The only negative to the book is that there are far too many anti-negative stories of Microsoft's predatory practices. A few stories would be adequate, but there is no point in belaboring the issue in a book that is meant to be more technical and practical, as opposed to political.
For many people who don't know better, they expect that a blue screen of death and monthly patching is part of a standard computing environment. Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think is an interesting read that will open the eyes of those users to a cheaper, more secure and robust open source solution.
You can purchase Just Say No to Microsoft from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
With that, Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think would seemingly be a most valuable book in helping consumers and corporations rid themselves of the Microsoft tax. Unfortunately, the book spends far too much time slurring Microsoft and Bill Gates.
The books main charges are that Microsoft has been far too predatory and that Bill Gates is not the technical genius that he is made out to be. Microsoft's questionable business tactics are not without ethical lapses, but it must noted that Microsoft is simply one in a long line of companies that have used their size and deep pockets to quash the competition. Microsoft is not alone and joins companies such as American Airlines, Ford and General Motors, Wal-Mart and more that have engaged in practices that while good for their stockholders, have not been good for the competition.
Bove is correct that Microsoft's practices over the years have discouraged innovation and stunted competition. But then again, that is true of Ford, GM and other such companies. The innovations of Ford and GM for example have been mostly superficial, without any significant improvement into crucial issues such as gas mileage and more.
Two of the companies that Microsoft has been accused of destroying are Novell and WordPerfect. Yet much of the blame for the demise of these two companies goes to their management that did not know how to properly market their products nor deal with a competitor such as Microsoft. This is not meant to imply that Microsoft is blameless, rather that Novell and WordPerfect had plenty of opportunities to fend off Microsoft, yet did not rise to the challenge.
Aside from the pervasive anti-Microsoft tone and style and the book, Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think provides a good starting point for those that are looking for a cheaper and safer alternative to Microsoft products.
Chapter 1 start with an overview of the history of Microsoft and how it grew to be the largest software company in the world. In chapter 2, All You Need is a Mac, Bove feels that the quickest route to Microsoft freedom is by purchasing a Macintosh. While a Mac is not necessarily cheaper than a Wintel system, the Mac OS X is considerably more resilient against attacks. In addition, the concern of malware such as viruses and spyware are much less of an issue on a Mac.
Chapter 3 deals with what worries Microsoft the most - Linux. Bove notes that large companies that deal with thousands of end-user desktops are discovering the advantage of migrating to Linux in a big way.
Chapters 4 and 5 deal with Microsoft Word and Excel. Word documents have become the de facto standard for document exchange and are what has locked many people into staying with Microsoft Word. Excel has a similar power in being the de facto spreadsheet. Most people think that the only alternative to Word is WordPerfect and simply don't know about OpenOffice Writer and Calc or other open source alternatives. The two chapters show how it is possible to effectively collaborate on documents without having to use Word.
While the book does not get into every open source alternative to a Microsoft product, Bove's web site has a comprehensive list of open source alternatives to Windows products at www.tonybove.com/getoffmicrosoft/home.html#windows
Chapter 4 concludes with a look at the technical and practical problems with PowerPoint. Bove notes that the corrupting power of PowerPoint is so strong that otherwise normally articulate speakers turn into zombies mumbling the bullet points that appear on the slides behind them. It is not clear though how Impress, the open source alternative to PowerPoint is necessarily better from a presentation perspective.
The next few chapters deal with Outlook, the application that has launched countless viruses and worms, and also detail other network-based problems with Microsoft protocols and applications. Issues such as the never enduing cycle of Microsoft patches are also discussed.
Chapter 10 provides a 10 step program (fashioned after the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 step program) to free the reader from their Microsoft addition. While the steps are brief and effective, it would have been better had there been more technical details on how to migrate out of a Microsoft environment. For the person with thousands of documents and files in various Microsoft formats, it is not as effortless as to simply copy your old files onto a USB drive and move it to the new open source based host.
The book contains four parts, and there are four cartoons at the begging of each part that Bove wrote. The cartoons are quite funny in their own right and Bove should also consider a career as a cartoonist.
Ned Ludd said that the machine was the enemy, and Tony Bove feels the same way about Microsoft. For evidence, check out his campaign to stop the spread of Word documents at www.tonybove.com/getoffmicrosoft/stopdoc.html.
The only negative to the book is that there are far too many anti-negative stories of Microsoft's predatory practices. A few stories would be adequate, but there is no point in belaboring the issue in a book that is meant to be more technical and practical, as opposed to political.
For many people who don't know better, they expect that a blue screen of death and monthly patching is part of a standard computing environment. Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think is an interesting read that will open the eyes of those users to a cheaper, more secure and robust open source solution.
You can purchase Just Say No to Microsoft from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
And if you're going to just say no to Microsoft, Apple isn't necessarily the way to go. You're still locked into all sorts of proprietary software and apps.
Perhaps a more useful book would have been "Just Say Yes to OSS", detailing all of the neat replacements for popular closed-source software, not just Windows and Office. A lot of this stuff has been ported too, so you can phase yourself over, trying out various apps on your Windows box, getting more comfortable with OSS, and gradually moving toward a closed-source-free existence.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
I stopped reading right there. What a load of crap. It's roughly 50$ for Windows XP Home and 100$ for MS Office.
This book is very similar to the Parable of the Broken Window by Bastiat. You can remove Microsoft from the PC equation and maybe see a savings of $450 per PC, but you're forgetting about the unintended consequences of that action.
I'm not being a Microsoft fanboy here, I just wanted to make it clear that Microsoft is producing a huge market than many of us here rely on. Microsoft uses their profit for positive benefits to society as well: 1 2 3 4 These are just a few from November, 2005.
Also, Microsoft employs more than 12,000 people. These people likely buy products or use services that your employer produces.
Sure, ending Microsoft's majority-control of the operating system market and office processing market sounds like a great idea, yet there isn't a viable alternative that is as widely supported, YET. Give it time. Thousands of companies this very minute are working on the next replacement of both the OS and the office processing software.
The market compensates for consumer demand, and no company (that I know of) has had the ability to perform at the top for more than a decade. Microsoft has been on top for a while, but it isn't anything unnatural -- they've created a product that billions of people LIKE using. That product has created a third party market that has put food on the table of millions of contractors, programmers and hardware manufacturers.
Would the money saved over Office and Windows be spent elsewhere? Of course it would. I believe that money will be best spent over time, as individual consumers make individual choices. Yes, going to F/OSS software would likely save $500 per PC that could be spent on food or cars or drugs or hookers or a new roof, but such a change couldn't happen overnight.
If Linux fanboys want to convince, they need to make a product that works as well as the competition.
In my experience (I'm 31 and have been watching freeware since 1984 when I started my first BBS), that hasn't happened often.
Looking at the editorial closer:
Bove is correct that Microsoft's practices over the years have discouraged innovation and stunted competition. Stunted competition? Microsoft's platform has offered millions of programmers a fairly amazing platform to make software that not only works in a standard way familiar to users, but also interacts with other programs.
Two of the companies that Microsoft has been accused of destroying are Novell and WordPerfect. The editor is right in laying the blame at Novell and WordPerfect. My company only maintains a few Novell servers and we HATE them. WordPerfect was always terrible except when it was running solely under DOS. They never produced a product that was user friendly (I know, we still support some WordPerfect desktops).
While a Mac is not necessarily cheaper than a Wintel system, the Mac OS X is considerably more resilient against attacks. I'm not sure this is really a big deal. My security company offers corporations the ability to be virus and spam free for less than $250 per user per year. For a 50-user network, you're looking at only $12,500 to bring us on. Considering most of my customers bill out at $150 per hour, for only 83 hours invested, we're likely saving them hundreds of hours in time saved. If they switched to a Mac, they're still going to need someone working on their spam and other problems, and I don't see a huge savings there over us.
Chapter 3 deals with what worries Microsoft the most - Lin
The OEM cost for pre-loading XP on a new box is significantly less than $100, as is the cost to pre-load Office. Retail end-user costs in no way correlate with OEM costs.
Even more telling is the fact that many large OEMs charge the same or more for boxes without Windows, because those systems generally prove to cost them more in the end - more support calls, more returns because their distro doesn't support the particular DAC codec, whatever. Sometimes the whole is much more than the parts.
And the whole "never worry about blue screens" really put the icing on the Lamecake. The whole blue screen argument is so 2002, and if that's what the anti-M$ bots are still spouting, they need to update their playbook.
I would be astounded to see one article on Slashdot that ever shows Microsoft in a positive light. Microsoft isn't inherently evil, they're a company. They make things. It took hundreds of thousands of unwashed linux programmers over a decade to make their operating system, and Microsoft only takes a few years for each version, which yes, of course, like all things, has flaws. How about just stepping back, taking a deep breath and realizing that, yes, Microsoft makes good things?
Normal anti-microsoft bullshit from slashdot.
Consumers have a choice. They can get Macs with OS X. They prefer an operating system that they are comfortable with and doesn't involves being some script kiddie to enhance. In all instances of a home desktop, XP wins.
From TFS: So...there's too many positive stories of Microsoft's predatory practices? I'm confused...
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
How can paying for an OS be considred a tax? Now, if you wanted to buy a box from Dell without the OS and they won't, then yes that's a tax...well kinda. But stick it to Dell by buying from someone else or making your own system. There are plently of places to buy a computer from without having Windows installed.
gasmonso http://religiousfreaks.com/I can only imagine the amount of flack a thread would recieve if it said Just say no to Linux. This isn't news, or even worthy of mentioning.
an article or two won't convince a newbie or a Joe Manager. Besides, a book might make a perfect gift for an office (pun intended) coworker, or even your boss.
This sort of reminds me of the TCO comparisons between Windows and Linux. Too often one side or the other just completely ignores some major advantage or problem. For Linux, the pain of configuring a workable system gets glossed over too often, assuming that your devices work in the first place. OTOH, somehow the fact that Linux is free as in beer routinely gets ignored as well.
Look, I just skimmed your review and can already tell you're a moron. Here's a fucking clue: USERS DON'T PAY THHAT MUCH FOR MICROSOFT SOFTWARE.
Sure, you mayy be able to find it that expensively in a software store. But consumers don't buy office or especially windows. They come with their computers and will most likely never be upgraded. The real price, not the bullshit open source idiocy price, is more like $30 for Windows and I dunno for Office -- but it sure isn't $350. Not to mention that most companies buy it (again, with large discounts) and that usually comes with a license to use it at home. Or you get it from university for ~$50, or buy the academic version for $90 or so if you are in grade/high school.
Not to mention that, while Windows and Office certainly have their share of issues, problems, and design deficiencies so do linux and all alternatives. People's time isn't free, so the first time they waste a couple hours of their time on an issue with, eg, OpenOffice that they wouldn't have encountered with MS Office the "savings" go poof. Of course, the opposite is also true, but Office has been worn pretty smooth by now.
Ok, ok, I've got it already!
Micro$oft is evil, paying the M$ tax is the scourge of the human condition, Linux rocks, blue screens BAAAAd.
Can we move on? m-kay?
The great thing about having $0 competition is that it will eventually force Microsoft to reduce its prices. So everyone will benefit from Linux being more widely used, even people that will never want to try Linux!
I'll probably be modded down for this...
I don't love MS either. But when was the last time you got a BSOD on XP? I have crashes on XP about as often as I do on my debian server. The only BSODs I have had on XP have been when I ran VERY BAD software. Interestingly, the last one was two weeks ago when I was using a driver to read an ext2 volume mounted over USB. Yes, I have crashes on my debian box- the latest was somthing that rsync did that locked me out of both local and ssh connections. (Seriously. I have no idea what was happening and had to kill the machine) And no, I am not a linux guru. But if I have problems like these with my intermediate level of knowledge, then you'd better belive that joe blow will too.
This dude isn't a PC gamer.
Alright we get it, Linux is great yadda yadda...
How about instead of attacking Microsoft every 5 seconds you reply on the strengths of Linux to let people decide. The Microsoft bashing is starting to wear thin, yes we know Linux is more stable and secure, just tell us that and move on there is no need to compare it to Windows anymore.
Forget all the evil empire nonsense and focus on the numbers. Business people care about metrics...uptime, reliability, licence fees are all good talking points to make a solid business case for Open Source. Where things get mangled is philosophy that says M$ is bad because they make a profit.
anti-negative stories of Microsoft's
Does that mean they are positive?
Seriously though, while OSS is good and all, there is a bit of an issue with day-to-day usability. You can't expect a random user to jump through a dozen hoops to get sound working properly (yes there are still random issues with sound all the time).
Shouldn't that be a non-win/non-win scenario?
[rimshot]
This assumes that people actually pay for Microsoft software.
Am I the only one who is surprised that a publisher had the balls to publish this thing?
They must have had lawyers going over the book to make sure their stuff was defensible -- completely defensible.
Or perhaps the 800 lb. gorilla just doesn't care when people publish bad things about it; you'll be buying their stuff anyway.
I'm happy that someone has published this book. I can't imagine anyone bothering to publish, in the 70s, how to live without AT&T -- partly because it wouldn't have been possbile.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
As one who works in the "big business" environment, I have seen first-hand that corporations are willing to pay for what works for them -- and that could mean anything from stability issues to security to compatibility. I'm not saying I like Microsoft or that I'm against the viable open source options available to the consumer. But getting giant corporations to switch could be a logistical nightmare that IT execs may not look highly upon, especially if their business processes have become dependent upon the function or feature of a given platform or program. Sure, if a company is really serious about cutting costs and open-minded enough to explore open source it'd be a logical road to take. But getting big business to shift is another story. Change doesn't happen easily and the cost to change (in terms of human capital hours) may exceed the cost incurred by just buying software/OS that can be updated on an enterprise level with relative ease.
401 - Attention span not found
Load up a computer today with a basic set of applications software, and there will be a de facto Microsoft tax on that computer. Add roughly $100- for the Windows XP operating systems and $350- for Microsoft office, and you have a significant initial financial outlay.
Is there anybody out there who actually pays full retail price for XP and Office????
If you have it on your work computer, you can legally use the same SN for one computer at home. If you don't, you can still buy a computer from any screwdriver shop with Windows and Office pre-installed at OEM prices.
The only people compelled to pay full price for MS shit are box-building gamers with no other license they can piggyback on, and the vast majority of those folks are going to use a bootleg... besides, Linux won't suit their purposes very well anyway.
I miss the good old days when Linux was understood to be a terrific way to learn *nix server admin skills and was gaining a foothold in the enterprise market, but... no... come to think of it there were nutjobs out there back then who thought it was a viable non-geek desktop solution too. Not that much has really changed much... including KDE and Gnome.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I'd avoid all MS software, just because I don't want to have to buy XP (apparently really means extra purchase) more than once. I went to windows update and was told there was a problem with my license code and I couldn't get updates.
I did have to replace a hard drive, and now apparently MS thinks I'm using a duplicate license code. I'm not buying their OS over again just because I had to replace a part in my computer, and I shouldn't have to play some kind of childish workaround game just because of their grand maul shitheadedness. I'm a customer who replaced a hard drive, not a pirate.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
...how the claim that other people have used tactics like those of Microsoft excuses Microsoft, as the reviewer seems to think.
I really want to know.
what's the open source equivalent to exchange server?
shared calendars with permissions specified by user?
something that allows people within a company to coordinate contacts/scheduling/files/information?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Ah, yes, but a thief who spends part of what he steals from you on good causes is still a thief, isn't he? If someone breaks into your house, steals a thousand dollars, and then donates ten dollars to the red cross, would you laud him for his positive benefit to society? Or would you say "that darn thief stole a thousand dollars from me"?
Microsoft is just like that, only on a larger scale.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
This book goes along with its prequel "fire hot" a book that reveals that fire can burn things.
..so you savings which come from not buying MS Windows & Office are calculated but what about the costs which come from having to learn a new operating system and office suite? What about productivity?
never having to worry about a blue screen of death
I fault microsoft for many things and they rightly deserve the blame in many cases including my latest nit-pick the amount of baby-sitting their servers require.
But the BSOD comments have to stop. It's so windows 3.1.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
It seems to me that one of the biggest drawbacks with use of software from MS and similar companies is the legal liabilities that ensue as a result of the licensing of this software. Bring this stuff into your organization and you open up the potential for massive lawsuits, disruption of operations and so forth. To avoid this you have to put in place a set of draconian corporate policies and definitely take on overhead in the form of license record keeping.
None of this appearrs in the purchase price for the license, yet it is a real cost.
FTA The idea of saving money and never having to worry about a blue screen of death is the proverbial win/win scenario.
Okay, okay, we get it... you don't like the blue screen of death. How about a soothing Salmon Pink color?
The real price, not the bullshit open source idiocy price, is more like $30 for Windows
Or $450 to upgrade to a new machine every eight years or so.
That $30 Windows install is like the first hit of crack. Everything after that costs you more and more money.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Microsoft's platform has offered millions of programmers a fairly amazing platform to make software that not only works in a standard way familiar to users, but also interacts with other programs.
A fairly amazing platform for programmers? I beg to differ. Ever since I started to develop for Windows in the mid-80s I saw what a mess the platform was in so many ways. There were other GUI systems available (even for DOS) that were cleaner and simpler. There was, of course the Mac.
My company only maintains a few Novell servers and we HATE them.
We love them. They are rock solid stable and virtually maintenance-free.
WordPerfect was always terrible except when it was running solely under DOS.
Terrible how? We still have users who use WordPerfect/Corel Office under Windows and love it, as it is far more tailored to their use than MS Office.
My users (nearly 90% in our last questionnaire) love the Word interface and look-and-feel.
I couldn't let this pass! (1) Have you shown them anything else recently? (You have to bear in mind that users will always prefer the familiar) (2) What do you mean by the Word interface? The thing keeps changing every few years, often in ways that makes it different from the main Windows GUI.
How does one touting the greatness of Open Source software justify charging $24.95(List) for a book on doing it?
I don't see Microsoft as a thief. Government is a thief: they steal with the threat of a gun. Microsoft is a choice, government isn't.
You and every other person in this world is FREE to choose against Microsoft. As many people know, Microsoft has an interface in their software that is VERY easy to use, and they are supported by more programmers than any other operating system. You can't fault Microsoft for releasing Windows 3.1 that was compatible with millions of computers and offered a fairly decent interface. Apple decided to release their OS to a proprietary solution, and F/OSS OSes weren't really on the radar at the time.
You should just say no to people who sell books! You can get all your information for free from online encyclopedias. How dare "Tony Bove" try to sell a book! That's just a hidden tax.
Best Buy can have you arrested
I am a Linux fanboy. I run Debian & RH. I force my wife to use Debian, my father runs FC1.
You stated "I'm not being a Microsoft fanboy here", and then you go on to say "If Linux fanboys want to convince". Granted, there's a lot of grey areas between, but if you aren't an M$ fanboy and don't consider yourself a Linux fanboy, then I assume you must be a Mac fanboy.
I don't know what I could say that hasn't already been said in the M$ vs. Mac vs. Linux choice. However, I think that at the bottom line it is just that, choice.
I choose Linux. I'm more comfortable with it. If my wireless device isn't working, I know how the approaches to fix it. Since I'm sys-adminning other peoples machines, I choose to give them something which eases my efforts.
However, like you, I disagree with the author. To me, this book sounds more like a political smear campaign than anything else.
It's not promoting the benefits of OSS or promoting the Mac so much as it's bashing anything to do with Microsoft.
I mean, what's the point?
If you're trying to push people off what they feel comfortable with, you don't do it by telling them that they are stupid for doing the things they do. You do it by gently showing them that there are alternative ways of doing things which might be better.
Bah -- I couldn't care less whether you use Linux or not. I'm just extremely grateful that I can.
what bothers me is that people expects that I have MS Office, which I don't.
I have a friend who keeps asking me for a "copy" of MS Office. His wife is doing something work from home.
.doc files so no formatting issues. OO.org should fit the bill fine. I think people in this situation ask for office becuase they simply don't even know any better.
Now I'd like to say otherwise but I could care less if anyone pays for Office or not. But even though that's the case I told him to download OpenOffice.org. From what I can tell she just needs to do some basic word processing and spreadsheet work. Ie she isn't going to be receiving and editting lots of
If MS had only made it so you couldn't use Office without paying the world would be a very different place right now. Don't le MS execs tell you otherwise, piracy did more for MS Office than any marketing scheme ever did.
If Linux fanboys want to convince, they need to make a product that works as well as the competition.
This statement is just wrong:
This book is very similar to the Parable of the Broken Window by Bastiat.
It is highly ironic that you use this analogy. It applies to your comments:
I'm not being a Microsoft fanboy here, I just wanted to make it clear that Microsoft is producing a huge market that many of us here rely on. Microsoft uses their profit for positive benefits to society as well: 1 2 3 4 These are just a few from November, 2005.
You imply that the money is well spent propping up Microsoft's monopoly because they make donations to charity and there is employment around their crappy software?
I strongly suspect that if billions didn't go Microsoft's way, some of that money would find its way to charity and there would still be a strong market around custom software solutions. If Microsoft weren't there I'm sure we'd find a way to muddle along ;-)
Of course, we don't know what the world's economies would look like without Microsoft, but from a European perspective (I'm English) a lot less money would be going overseas to an American corporation which could only be good.
Once there were lots of word processors. Then there were two: Word Perfect and MS Word. MS Word was the better product in the end - Word 5.0 was solid.
Then there was one. And one has become evil bloatware, because every couple years MS has to pile on features few people use. So what happens when something gets so complicated and expensive that it doesn't make sense to use it?
Competition comes back.
But there are two problems in my opinion. 1) start ups competing against an entrenched product really need to have their sh1t together; 2) people gotta eat. You can't make a kick butt product with support for free, and all an evil competitor would need to do is make their product free to totally crush you (like IE vs Netscape). I have no doubts that if Microsoft ever felt threatened by a competitor or free software, that they would bundle office "free".
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
Just say no to Microsoft!
But read this promotional story about the XBox 360.
But pay attention to these anecdotes about XBox 360 failures!
But read this other promotional story about the XBox 360 afterwards.
Man... this is actually making me miss the obscure Linux kernel updates.
I've always found books on Linux comedic. I took a linux class at my local college once. The book we used had been published 2 years earlier which is considered fairly new in academic circles. Factor in a lag time of when he wrote it. We were learning about programs which hadn't been maintained in so long it was almost impossible to google 'em! I think the book was "Learning linux in 24 hours". This has been my general experience with books that discuss specific versions of software. I bet I can go to my local Borders and find Linux books based on KDE 1. I always take flac for it, but I just can't beat online documentation.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
Same Shit, Different Day, Author, etc.
Until somebody can show "The Masses" that Open Source is THE thing to use the way that Intel did its "Intel Inside" or Dell did with "Your Getting a Dell ! Dude", O/S will never get off of the ground in the mainstream (read Non-Techie) market.
There is a bright spot that others can follow and that is Firefox. Nobody (me atleast) thought that it would ever get as big as it has, and this is the model that works. Make something that people will see as a REAL alternative to the BIG BOYS, and let word of mouth take over from there. Regular people don't see MS as a problem, they don't care about virii, worms, etc., As long as they can read mail, put music on their Ipod and surf for porn MS is fine for them.
These are the same people who give us FREE Wireless access with national carriers like Linksys,Belkin45g and Default so I kinda like them being in the dark !
It just gets tiring hearing the same shit over & over again.
Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion, you must set yourself on fire.
More Slashdot masturbation material.
Well, you *sound* like one...
In fact, you sound like you're arguing everythign except realistic points (which, of course, the book does too - I don't want to sound like I'm defending it because it's crap).
In fact, everything you write here sounds exactly like the standard fears & rants of a Microsoft sharecropper who fears (greatly) the de-valuation of your company. It's certainly true that Microsoft has engendered a large subculture, but I don't think you could prove that that market would be smaller or less vibrant if there was greater competition in the OS market. It's entirely possible that your specific section would be - you make your money by compensating for flaws in Microsofts product - but the market of third party/customized solutions would probably be at least as large and as profitable. By the way, as long as we're talking about hidden costs, the costs of companies such as yours provides are an excellent demonstration of them.
If Linux fanboys want to convince, they need to make a product that works as well as the competition.
In my experience (I'm 31 and have been watching freeware since 1984 when I started my first BBS), that hasn't happened often.
Of course, there are millions of people who disagree with you. What "works as well" is often subjective. A big part of the issue is convincing people (who, thanks to the MS monopoly, have generally only experienced Windows) is that "different" is not "worse". This is a hard sell and is one reason alternate operating systems have such an uproad hill to acceptance in the general market.
Word documents have become the de facto standard for document exchange and are what has locked many people into staying with Microsoft Word. Really? My users (nearly 90% in our last questionnaire) love the Word interface and look-and-feel.
Self-selected surveys are *great* for backing up your already felt convictions, aren't they? How many of your users are even aware of alternatives to Word? Of the ones who have, how many would even consider switching if they were told they couldn't keep compatability with Word documents, even if there were (potentially massive) cost savings? There's a saying about the value of your share of the IT market being the cost of all your customers to switch away from your product - Microsoft relies very heavily on that to keep customers from switching.
This book is ridiculous, and is pointing the blame at a non-monopoly instead of at competitors who don't know how to compete.
And here is where the real fanboy stuff shows through. Microsoft is *absolutely* a monopoly. There is no question about it whatsoever. You can argue a lot about how they got there, and you can pin blame on IBM and Novell and everyone else, and you can claim that MS deserves its status and it's un-American to limit them, but claiming with a straight face that they aren't a monopoly is just retarded.
I reject the premise that $450 for functional software constitutes a "significant initial financial outlay". If you take 3 years as a reasonable average lifespan for both the hardware and software for the average user, then it is about $0.41 per day. Forty one cents seems like a reasonable cost for easy to use and functional software that I will need to use daily.
Keep repeating until it sinks in No Visio, no *nix No Visio, no *nix No Visio, no *nix Seriously, setting aside discussions about comparable features/performance of apps that can exist on both OS's any talk of completely abandoning Windows is pointless until some clever guy comes up with OpenVisio. It has been, and will likely continue to be, the sole reason I have to have a Windows machine under the desk here. Covered on all other fronts for both business and home use except for Visio or at least Visio file format compatibility.
Does MS Office cost that much? I've never paid more than $20 for a full copy, and my copies came straight from Microsoft. I've worked for a couple of large companies where employees could buy copies of Office for home use for $20. It's the same with the military. Military members (and Reservists) can also participate. Here is the MS site on the program. So if employees are only paying $20/copy, it's probably the case that the companies aren't paying $350 a copy either, so the savings of OO are overstated.
Calling the $100 per computer a "tax" is a mischaracterization. Not only are you getting software but also support. If the price of that is a "tax", then I guess the Linux tax is the time spent searching out answers, installing missing or updated libraries, or looking for compatible hardware.
Microsoft has been on top for a while, but it isn't anything unnatural -- they've created a product that billions of people LIKE using.
You make a good case for Microsoft but your arguments are mostly personal (experiences) and are unreferenced. It's debatable whether Microsoft got to "be on top" because people like there system or because they had no choice.
I'd suggest reading the Findings of Fact from the Microsoft antitrust case. It's quite revealing. It details, for example, exactly how Microsoft threatened vendors with severe consquences if they even considered selling computers with competing software.
And open source is corresponding such a threat to companies such as Microsoft. The idea of saving money and never having to worry about a blue screen of death is the proverbial win/win scenario."
As long as the software manufacturers that write the software people want (productivity and games, especially games), open source software won't be doing much of anything. Sure, you can play SOME of your games with Cedega (and how much is THAT per license?) under Linux, but not all work, and a lot of games that do work, have some quirks.
As far as the blue screen of death - I haven't seen one of those in hmm...bout 2 years. Granted, sure, some folks get them and lockups due to spyware, adware, virii, etc. But well, asking the average Joe Blow user to do much tweaking in Linux doesn't lend itself to anything remotely easy.
When will open source advocates like the author of this expensive toilet paper realize that until Linux becomes as easy to use as Windows AND the software manufacturers write native software for it, that it won't be a big player in the home consumer market on the desktop?
I wanted to inform family and friends of such information, so I wrote an article explaining to them how they can get all the benefits of commercial software, at virtually no cost: http://www.farleyfamily.net/articles/freesoftware/
Shame on Microsoft! What kind of an evil corporation employs this kind of attitude towards their competition?
I meta-moderate because I care.
but if you aren't an M$ fanboy and don't consider yourself a Linux fanboy, then I assume you must be a Mac fanboy.
I disagree. I am a fanboy of making my time spent valuable to me. Time spent can be financially profitable or it can be socially profitable or spiritually profitable, but it must be profitable. I'm not going to waste my time reinventing the wheel, as I'm not getting paid for it, increasing my social status, or gaining spiritual wealth.
I don't know what I could say that hasn't already been said in the M$ vs. Mac vs. Linux choice. However, I think that at the bottom line it is just that, choice.
Correct! And you have that choice, right? Which instantly destroys anyone else's "Microsoft is a monopoly!" claim.
Since I'm sys-adminning other peoples machines, I choose to give them something which eases my efforts.
True, and it is your job so it makes sense for you to know the ins-and-outs. Using Linux offers you a profit in terms of knowledge that you can use to earn dollars, see? For me, everything I plug into my PC has to work no matter WHAT OS I am using. All my Linux PCs over the years have had significant driver problems -- anyone using Linux for the past 6 years knows what I am talking about. I try a new Linux PC every 6 months, and while the problems have been reduced, I still can't find it time-preferable for me.
I couldn't care less whether you use Linux or not. I'm just extremely grateful that I can.
And I agree with you 100%. I'd LOVE to use Linux, in fact, I likely will in the next few weeks on my main writing PC. For me, though, Windows has offered so much in time-saved as all my needed devices have just worked. I don't have the time to get new hardware working under Linux, and I'm often trying something new that doesn't even have a Linux driver.
I'd love to see more Linux users as that will increase the usability of Linux by the laymen. That is definitely a goal of mine, but I'm not going to destroy a good portion of my income to meet that goal right now.
You and every other person in this world is FREE to choose against Microsoft.
So you missed the whole point didn't you?
When I buy a PC, any PC, I have Windows preinstalled. That means that, even if Microsoft licensed Windows to the PC manufacturer only 50 cents, I have to pay 50 cents to Microsoft when I buy the PC.
I don't want to give any money to Microsoft, but when I buy a new PC, I have to anyway. That's the point: you're free to choose to *install* something other than Windows, but you must pay for Windows regardless.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Right. No company cares to do what's good for their competition. Actually, each company has a fiduciary duty to do what's right for their stockholders, even if that is at the expense of their competition (which it normally is). I don't know why people seem so confused about this concept.
Microsoft's sins are related to anti-competitive practices which have been deemed illegal in the US and other parts of the world. Those practices are harmful not only to the competition, but indeed to consumers. That's a big difference.
Do you have ESP?
You like Windows and Office. Just please don't give that chair to Ballmer...
I'm not being a Microsoft fanboy here, I just wanted to make it clear that Microsoft is producing a huge market than many of us here rely on. Microsoft uses their profit for positive benefits to society as well: 1 2 3 4 These are just a few from November, 2005.
Did you know that Microsoft paid no Federal taxes in 1999? And they paid 1.8% on 21.9 billion in pretax profit for 2000-2001.
Also, Microsoft employs more than 12,000 people. These people likely buy products or use services that your employer produces.
GM is going to lay off 30,000 people. They buy products or use services that your employer produces. Better go out and buy a Chevy tonight.
Study after study showed that, once you took into account the cost of additional training, and of lost productivity, that Macs were actually significantly cheaper than PCs to the company.
And that bought Jackvs Sqvatvs.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
"Really? My users (nearly 90% in our last questionnaire) love the Word interface and look-and-feel." Just because you're stuck with something doesn't mean you have to dislike it. "I'm stuck on this planet, but I like it's atmosphere." I know you're trying to say that they are happy and probably wouldn't go elsewhere anyways, but the argument is that they don't have a choice.
Now choice isn't important to everyone. But people aren't wrong for wanting to have it. In the case of word documents, its like another language. "I want to talk to this person, just not under these circumstances" I'll admit it isn't the best example, because everyone understands that person x doesn't speak language y, and will usually be forgiving. Not everyone understands the implications of using a word file.
The choice argument could also be used for defending word perfect (and competition in general), but I don't think I've ever used it, so I leave that up to other posters
Now, the reason that the author claims microsoft has stunted development is probably because developing with windows can be a hateful thing. There are several issues (window's interface (in the context of resource/information gathering), closed source (why doesn't x work? I can't read the code so I'll have to look at the...), documentation (In most cases it says enough, but sometimes msdn only has the bare minimum and really needs to elaborate more about certain things), etc.
That being said, I dislike windows. I don't think I like any operating system in general (maybe OS X, but I have yet to develop for it, so I'm going to reserve judgement on that one), but agree that getting rid of windows would be a positive thing.
I leave talking about the business side of microsoft to others.
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
I call shill on the whole post. The entire post is good spin that disguises the corporatespeak.
Here's the highlights.
Microsoft employs more than 12,000 people
If they weren't a monopoly, more people would be employed, not at microsoft though.
Stunted competition?
Yes, as in a grossly inefficient market. Again, if they did not control the market for some computer products, there would be more wealth and potentially more competition.
My security company offers corporations the ability to be virus and spam free for less than $250 per user per year.
In 2 years, I've paid for a mac mini and I've got greater peace of mind for choosing a mini. Let's not discuss windows security.
My users (nearly 90% in our last questionnaire) love the Word interface and look-and-feel.
Because they don't want to learn another.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I am really tired of the "No BSOD" argument.
,and I had a fully functional system, WITHOUT A SINGLE RESTART.
:)
I have been using Windows XP Pro for 5 years without a single reformat , without ANY problems and I have never seen a BSOD. And I am trying all sorts of things on this machine. I run only LiteStep , modify the services running , pretty much that is modifiable in Windows I take advantage of.
So saying that " OMG WINXP BLUES SCREENS OF DEATHZ OLOLO!!" is simply put wrong. An experienced user will be able to setup Windows XP just as good as he will be able to setup a Linux Distro.
I recently changed my CPU , Mainboard ( which includes Network ) and Graphics card. I booted Windows and without complaining it installed everything , even though not the latest drivers
When will I stop hearing this argument? Windows XP IS STABLE. Yes it might not be the ideal choice for running a server 24/7 for 6 years without a reboot , but that is not what WinXP is about.
Summary: Put the same amount of time that you put in configuring a Linux Distro , into configuring Windows and you will see that it runs equaly stable and FAST.
I am sorry if I trailed a bit of topic , but I can't stand that BSOD argument sorry.
PS: I am not saying that Windows is better. Why can't we all just get along?
-- TRUST ME! I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!
Yes, you are.
Microsoft uses their profit for positive benefits to society as well: 1 2 3 4 These are just a few from November, 2005.
Two articles are about the Gates Foundation, which is NOT Microsoft, one was about Google, and the last was actually about MS.
Also, Microsoft employs more than 12,000 people. These people likely buy products or use services that your employer produces.
They Actually employ more along the lines of 35,000 people, however, if they weren't there, that void would most likely be filled by someone else.
My security company offers corporations the ability to be virus and spam free for less than $250 per user per year. For a 50-user network, you're looking at only $12,500 to bring us on. Considering most of my customers bill out at $150 per hour, for only 83 hours invested, we're likely saving them hundreds of hours in time saved. If they switched to a Mac, they're still going to need someone working on their spam and other problems, and I don't see a huge savings there over us.
Or they could do the smart thing and use something like a Barracuda 400, which at less then $9000.00 for three years of maintenance and updates, is one hell of a lot cheaper than your fee. Considering they'd get free installation support from Barracuda Networks, it would be much, much, cheaper.
And linux install is like the first hit of crack. Everything after that costs more and more time.
But if you are going to cite monopolies, I was surprized that three of the biggest - Getty Oil, AT&T, and IBM - weren't mentioned. During the 1960's and 70's, IBM was charged with many of the uncompetitive transgressions that MS is now accused of. General Motors and American Airlines, on the other hand, have always had decent competition.
People now think fondly of IBM now because they have strong competitors, are supporting Linux, and are fighting the terribly misunderstood (joke) SCO Group in the courts, but that warm fuzzy feeling wasn't always there.
This book is very similar to the Parable of the Broken Window by Bastiat.
I agree, but it's the microsoft tax that is the broken window.
Also, Microsoft employs more than 12,000 people. These people likely buy products or use services that your employer produces.
Yes, and broken windows help employ glass makers.
If you actually understood the parable, instead of just trotting it out to look smart, you'd realize that the money wasted on microsoft would flow into other areas of the economy, providing a greater net benefit than just giving it to microsoft.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
would you like some WINE with...
And linux install is like the first hit of crack. Everything after that costs more and more time.
You must be installing from sources. It takes me less time to update my 7 Linux servers than it does my son's Win2k gaming machine.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
even better!! http://www.linux.org/docs/ldp/howto/DOS-Win-to-Lin ux-HOWTO.html
Yes, I miss Action Quake 2 :(. It and Starcraft were practically all I did my Sophmore year of university.
I like the idea of this book. It would be positive, engaging and probably full of homour to boot (pun intended).
Recently I attempted to convince our IT department of the possibilities behind using Open Office in the workplace. The problem was, my figures were woefully out of sync with the reality of the NT server license that our company has: the cost of MS Office is just tacked on as a small "afterthought" onto the otherwisw expensive EULA.
Having a good and thorough book on the "yes of OSS" would be of benefit to many who share my belief that MS products are too expensive, too buggy and just too virus-prone for today's enterprise.
"My security company offers corporations the ability to be virus and spam free for less than $250 per user per year. For a 50-user network, you're looking at only $12,500 to bring us on."
Hmmm...Who is being ridiculus?...How many Macs or Linux machines require these services?
How do you provide this protection, other than not letting the user use e-mail and internet?
Lucky for you there are all those insecure Windows machines out there...but I wouldn't use that as an arguement against any other OS.
http://www.feel-free.info/
False. Yes, there are MANY PCs that come preinstalled with Windows, or are MS OEMs, but there have been PCs sold as complete systems without MS being installed. (Didn't WalMart try this a couple years back?)
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
Then don't blame Microsoft. They aren't the ones selling you your PC.
pay lots of money and get horrible results, hardly educate? Microbush..
pay NO money, actually LEARN something about your computer, use all sorts of applications, give poor people the same opportunity? Linux
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
Nearly every non-technical person I know who has a computer is running Windows. But I can't think of a single one of them who has ever said to me that they LIKE using it. They all seem to tolerate it, and assume that when things go wrong that it's probably their fault and that's just the way it is with computers.
The one person I know who last year ditched his Windows box for a Mac now can't stop talking about how much he enjoys using it.
In the spirit of promoting open source, I find it funny that this fellow is trying to profit from a free-spirited movement. And surprising that Slashdot would review this book in light of such an agenda.
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
If you don't MS to touch your HD, build it from scratch. ...or have a tech savy friend build it (and tip them for the effort). ...or go to your local "mom-and-pop" computer shop, pick out the parts, and have them build it. I can come up with half a dozen different ways to avoid the MS tax.
The point is that people have plenty of options available to them to avoid paying the MS tax. They just have to get out there and find out what those options are.
They way you're talking, you make it sound like tithing to MS is inevitable. It's really not inevitable.
... would we even have $399 Wal-Mart PCs with the power of eight or ten Cray X/MPs if it weren't for Microsoft providing a standardized platform for application deployment?
Linux people should be a little more careful about biting the hand that feeds their hobby. The Cambrian Explosion of computing would never have happened if Apple had won in the marketplace, for instance. The computer you really want would still cost $5,000.00 under any scenario other than the Wintel hegemony.
Then blame Microsoft because they use their monopoly to force companies selling computers to install microsoft windows on all of their computers if they want to install it at all.
Did you pull these numbers out of your ass, microshill? Let's see, windows XP professional OEM costs $146.95. You can get a slight discount by buying a 30-pack for $4,249.95. A pre-installed version from a Dell or HPaq (without the media, so you can't reinstall and configure it yourself) would cost a little less, but certainly nowhere near $50.
Office 2003 professional (again, OEM, not retail) costs $319.95. Yes, it's also a little cheaper from a big vendor but nowhere near $100.
Please show me where you can buy windows for $50 and office for $100.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
newegg
Historically, the book makes interesting points. There is another world outside there, where Microsoft has no part. Their stuff can be enticing. Still, there are platform issues, security issues, coding issues, just like every other OS.
But NO other OS vendor has been convicted across the world, or settled out of court so many times, than Microsoft. Their intent isn't benevolent code development, rather, profits. It's ok to make profits, but not to engage in the long list of bad behaviors they've been convicted of.
Is FOSS inherently better? In numerous ways, it has advantages, especially if you code in C and are schooled or have learned *nix derivatives. I have, but my brother has no chance whatsoever of learning *nix derivative culture and doesn't really care to. He just needs to make a few apps work. A few distros provide that opportunity handily. So does XP.
It's ok to take an objective view of the *nix vs Microsoft argument and choose accordingly. But such a sensible approach is usually eschewed here for fighting, brutality, code-righteousness, and anecdotal information. I hope his book does well.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I bought a dell dimension w/ windows for less than what it would have cost me to assemble, and I use open office. I'm in the process of switching back to windows exclusively (which came installed on my notebook) from my current dual boot suse. I enjoy the power linux for development but I'm fed up w/ the quirks. I'll go to mac once they come out on intel
...you get what you pay for. My MS system has not BSOD'ed in *years*.
"Hello, I'm your local war correspondent covering the latest in Microsoft fanboy, Linux zealot warfare." Explosions and machinegun fire in the background. "Early in the battle it seemed to be fairly balanced until the M$ camp seemed to be getting ill as the battle went on, succumbing to the latest in viral warfare and spyware infestation. The linux camp, as expected was immune."
Actually, I'm a reader of Bastiat and didn't say it was exactly the same, it just reminded me of it. It is very easy to say "kill Windows and save money!" but you have to look at the big picture, just as the people that proclaim benefit from breaking a window.
If you read my comment, you'd see that I acknowledge that the money WOULD flow to other areas of the economy. Microsoft is not the broken window, killing Microsoft is the broken window. How would the money flow? Who knows, that's for the market to decide. Many readers on slashdot likely earn their living directly or indirectly from Microsoft's large share of the market. I believe many would find their jobs missing if Microsoft was terminated overnight.
Read before commenting.
Total misapplication of the parable and his questionable links regarding MS charity.. Have the mods been trolled? I'll have a nice day just in case.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
When cleaning out a section of the garage to unload antiques from a deceased family member's house, I hit the inevitable: boxes of old magazines. When I'm done in the house, they get stacked, eventually boxed, and finally pushed into the garage, and somehow forgotten until we need more room (the books are boxed and are such they don't take up room.
Last night, I hit a box of ca. '94-'95, and the cover of an Economic Review asks, "How Dangerous is Microsoft?" with a web and WHG III's head on the body of a spider, waiting for prey to get caught. In a strange way, it's interesting how the same questions have come up over & over & over for at least ten years.
One of the things I've pointed out before (and should just save on HD) is the fact Microsoft is failing in one of its most powerful areas: marketing. I'd be greatly surprised if someone (bald? turns red easily?) doesn't promise someone in Marketing that if they don't come up with a way to pry the corporate sector's fingers off of the unholy trinity of Win2K (general service expired 06/30/05 but Microsoft tossed a couple of rollup SPs), Office2K and VS 6.0, they won't have to worry about a lump of coal in their stocking, it'll be the insertion of a broomstick which won't be removed until the problem is fixed.
I have to put "finding numbers I can cite" on my ToDo list. The number of individual licenses in the corporate world for Win2K alone is well into six digits. The TCO for these environments has to be staggeringly low. All joking aside about the Microsoft Seal of Software Quality stamped on discs, Win2K, Office2K, and VS6.0 seem to be Triplet Sons of Different Mothers. They dovetail so well and are probably the sturdiest products Microsoft has put out which don't clobber each other. (Please don't cite problems you encountered as exceptions to disprove the rule. I'm quite serious about this. Look at all of their other products and make an objective analysis. But as Winston Churchill used to say, "The lesser of two evils is still evil.")
Microsoft would love to replace those three products with their descendents. They'd probably like to replace SQL2K with SQL05 as those same shops are likely not to upgrade there, either. We're talking massive revenue+profit for Microsoft (not to mention huge commissions for Sales), and hardware vendors would suffer from priapism for a couple of months because the new software would perform so poorly on the old hardware. The corporations, however, would see their budgets melt to the point any form of bonuses, even those executives who are exempt from the freezes everyone else is vulnerable to, would likely get just a free pair of movie tickets as a show of gratitude. The TCO would go from fractions of a cent to incalcuable dollars. Massive scheduling would have to take place to figure out who could be upgraded when (both hardware & software) in conjunction with getting them trained, as well as the technical staff, yadda-yadda. Worst of all, their profits (what profits?), okay, they'd miss their earnings and p%ss off shareholders for six or seven quarters trying to make up for the big technology jump.
Basically, Microsoft screwed up. Remember the joke about the pig that had a cork shoved up its posterior, was fed & fed & fed, got fatter & fatter, won award after award at every fair & exhibition the owners could find? When it was all said & done, they realized they had to pull the cork. So they trained a monkey to do it. When the time came, someone couldn't resist trying to get just close enough to watch the grand event. After the explosion, they found this guy and asked him what happened. He said, "well, about the time the sh%t started flying, the only thing I could see was the monkey trying to push the cork back in."
Microsoft has done something similar with corks. Except it's the geese which lay golden eggs. They motivated the corporations to cork the geese so Microsoft can't grab anything of
...the proverbial win/win scenario.
No, I'd say it's the proverbial noWindows/noWindows solution.
Preacher....meet choir.
I haven't read the book, but from what I gather from that article, he's basically saying that for a company to use M$ would cost $450+ per computer vs. nothing if all computers ran OSS. Although that may be true in theory, he doesn't seem to mention that linux isn't quite as user-friendly as windows. Sure you can get a pre-loaded distro with just what you need, but for someone who only has experience with windows, it's gonna take some time for them to understand how to build stuff from source code rather than just running an installer.
Basically, what I'm saying is that for a small company without an IT, or a large company with an IT that doesn't know a thing about *nix or even dos (seems odd, but they are out there) to completely dump windows and go to linux might cost more in lost productivity than it would to just buy the windows software.
Why lie when you can just make up stuff and claim it to be true?
But that's another topic for a whole nuther book
Another MS Shill post. Carefully crafted spin but utterly baseless hype. Let's review!
....
I have seen first-hand that corporations are willing to pay for what works for them...
This is a lead-in kind of comment that suggests the parent is advocating choice. This is supposed to disarm the OSS zealot. The mention of security and stability are especially corporatespeak-ish.
But getting giant corporations to switch could be a logistical nightmare..
This comment plants the seed to fear change and allow a corporation to control the software used to generate wealth. Nightmare indeed! I could tell you about Active Directory nightmares that really happened.
Sure, if a company is really serious about cutting costs and open-minded enough to explore open source
Notice, there's no mention of adopting? It's okay to examine, don't adopt.
Change doesn't happen easily and the cost to change (in terms of human capital hours) may exceed the cost incurred by just buying software/OS that can be updated on an enterprise level with relative ease
The statement is nonsensical buzzworded fear and uncertainty. "updated on an enterprise level" Hmm. apt-get update, apt-get upgrade. Or maybe Yast's software updater thingy in Suse, or
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Besides it's a misuse of the phrase "Microsoft Tax".
Using Microsoft tax for when you have to pay for the software but don't want it is a little bit better, but still doesn't illustrate the tax sense though.
The word "tax", used in the negative sense, has two connotations. One is in the sense, "The power to tax involves the power to destroy" The other is in the sense that when we pay a tax for governance we pay for things that we don't want in addition.
An extremely useful book would cover how a "Microsoft Tax" covers both those aspects.
My Vic-20 is still stomping after all these years, no OS upgrades, no virii, no costly softwaqre fees.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
THANK YOU! :) A little off-topic, but the parable of the broken window will now be on my list of arguments against the RIAA. A friend of mine said the RIAA has many employees, and that piracy was destroying them, etc. etc. However, he did not see the hidden costs of overpriced songs and recording company monopolies.
Maybe, this parable can apply to ALL monopolies? As in users are forced to purchase products from one manufacturer / music company etc., in the same way the store owner was forced to spend his money on the broken window?
Unfortunately, the book spends far too much time slurring Microsoft and Bill Gates.
That's not a bug -- that's a feature!
Software Wars
Two of the companies that Microsoft has been accused of destroying are Novell and WordPerfect. Yet much of the blame for the demise of these two companies goes to their management that did not know how to properly market their products nor deal with a competitor such as Microsoft.
This charge is often made. And, yes, Novell screwed up, as did other companies that got steamrollered over by Microsoft. But Microsoft has screwed up many times as well, and big time. The difference is that when a company controls the operating system and has a monopolistic revenue stream, they can screw up again and again and still stay in business.
The latest screwup by Microsoft is Longhorn/Vista, where they have had to drop one feature after another and are still years late. Any other company would have gone bankrupt if they did this to their major projects, and any software professional responsible for such a project should be banned from the profession for life.
To people interested in an insider account of Microsoft, its management, and its screwups, I recommend "Barbarians led by Bill Gates".
Let's assume, that by some miracle, some subcontractor, ShitSoft (MS) manages to break a deal to sell shit (Windows) for food (OS) for McDonalds (IBM) customers for their fastfood restaurants (PC) sometime in the late 80ies so ShitSoft gains monopoly on fastfood restaurants and thus the food market.
There are 12'000 people involved in devising the best methods to fling shit at the customers, to feed them with shit, to serve shit in the most appetizing way.
Because people don't know anything better, people buy ShitSoft's "product". ShitSoft must be producing a huge market many hungry people rely on, right?
ShitSoft is a nice friendly company, so it donates less than 1% of its profits to help combat diseases, so this is why we should keep eating shit.
Also, ShitSoft also has around 12'000 employees, whom are contractually obliged to eat shit.
ShitSoft has been on the top for a while, they clearly created a product that everyone LIKES, because they don't know any better. That product has created jobs for millions of food specialists, contractors and plastic cutlery producers. (Because they would be totally out of their jobs if people would eat something different, right?)
But as in every fairy tale the bad, ugly guy appeared: community owned greenhouses started producing quality vegetables. They gave it away the plans of building such greenhouses and the seeds for the vegetables, only asking to share them with everyone who wants those plans and seeds.
ShitSoft had to do something: they started their "Get the feces" campaign, where they involved several independent researchers, with only a few million shares from ShitSoft or being a board member at ShitSoft. Those researchers claimed that everyone who uses community owned greenhouses must be a communist for not supporting Real hard working American produced quality branded shit wrapped in nice shiny package, but preferred vegetables. They explained that shit has a much lower Total Caloric Overall, than vegetables and that ShitSoft's shit is produced by a trustable american corporation while the vegetables are clearly on the way to ruin the american economy.
The campaign is still undecided to be effective or not, but let's not forget another issue: ShitSoft's product created a huge industry to modify some of the product's erm, "features". Some customers wanted to decrease the value of the quality shit (no idea why would they want to do that), by buying products from third party companies to make shit lose it's smell and taste, and to drive away the flies. Can you not see how ShitSoft helps the economy?
There have been certain allegations before, that ShitSoft's product is not adequate for human consumption. Such a nonsense! It is a shame that we can't disprove that since ShitSoft's End User Shit Agreement specifically forbids the analysis of their latest, "eXPerience the Shit" product and all former versions. Some people slandered ShitSoft before by claiming that shit causes diarrhea and infections and that generally everyone just should refrain from eating shit, but ShitSoft dismissed such scandalous claims.
Be patriotic, support ShitSoft, down with vegetables!
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Chapter 3 deals with what worries Microsoft the most - Linux.
Hey, you spelled 'Google' wrong.
So, if Microsoft was replaced by an two companies, those companies wouldn't employ the same number of people and donate the same amount to charity?
And if the two companies did employ fewer people or donated less, doesn't that mean that Microsoft is economically inefficient? And that a better allocation of resources makes our nation's GDP overall, rather than funnelling inefficient money through a single entity?
"Yes, and broken windows help employ glass makers" Which was exactly the point that Bastiat was trying to debunk with the parable.
>> The idea of saving money and never having to worry about a blue screen of death is the proverbial win/win scenario
Bullshit. I use WinXP day int/day out and the only blue screen I;ve seen in the last 2 years is from Sophos anti-virus. Like it or not the simple truth is WinXP is ROCK SOLID when used without buggy drivers.
What a dork!
My favorite is how I can get, say, a Powerbook running OS X cleared to bring to work, but I can't plug it into the Windows network for "security reasons". The guy who told me that couldn't even keep a straight face as he said it, but it's dumbass management who writes these rules. The MBA world worships MS like a cargo cult.
I am a non-techie.
I like using windows. Right now I have 3 XP boxes and 2 XP notebooks on my home network. I have auto-update on all of my machines so they remain patched. I run adware/spyware utilities on my machines, anti-virus, and use firefox. none of my machines crash - I don't have spyware/adware issues, my network works well and is secure.
everything is dirt cheap; microsoft products integrate seamlessly (my outlook to my pocket pc to spreadsheets to my cell phone, etc; my network was simple to set up and configure) - and I don't have to learn how to do anything. I work in the film industry and am shooting an independent film on my own dime and time - and my XP network does everything I need it to and well... and at cost. Not to mention that in the Wintel world - instead of a couple of solutions to any given problem, I probably have hundreds of options, allowing me to choose the best tool for the project/problem at hand.
I am not emotional about my tools. I don't care how they work. I want them to work cheaply and efficiently. I want lots of solutions and choice, which keeps costs down.
I've used Macs - everyone in the industry uses them. I don't like them as much as I like using windows and I cannot justify the higher prices in general for their hardware. The supposed benefits of security and stability are valuable, but I get these same benefits on my XP machines at lower cost.
un burrito me trampeó.
I built my last PC, piece by piece, with no so called "MS tax" involved.
Interesting that on a site where most people would build their own boxes, you ignore such a possibility.
Most likely, you realized your point wouldn't hold up and were hoping no one would mention it.
You CAN choose not to use MS, AND you can choose not to pay them.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
When I set out to install Windows 98 and RedHat 7.2 (both contemporaries of each other in 1999 when I did this) I tallied up how much it would cost me to implement the same functionality in Windows using only commercial software on the Windows side that I had in RedHat for free. I came up with $6000 to bring Windows up to par with Redhat 7.2 at the time. I don't have the breakdown but I'm sure if I reproduced the experiment I would come up with a similar figure.
;P Your serve...
Here's what I roughly remember:
1. Throw out Windows 98 that came with the PC and install Windows 2000 Server - $600
2. Buy Adobe Photoshop to provide what GIMP does (at the time Photoshop Elements didn't exist) - $800
3. Install a decent software firewall from Norton - $99
4. Install Microsoft Office 2000 - $600
5. Install Xing! MP3 encoding/ripping software - $50
6. Install a development environment from Microsoft - $1500
There were quite a few other things I needed on that box at the time and I wasn't going to pirate or buy the software so I just wound up ditching Windows for Linux. But the total came up to about $5400 if I remember correctly. So tell me again why I would want to buy into something that I can get for free, legally elsehwere?
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Cue up Bohemian Rhapsody http://www.queenwords.com/lyrics/songs/sng11_01.sh tml
Then you can count the number of times that I said NO to Microsoft's OS as well as any of their office software, browers or utilities.
Of course by now you can multiply that by about 1000 because I have never owned a PC that runs Windows of any flavor or DOS for that matter.
Grandparent's just rounding up. The fact that the evidence you present to refute him is just shy of anecdotal ("Didn't my uncle once know a guy whose third cousin owned a parrot that he got from an old lady who bought a PC without Windows preinstalled?") is a sign of just how ubiquitous Windows preinstalls are.
Telltale Games: Bone, Sam and Max
Paragraph 1: The book slurs Microsoft and Bill Gates.
Paragraph 2: Mainly by saying Microsoft is predatory. They have had ethical lapses, but hey, so have other companies!
Paragraph 3: It's true that Microsoft's practices have discouraged innovation and stunted competition. But hey, that's true of other companies!
Paragraph 4: Microsoft is not blameless with the way they dealt with Novell and WordPerfect.
Then the review starts to talk about the contents of the book, chapter by chapter. So after beginning by saying the book slurs Microsoft, the reviewer then basically agrees with every charge against Microsoft. So what is the complaint?
Bove is correct that Microsoft's practices over the years have discouraged innovation and stunted competition. But then again, that is true of Ford, GM and other such companies.
And that makes it all right, why?
The difference between the RIAA and Microsoft is that the RIAA uses government's coercion to bolster their product. Microsoft does sue for copying Windows, but most users pay for the operating system (being businesses). I'm not saying taking apart Microsoft is akin to breaking a window (no pun), but I am saying that Microsoft does perform some good for the economy and I do not see them as a monopoly force.
...in a world without Microsoft.
What would happen? Profit!
Not for you, though. The Microsoft Tax(tm) wouldn't disappear, it'd simply remain in place, going into the pockets of the computer manufacturers rather than everyone's favorite corporation.
Right now, there's not enough boxxen sold to 'normal' users without operating systems to justify dicking people over. Right now, the tax disappears in order to compete - let's face it, most people who can run Linux can order their own parts, assemble their own box, and save a hell of a lot more money in total.
If everyone(tm) used Linux, though, the price would go back up to match the Microsoft tax. Why wouldn't it? Whaddya gonna do, Grandma? Build your own box? Ha!
...coming after 'Windows vs. Linux Study Author Replies'. Brings the Slashdot community back to full throttle M$ bashing.
Mozilla stole tabs from NetCaptor. So what? Right?
"And you have that choice, right? Which instantly destroys anyone else's "Microsoft is a monopoly!" claim.
A company having a monopoly does not mean they have 100% of the market. It means that they have such a dominant position that normal market forces no longer operate effectively.
Excuse me for not going to Google. Search on:
walmart linux pc
Here's the first hit: WalMart Offers a New Linux PC. And another one: Wal-Mart Expands Linux Offerring.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
My current job is all about creating a feature that is difficult + time consuming to duplicate thanks to the way microsoft has implemented certain things. Now, I'm not very good at these types of things, but I suppose that would make me the glass maker, because I profit due to the inflexibility of windows. So, I suppose if windows built certain things better then I wouldn't have this job... Doesn't that mean that from my perspective microsoft is the broken window?
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
Or $450 to upgrade to a new machine every eight years or so.
You've got a point there. I mean, $450 every 8 years. That's over $50 per year! That's nearly $5 every month! That's damn near $0.16 per day!
It's too bad that us programmers live so far below the poverty line, or else some day we might be able to hope for a system that we could pay off $450 over 8 years for. That's really stretching the budget.
I would really hate to see my software costs get in the way of hardware costs. As I'm spending a few hundred every few years on hard drives, plus $350 to ATI whenever I feel like I need a step up, then there's the CPU for $200 or so every few years, and you know memory is so cheap now, I might as well get another 2GB there soon. And as long as I'm upgrading my CPU, I might as well go with a new motherboard too, throw in another $150 there.
But pay a couple hundred bucks for a stable operating system I've never had problems with that will recognize all of this hardware the first time I boot it, without my intervention and without having to write my own goddamn driver or compile the kernel? NEVER!!
I'm sorry, what were we arguing again?
I've always found it strange how so many anti-Microsoft arguments will include some reference to PowerPoint and how it is somehow responsible for bad presentations.
PowerPoint is a fine program for what it does, which is probably why it's so popular. Yes, it can be used poorly, so what. It's not Microsoft's fault. Microsoft didn't invent presentation software, and isn't forcing people to give bad presentations. Other programs like Impress serve the same function, and can be misused just as easily. Used properly, these tools can be very beneficial for both the presenter and the audience.
Adding poor arguments like this one into the mix with good arguments only weakens the better arguments. There are plenty of valid reasons out there for disliking Microsoft and Microsoft software - PowerPoint is not one of them. It doesn't help spread viruses or introduce malware, it doesn't hinder workflow, and it doesn't seem to have as many irritating stability issues as the other programs in the Office suite.
There are a few reasons I strongly disagree with the opinions of those-who-wrote-the-book.
.Net versions that is) .Net developer VS is the best tool available.
Part 1: MS Office
I have yet to be impressed by OpenOffice, it does things a completely different way than I'm used to. Now there is nothing wrong with that and the developers of OO have done and still do a great job for the people that like OO. But consider the thousands of people used to working with MS Office for the past 10> years. From office 97 and before things work in a similar fashion and it's quite easy to understand as MS puts a lot of effort in user-interface design and usability.
Part 2: Visual Studio (
VS is truly the best IDE I've _ever_ worked with, there is nothing that comes close to it on any OS I've used. KDevelop comes close but as I'm a
Part 3: Why switch at all?
The warcry of other OS's being FREE (as in beer or completely) doesn't do it for most people. I know of a lot of people who gave different versions of Linux (Ubuntus, Debians, Mandrakes, SuSE's etc) a try and complained that it just was too much fuss to get anything special to work. This way for those group of people a reason to stick with MS software in general, because it's known and looks pretty.
I seriously doubt this is going to change until there is someone is prepared to put a _lot_ of money into creating a new and better OS and to lobby like hell with the hardware- and independent software vendors to get support for it.
Conclusion:
Just stick with what you need, if you need office applications use MS Office, if you need to run a server take whatever flavor of *NIX you like because it works far better in that area.
Note: I'm not a MS fanboy even my freshly gained MCAD cert doesn't change that.
gcc: brain.c: No such file or directory
But the BSOD comments have to stop. It's so windows 3.1.
If only.
I run a legit version of Windows XP, all the updates installed, with three legit anti-virus/anti-spyware programs (among other software), on a fairly new box. Basically, I've done all of the things that Microsoft has told me to do to keep my computer running smoothly. I still get BSOD's on a semi-regular basis -- sometimes for spontaneous driver conflicts, sometimes for what appears to be no reason at all. I'm not a Windows fan (I only run it 'cause I can't run the software I use without it), but I do agree with the fact that the Windows bashing is getting old. However, BSODs do still happen -- don't think they stopped happening with the old versions of the OS. Occurrences decreased in frequency, sure, but the problem still exists.
BSODs are still a legit problem, and are one of the flaws inherent in Windows, no matter what version.
The actual price (which is certainly different) is a trade secret. If only because MS doesn't want everyone else paying what Dell does for windows.
Just for background, if you haven't read already this fellows battle with Toshiba refunding him the cost on his windows 95 license many many years ago is an entertaining read.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
Comparing Windows and Linux is like comparing freedom and slavery. Treating the comparison as Linux versus Windows, as some kind of dumb food fight, completely misses the point. Windows is closed source, Linux is open source, sadly the majority of our species does not understand this crucial difference.
To drive home the point, if when Windows 95 was released, it was released with its source code, by now, it would have been the best damn operating system on the planet, greed and ignorance prevented this.
It's called an elephant's trunk whereas it is in fact, an elephant's nose, a nose by any other name would smell as sweet
"and never having to worry about a blue screen of death"
I always wonder if the zealots realise that their constant referral to the blue screen of death is seen as analogous to the administration's constant referrals to 'Terrorists'. It has been quite well established that in Windows versions since 2000, BSOD is virtually eliminated, and when it does occur, is likely to have been caused by a poorly written driver (a similar cause for kernel panics).
Yes, Microsoft Office is expensive.
Yes OOo is cheap.
Yes OOo can fit the needs of a lot of users.
No it does not fit the need of all users.
I'm sick of the FUD on both sides.
Save yourself some money by buying the book here: Just Say No to Microsoft. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!
Damn, I wished I had some points atm, this is the best story ever.
(yes this can be compared with sex)
The reality is - at least in our massive conglomerate - we have no real choice in the matter. A committee essentially deems what is and isn't secure and/or worth investing in and leaves the end-user out of the equation altogether. Getting a giant to just even go beyond exploring to adopting is easier said than done. Essentially you have to convince that group of Micro$oft-dependent personnel that there really are other viable, secure and stable alternatives. I don't think a book is going to do it either.
Believe me, if we could have the option to ditch the MS Office suite altogether, I'd be the first one to do so. But trying to consider things from the perspective of "big business", the fact remains is that most people in the company have a basic understanding of how to use the Microsoft suite of products - and switching to another alternative suite costs human capital hours for orientation and training. If the argument of the book is for saving a corporation money, it has to throw in orientation and training dollars into the mix. With that in mind, I don't think there would be much of a savings to justify switching to another application suite. That's just my two cents.
401 - Attention span not found
Give me an app that plays DVDs, REALLY plays them, properly, with menus and multi-angle and playing the games on the extras discs and everything implemented properly. All I've seen so far requires me to hunt through audio and video tracks and it just plays tracks from beginning to end. That's just puking data to the screen, not playing a DVD.
I have other things that I need (IE photoshop, NO GIMP IS NOT ACCEPTABLE) but DVD playing has become my benchmark; until that's done, Linux is for servers only for me (though it's far and away my choice there).
I built my last PC, piece by piece, with no so called "MS tax" involved. Interesting that on a site where most people would build their own boxes, you ignore such a possibility.
Will you build me a laptop? cuz I certainly can't...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
I am a techie.
I like using Linux. Right now I have 1 Debian box, 1 Ubuntu box, and 1 Ubuntu notebook on my home network. I have auto-update on all of my machines so they remain patched. I have no need for adware/spyware utilities and anti-virus on my machines. none of my machines crash - I don't have spyware/adware issues, my network works well and is secure.
everything is dirt cheap; OSS products integrate seamlessly (my network was simple to set up and configure) - and I don't mind having to learn how to do everthing. I work in the software industry and am writing software on my own dime and time - and my Linux network does everything I need it to and well... and at cost. Not to mention that in the GNU/Linux world - instead of a couple of solutions to any given problem, I probably have thousands of options, allowing me to choose the best tool for the project/problem at hand.
I am not emotional about my tools. I don't care how they work. I want them to work cheaply and efficiently. I want lots of solutions and choice, which keeps costs down.
I've used Macs - everyone in the industry uses them. I don't like them as much as I like using Linux and I cannot justify the higher prices in general for their hardware. The supposed benefits of security and stability are valuable, but I get these same benefits on my Linux machines at lower cost.
Dunno about the 'land of the free', but over here in the 'old world', we have PCs without Windows. Sure, they won't have a flash bang brand like 'HP' or 'Dell', but who cares? You can have exactly the setup you want, built by a knowledgeable tech, with solid 2-3 year warranty by the store that sold it to you. No M$ tax, unless you want one (that'd be 109 euros for OEM XP Home, should you so choose)
Dunno whats' with the big brand name companies... it seems like they've signed on a dotted line saying "I'll get my XP's cheap from MS, but in exchange I won't sell *any* computers without XP on them (or without any OS at all, since they are obivious used by EVIL PIRATES)"
So? Don't buy from those companies. There are options.
> How can paying for an OS be considred a tax?
The retailer *still* pays MS for the OS, they just don't give it to us. They have to do this as part of their OEM licensing deal, because otherwise they report more "naked" computers than they actually ship--at least, that's Microsoft's rationale.
The upshot of it is that we effectively pay for an OS whether we want one or not unless we put together our own damn computer from scratch (which is, in fact, what many of us do any more).
Fact remains, you get no discount for ordering a naked computer, and Microsoft gets just as much money as it did before if you buy from OEMs. Thus the "MS tax" on buying from them. So no, there really is no choice but to assemble them yourself, and that just *isn't* an option in some scenarios (try doing that when your office orders, say, 200 workstations... it's hard to find the time, let alone justify it, to assemble that many by hand).
Open Source is "corresponsing" a threat? What the hell is that supposed to mean? What does it correspond to?
... and then they built the supercollider.
He's a slashdotter right?
A new computer requires the purchase of hardware and software to make that hardware work. The hardware is physical, and people intuitively understand that it costs money to buy it, even though its cost includes compensation for the original hardware development cost. Software is at least as difficult to develop as the hardware, if not significantly more difficult. Why should software be provided at no cost? Microsoft Windows is the result of millions of man-hours of development effort. MS Windows is a friendlier and easier experience for the average desktop user.
Provide support for the presumption that software should be a free (money) component in a new hw/sw computer purchase.
Dude, good software is hard to write.
So, tell me how to build my own laptop.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
It seems that the topic of Windows being the premier platform for worms and viruses comes up quite frequently.. mostly followed by a lot of Microsoft bashing. I just wanted to add, that if the same amount of people that hated Microsoft (and wrote the malicious viruses and worms) spent that time developing worms and virues for Apple computers, or even linux (since you don't have to reverse engineer anything, the source is available!) there would be just as many worms and viruses for those platforms. I'm sure that if linux ever takes the majority of the OS market share, there will be plenty of addware, viruses, and similar software popping up.
Corporations are choosing to buy M$ for many other reason than price.
I would say they are using it at least 50% for other reason than price.
I have seen many start-ups, who adored Linux and other OpenSource software when they did not have too much capital. One of the first sign of growth is to start switching over to Microsoft.
Just to name a few reasons:
1) Senior managers, partners LOVE Microsoft, because it's an example corporation they would like to be. They are Microsoft fans as corporate citizens. They see Microsoft as an exclusive club: they think of Microsoft as one of the greatest corporations in history, with huge amount of cash, with near monopoly within an industry, with the CEO, who is one of the richest man on Earth. Senior managers LOVE the "membership" of this "elite club". Microsoft and Gates is everything they ever wanted to achieve: Microsoft and Gates are corporate idols.
2) Senior managers are horrified to think that they are not members of this elite club. The last thing they would like to hear that of of their client, business partner can't read their files because it's not Microsoft compatible. They don't want to be the uncool kid in the school, who does not have the same gadget what the cool kids have.
3) No IT manager was ever fired for deploying Windows.
Again: if one of the world's greatest corporations can't do it - then noone else can. If a Microsoft product fails - well, that's the best what the best can do at this moment.
If any other product fails - then it's a shitty company or a shitty product, "you should have gone with the pros.... (Microsoft)".
4) It's good to have large budget, it shows the importance of the department. It's good to spend lots of money on Microsoft: it makes senior management feel that we are cool.
Every heard of a guy named Stallman? He's a well known developer and I'm pretty sure he has plenty of interest in "DEFEATING MICROSOFT."
What does the F/OSS world have to gain from "whining Windows ex-pats"? How about that when less money, market, and mindshare go to Microsoft (and consequentially other closed-source vendors), the position of open source is strengthened? And everyone knows that more open source means more civil liberties and other goodies, leading eventually to strawberry fields forever. At least according to Stallman et al.
This Bove character would be better off writing a book on diplomacy for the F/OSS community. The "figureheads" of the movement seem quite courteous and well-intentioned. The general followers use phrases like "whining Windows ex-pats" and come off as total assholes.
I think it's well agreed upon that the proliferation of PCs is at least in part due to Microsoft, whose products are easy to use, even for novices. No matter what you want to think, Linux is NOT easy for inexperienced users.
If you really want less money to go to Microsoft, good sir, then I suggest you run down to the pub, gather up all your friends, and get to work on a product that genuinely replaces Windows. A product that gets the job done on high-end servers, cheap notebooks, and PDAs. A product that may not be perfect (or even close) but one that makes sense to the AVERAGE user. I wish you good luck, and remember: Linux does not meet the above requirements.
If you manage to get past the first challenge, then take a night off. Take a shower (if you're into that sort of thing), go out and get pissed (or is it sodded? or both?), but don't stay out too late, because you still need to create a Microsoft Office replacement.
Or maybe you should reconsider your anti-evangelism stance?
Yeah, like Cisco, Sun, Oracle, SAP, Siemens, & IBM don't engaged in ball busting business tactics... welcome to the real world.
Maybe I just didnt get much out of it. The author is simply put a Microsoft basher and the "History" of Microsoft is simply the same urban legend myths we have heard on the web before that were debunked. Its a good read for fiction and a good free advertisement for Open Source
So, tell me how to build my own laptop. http://www.abspc.com/diy/notebookdiy.asp
Just say NO to productivity and quality software.
I coulda bought from Dell and gotten cheaper software pricing, except Dell costs more in the first place, and it doesn't seem to be a quality issue because they're actually lower in reliability ratings.
Microsoft could get away with those prices when a decent box cost $2K and there weren't good alternatives, but these days....
That statement shows unawareness of Microsoft's history for the last 20 years. Yes, all those other companies have had ethical lapses. Shady practices and bullying are commonplace among big business, it's undeniably true. However. . .
None of them even come close to Microsoft. The bullying, lying, cheating, stealing and sabotage that Microsoft have carried out -- blatantly and relentlessly for two decades -- make Sony and Wal-Mart look like boy scout camps. Just because everybody cheats doesn't make it OK for Microsoft to cheat, and sure as hell doesn't make it OK for them to cheat twenty times as much as everybody else. And that's before we even get to how the majority of Microsoft's products have been either seriously flawed, or they were five years behind what other companies had done, or both.
I already got rid of all my Microsoft products some while back, and saving a few bucks had nothing to do with it. (They don't give away Mac OS X, anyhow.) Here are some better reasons to ditch Microsoft:
1. Not helping to support a company that has willfully and maliciously caused tremendous harm to the computer industry.
2. Not doing business with a company that has ripped off customers for countless billions, and will undoubtedly rip you off too, if you give them a chance.
3. Avoiding the spyware and DRM that Microsoft would like to slip into your computer.
4. Avoid the many security holes that riddle Microsoft products like swiss cheese.
5. Buy from companies that don't have a track record of putting out crummy products.
The problem, of course, is that people on the whole don't care about right and wrong. Or if they do, they think it's somebody else's problem to do something about it. They may grumble that the DOJ didn't crack down on Microsoft, but the same people will be standing in line to get a XBox 360.
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing" -- Edmund Burke
And unfortunately, that's exactly what most good people do. Nothing. Ignore the problem. Tune out the few who complain. Tar them as fanatics or kooks, then you can safely ignore them too. Rationalize.
"Microsoft cheats, but so what? All the big companies do."
"Look at all the innovation Microsoft brought to computers!"
"They wouldn't be so huge and successful if they weren't providing what people want, after all."
"What are you, some kind of communist?"
But if you scratch under the surface, past all the excuses and rationalization, what they're really thinking is: "Man, I want to play Halo 3. .
Of course, I don't know how typical the government is compared to the private sector because both of my IT jobs were government (one New York City, one federal). Right now, I work for a pharmaceutical company, but not in the IT department, so I'm not too familiar with what's running in the back office. It is a mixed Windows/NetWare server environment with a lot of Unix (SAP and some other web-based applications). We do use Microsoft Office, however. Although there is a mix of Windows 2000 and XP on the desktop as well as a mix of Office 2000, XP, and 2003. (I got a brand spanking new laptop in May, so I've got WinXP and Office 2003, but most folks are still using older versions.)
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product_listing.gsp ?cat=231791&path=0%3A3944%3A3951%3A41937%3A231785% 3A231791
There ya go. Walmart sells clean PCs. They also are the main distributor of Linspire machines.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
There are still a couple of significant gaps in the FOSS world. I try to keep really good tabs on what's available and how it stacks up to the competition, and here's my current list of software that is not FOSS that I'd still like to replace, but haven't found a good replacement for yet:
Winamp I've tried a dozen other players. Winamp is still king. Get us something that can run milk drop and has as good of sound, and an identical interface. You really still can't get better than winamp, though I do give a cute nod to foobar and zinf for trying to get it going.
Nero There is still no dvd/cd app that is FOSS that is even in the same world of ease and quality as nero. This is probably the biggest single thing keeping my computer tainted with non FOSS. How hard can it be? I just want to drag and drop files to burn CDs and DVDs at the highest speed possible without making coasters. If anyone's got a suggestion, let me know.
Sibelius For music notation it is vastly superior to any other commercial or FOSS alternative. It's really a shame to see all music composers tied to incompatible proprietary formats too. Somebody should really help us with this, and yes, I've tried Lillypond, and it just sucks compared to Sibelius. Not every composer is also a programmer.
Vsampler For using a midi keyboard and soundfonts, I actually hate this program, but it's all I've found that "just works" albeit with a torturous interface that takes hours to coax into usability. This kind of software would be a no-brainer to replace with a quick little FOSS app that just loaded a list of soundfonts and then hooked them up to the keyboard. Just throwing the idea around for any of you geeks that lack any street cred at the moment.
Adaware It just works, when a lot of other stuff doesn't. Clamwin is really promising these days, though, albeit it's primary function is slightly different.
Grand Theft Auto San Andreas Truth be told, until this runs on linux, I'll probably always have a windows partition stowed around somewhere.
Other than that my PC is completely FOSS, and I'm ecstatic. Besides FOSS software in general being more reliable, more resource efficient, more ergonomic and free, it's success and development are not tied to a financial model, which makes it future proof, and I don't have to relearn to use new programs every few years. I see this as the biggest benefit. Having been working on and around computers for 2 decades, it's really amazing how many different apps I've had to relearn as some new company takes the crown in their market from somebody else. I don't see this happening to any of these programs, which in general I already like as much or better than their commercial counterparts:
Nvu
Abiword
Shareaza
The Gimp
Audacity
Firefox
Thunderbird
VLC
Media Player Classic
Ghostscript/Ghostwrite
Gaim (can't wait for 2.0 and google talk integration, WOO HOO!!! On a side note, Sean's a real nice guy.)
K-Lite codec pak (not really sure it's open source, but it's got real alternative quicktime alternative, mpc, and most of the codecs you need to open stuff right out of the box, so to speak).
Zsnes (the roms aren't open source, but this trumps 98% of the other quick little arcade games you can get for windows, now I wish they would use the standard gtk window or something instead of the hiddeous purple thing).
1964 (People are astounded to play Super Mario 64 in high def on my rig)
Quake 2 Evolved (Death match at it's best!)
Filezilla (though now I just use Nvu 99% of the time instead..)
Anyway, if I've got some gaps or there are some programs that truly are as good or better than that list of non FOSS crap, let me know.....
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
The idea of saving money and never having to worry about a blue screen of death is the proverbial win/win scenario.
You know, if the author plans to bash a company, he/she really should consider using that company's latest operating system. I haven't seen a blue screen of death since my cousing was using Windows ME approximately four years ago, honestly.
Any topic that has Microsoft vs Linux is bound to start a flame war. I use both and I admit that I'm not fond of Microsoft because of some of their practices, historical software stability, virus threat, and spyware but I'm stuck with it bacause I'm a gamer. I use linux on my workstation and while I do enjoy playing with it I've had my troubles that have made me wish for a more unified installer across the linux front then there is dependancy hell to deal with which is ok if you have something like apt-get or yum but sucks when something goes wrong. The community around linux is great but I admit that the elitists annoy me. Who really cares that you use such and such distro and can do all of this stuff if you can't get over yourself and answer a simple question rather than offer a snide remark. It all comes down to using what works for you and what you like while dealing with the problems of that OS.
The tax on Macintosh is actually higer than that on a PC. You get taxed on the software and on the proprietary hardware. Even where you can find non-proprietary hardware it is frequently more expensive or has fewer options than the PC equivalent.
And don't forget the tax of needing a backup PC to access some web sites or run specific software.
You've got a point there. I mean, $450 every 8 years. That's over $50 per year! That's nearly $5 every month! That's damn near $0.16 per day!
Spoken like a true tax collector.
It's too bad that us programmers live so far below the poverty line, or else some day we might be able to hope for a system that we could pay off $450 over 8 years for. That's really stretching the budget.
Some *former* US programmers do live below the poverty line. And thousands of foreign programmers do as well.
I would really hate to see my software costs get in the way of hardware costs. As I'm spending a few hundred every few years on hard drives, plus $350 to ATI whenever I feel like I need a step up, then there's the CPU for $200 or so every few years, and you know memory is so cheap now, I might as well get another 2GB there soon. And as long as I'm upgrading my CPU, I might as well go with a new motherboard too, throw in another $150 there.
You are talking about choices to purchase. No one is forcing you to make those purchases.
Why should someone who only writes a few text documents and communicates via email pay for a new machine when their current one is perfectly servicable with the exception that the OS has quit working?
But pay a couple hundred bucks for a stable operating system I've never had problems with that will recognize all of this hardware the first time I boot it, without my intervention and without having to write my own goddamn driver or compile the kernel? NEVER!!
I've never written my own driver either. You must be high.
I'm sorry, what were we arguing again?
I wasn't arguing.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
open source proof reading software?
That is why the option of open source is so financially compelling to the both the consumer and organizations have thousands of computers.
Chapter 1 start with an overview...
My lack of God, it's Trotsky!
its been a while since i've used linux and open office. how easy is it to install the two nowadays?
i hated having to search details about my hardware before i could even install linux, plus the configure, make, make-install BS of the apps completely turned me off linux. I tinkered with it a bit until it got annoying.
Do you just load an ISO and click on a few things to install the OS and Open Office, or do you still have to go through that mumbo jumbo stuff today? i think that will be the deciding factor whether joe six pack will embrace linux.
But I, as other commenters, am thrown off by the Anti-M$ comments. I mean, I despise M$ as much as the next guy and heck, we all get reminded everyday on why we hate M$ (specially here in Slashdot). But he should've focused on talking about OSS software and its benefits. And my opinion on M$ and the Just Say No (what a dumb title for a book) is: On my home computer, everything as OSS as possible. Even if I have to buy a PC with WinXp installed, everything else will be OSS. Firefox, Thunderbird, Anti-Virus, Media Players, etc. A spayed and neutuered WinXp box can work ok if it has the appropriate software installed. For work, hey it's their dime. They can pay Micro$oft's tax and all of the hidden support costs. I don't care.
the future is but past forgotten
"Bove is correct that Microsoft's practices over the years have discouraged innovation and stunted competition. But then again, that is true of Ford, GM and other such companies."
And your point is that because other large corporations misbehave it's okay? I don't agree.
"Two of the companies that Microsoft has been accused of destroying are Novell and WordPerfect. Yet much of the blame for the demise of these two companies goes to their management that did not know how to properly market their products nor deal with a competitor such as Microsoft. This is not meant to imply that Microsoft is blameless, rather that Novell and WordPerfect had plenty of opportunities to fend off Microsoft, yet did not rise to the challenge."
By "rise to the challenge" do you mean did not fight back with their own dirty tricks? How should they have better marketed their products? Microsoft found that the best way to market a product is to include a scaled back version in their monopoly operating system. Word Pad for instance once incorporated into Windows gets everyone started using a Microsoft document format. It makes products like Word Perfect less attractive and when the user out grows Word Pad what product do you think he will buy? Word Perfect or a product that uses the same document format in which he already has his documents saved?
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Actually, the average person will buy the OS pre-installed for someone like Dell. Then they pay just a few dollars over the OEM price. It's pretty rare that a user upgrades their OS without replacing the machine. Even at the big box stores, the preinstalled versions of the OS only add $50 to 100 to the cost of the machine.
Office is a bit different, although many of the cheap PC options include MS Works for nearly free--a full copy of Word and stripped down version of Excel.
Ah, but you see, then you have Windows...with an office suite. This still isn't factoring in desktop publishing, graphics software, video editing software, audio editing software, home/small business financial software, and tons of other things which you generally add to a Windows machine...but generally comes on your average Linux install (when talking about desktop systems, and not servers obviously...).
And what the hell is up with suggesting the Mac as a big cost savings platform? Sure it comes with more than Windows does, but you sure pay for it.
The SONY fiasco where the protectors worked with the intruders to get the keys to the kingdom. What more proof do fools need to dump MS products for government use.
As you see this book can be condensed to one line.
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
I think it's well agreed upon that the proliferation of PCs is at least in part due to Microsoft, whose products are easy to use, even for novices. No matter what you want to think, Linux is NOT easy for inexperienced users.
How exactly is the PC revolution all thanks to Microsoft and their "ease of use for novices"? The PC revolution was well underway before the existence of Windows. I remember helping customers use software I'd written for their 286 notebook luggables running DOS 3 well before Windows made it with WFW.
If you really want less money to go to Microsoft, good sir, then I suggest you run down to the pub, gather up all your friends, and get to work on a product that genuinely replaces Windows. A product that gets the job done on high-end servers, cheap notebooks, and PDAs. A product that may not be perfect (or even close) but one that makes sense to the AVERAGE user. I wish you good luck, and remember: Linux does not meet the above requirements.
*sigh*. Yes. It does. I've converted MANY friends and family to Linux and I have far less support calls than with Windows. You see, the problem lies in the "Power Users" group - people who think they know about computers when in actual fact they only really think they know about Windows. They expect to load up an alternative operating system and have it work just like Windows. Your average Joe User can happily use a setup Linux machine without noticing too much difference because using Thunderbird/Firefox/OO on *nix is not much different to Outlook/IE/Office on Windows (seriously, how many of those whizbang office features do you think your average person uses?).
What we need to do is educate people rather than make a clone of Windows - if you let Microsoft set the rules we'll be playing catchup forever. Getting something else on OEM PCs would help since Joe Average can't exactly replace the Windows he's given now, can he?
The general followers use phrases like "whining Windows ex-pats" and come off as total assholes.
I think it's a good description of the Windows users who tend to complain that "Linux isn't ready for the desktop" based on the 5 minutes following an Ubuntu/Fedora install and before returning to Windows.
And as for the asshole comment, you're a dick :-)
Huh. As far as I knew Windows XP was free. You know, optional to buy and you get that nice shiny cd. The people at activation have never had a problem just telling me a code when I ask them for it.
And I thought it was open source, or free to change source too.http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/
I have three machines home (4 with the Xbox) one is an iBook, one is an Ubuntu PC and the last is in the Ubuntu to Windows XP transition. Now, I don't like to have to buy Windows, but I don't mind choosing to do so. (I might reconsider if I had to buy the retail and not the OEM) Linux is about choice! The biggest complain about the Linux desktop is its usability, Windows got the messy but working install and reboot process, Mac OS got the download and copy, and Linux got the what?\ Things like yum and apt would perfect, if they could get everything working, it means software and drivers alike, and commercial software too! Right now you can get a lot of really useful to useless apps from repositorie, but it doesn't make it useable, I can't get my tv card working without a lots of tweaking, even if it is Linux friendly, and I have yet to discover a simple solution to record. I will not even start with 3d or audio, because it is just a nightmare. Yes Ubuntu works, yes you get Firefox, yes you get OpenOffice, yes you get Gaim, but what about the rest? Things like Opera, RealPlayer or Vlc are easy to install, but you still have to use the command line, and sorry Mr Developper, people don't want to do that, they want to download, double click, say yes and it works, one the Linux guy will get this figured, maybe we can see a big move. Now whenever somebody talk about that, usability and things, the Linux crowd get in offensive defense, most of the time you get something like "well thing are done like this because that's the way the developper want it to be done". Get something straight: Linux Desktop will work only if the User comes before the Developper. Because at the end of the day, to conquier the user desktop you have to work for the user, and not the other way arround. Now company start to understand that, look at Ubuntu and Mandrake, but we are not there yet. When installing software will not rime with dependencies, when drivers will not rime with kernel recompile and make relagate to uber geek. But right now I will keep my Mac as main OS, because I have other things to think about than making my system works, you know, some of us do work with their computer, and not writing software. Sorry for all the typos.
See, this is where it all goes wrong... NOBODY is forcing anyone to do anything, especially Microsoft. Don't want Windows? Don't buy it!
PC Manufacturers like DELL and CompUSA use Microsoft products almost exclusively because... get this, most people want it!! They should offer a couple option of OS's or none at all, but again, that's not Microsoft's fault. The world knows 90-99% of the people will buy an MS configured machine.
For christ sake people, stop blaming Microsoft. Re-channel your anger and anemosity toward our government and big oil companies.
*ploop*
*ploop*
"Hhhngggghhhh!!!"
*plop*
HHHHHHHHnnnnngggggggghhhhhhh!!!!!"
*plop*
In my house it is, and I chose Apple.
At work, it is absolutely not a choice. I take the Windows PC they give me, or get a) zero support, b) locked out of the Windows-dependent web apps required for my job, and c) blamed for every anomaly on the network. If you want to try to convince my employer to move its 40,000 employees off Wintel, go right ahead. Many before you have tried and failed.
... I just wanted to make it clear that Microsoft is producing a huge market than many of us here rely on. Microsoft uses their profit for positive benefits to society as well...
Well, I for one rely on it only in the sense that my business offers tech support for Windows and WIndows software in general (we prefer our customers run Linux because it is less overhead for us and the customer inevitably spends more because they get more-- less money is going to tech support and more is going to making the environment fit the business).
As for the suggestion that Microsoft uses their profit for positive beneifts to society, well, all the great monopolists have done so in the past. This doesn't justify the negative effects that come from undermining the market system in relevant markets though. I would suppose that people here who agree with you would rather see a world without antitrust law, where Carnegie Steel, AT&T, Microsoft, and Mobile Oil control everything?
The issue is, monopolies are patently dangerous to a democratic society. Harry Truman compared the dangers of monopolies to that of fascism-- that both amount to private ownership over the society as a while, or even over government. Carnegie is remembered as a philanthropist only because his (very brutal) monopoly has not survived. And The Bell Company's early business practices make Microsoft look like a good corporate citizen.
Also, Microsoft employs more than 12,000 people. These people likely buy products or use services that your employer produces.
Really? How many of them purchase consumer software support from an independant provider or Linux-based business system consulting? I doubt any of them do. Sure they vacation in my area, but that is about it.
If Linux fanboys want to convince, they need to make a product that works as well as the competition.
I started using Linux as my primary home system in 1999 because I found that it *worked* better than Windows. Sure, it wasn't pretty, had a pretty unrefined look and feel, etc. But it got the job done better *and* allowed me to work more efficiently. (I started working for Microsoft in 2000 but never stopped using Linux as my primary home system. Also I no longer work for MS, and no I wasn't fired, and no I don't hate MS.) Nearly every computer beginner I have introduced Linux to has had the same reaction: "Boy, this is easier to work with than Windows. I can get more done faster!"
Alas, as people become more familiar with Windows, it becomes harder to switch. Part of the problem is that people learn to be afraid of their computers. Don't believe me? Find a relative who depends on his/her computer, but is certainly not technically inclined and ask them to switch to Linux? Offer to include a second system so they can continue using Windows if they need to. The response is always the same: fear of change. Fear of having to learn everything over again.
In other words, what you are asking for is a Windows clone, not a better product. If it was, we would all be using Linux today.
Now, you say rarely has never unseated commercial competition:
1) BIND
2) Sendmail and Postfix
3) Apache
4) GCC is the most commonly used compiler in a number of fields
5) GNU tools on Solaris
6) MIT Kerberos
7) OpenSSH (vs SSH Inc)
8) GPG (v. PGP).
Indeed in most of the areas of network infrastructure (current exception being directory services), we are finding that Free/Open Source Software is deeply entrenched and, in fact, is the dominant platform for the major services we think of on the internet. Part of the issue, however, is that desktop applications are differnet. They require a different type of community, a different type of collaberation, and they have not had such for as long as the server software.
However, look at the progress being made by such applications as:
OpenOffice.org (compare with StarOffice 5.2)
LyX
Mozilla and Firefox (compare with Netsc
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
You say "NO" to Microsoft, you're saying "NO" to your marketability out there, period... & this isn't just with apps you use, but for you developers out there that code on PC's period.
(For instance - I always felt Borland's compilers were FAR better & produced better code than Microsoft's stuff (e.g.-> VB &/or VC++ vs. Delphi & Borland C++ or C++ Builder) BUT, what is used the MOST? Microsoft Visual Studio)
Sure, you can save a few dollars & even learn something in the process using OpenSource tools... but, that's cutting off your nose to spite your face (in this case, your wallet & bank accounts).
This is coming from a guy that's been around computers since 1982, & professionally since 1985 or so (mainframe/midrange as an end-user, to PC today mostly (including server mgt. &/or client-server development), & I've seen this before with the old saying:
"NOBODY EVER GOT FIRED FOR BUYING IBM"
(Except today, that saying's changed -> replace the IBM with Microsoft)
APK
P.S.=> Believe me, I understand how you "Pro-Linux/UNIX" fiends feel, you think your stuff is the best (for whatever it is you do & doubtless for your use-patterns it is & the task @ hand)... I felt that way (hell, KNEW IT, about Borland compilers, especially Delphi & "King Billy" Gates even showed me it by buying out Anders Heijelsberg from Borland - he knew Delphi knocked the HELL out of VB & VC++ (especially in math & strings, which every program does & was shown so in of all places, Visual Basic Programmer's journal issue Sept./Oct. 1997 article entitled "inside the vb5 compiler engine") & now? I see things like "Data Containers" in VB that were in Delphi for YEARS!
Still, you cut MS outta your life? Your affecting your resume, income, & possibly your future (@ least financially)... apk
Some distro's are making strides in this area. Unfortunately it's been three steps forwards, two steps back. Some distro's (like Red Hat and Suse) had a very real chance of breaking through on the desktop, but stagnated due to a lessening of corporate support and less effective community organization. Not that they're bad distros. It's just that Red Hat chose to pursue the server market (where it has excelled) and Suse is lower on Novell's priority list. If things had continued how they were 5 years ago with these distro's, I bet we would have had a real desktop linux contender in 04.
Fortunately, Ubuntu/Kubuntu may have come in to save the day on this. It is laying the groundwork for a great linux desktop OS. It's already very far along. If the trend continues, it will likely become a real contender in the desktop market before long.
In the end.. the important thing is that you enjoy your "computing experience." Personally, I don't enjoy using Windows. But if that's what you like, more power to you. Just don't put it on my network, forcing me to deal w/ all of the spam and viri. ugh...
That is one important point regarding Windows... we're all neighbors on the net. And living next to Windows is like living next to a sewage plant that has a legion of catapults flinging crap at your house.
I have used Microsoft sotware since the early 1990's, as my dad worked at IBM and got his first PS in 1989 with OS2 Warp and later a PS2 with microsoft windows 95 and so on we moved as Linux was unknown to us then. In the early 2000's I first tried SuSE Linux 7.0 but I wasn't that good with it, later the early 2005 I tried SuSE 9.2 but again I couldn't figure it all out. when my MS windows XP crashed again in june 2005 I was fed up and migrated to Linux again. I was adviced to try Ubuntu Linux, and within 2 weeks I figured it all out..... I admit that I had migrated on windows to open source as firefox, thunderbird, openoffice and gaim (my most used programs!)..... the same I use on Linux. I don't see any trouble moving to Linux, besides the less developed sound systems.... when using Skype the sound (ALSA I use) under Linux is just worse than under windows...... it doesn't count for playing multimedia (music and movies), however only when playing music and receiving skype calls my sound system crashes under Linux! (anyone has a clue?)..... overall, I don't get it that people still pay at least $ 450 for a Microsoft system (windows and office)....
The wise are not erudite, the erudite not wise!
*OK, not maintained enough lately; some of the info's getting dated.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I think it's a good description of the Windows users who tend to complain that "Linux isn't ready for the desktop" based on the 5 minutes following an Ubuntu/Fedora install and before returning to Windows.
& cid=14132302) for additional info about my Linux trial period...
I hope I don't fall into the category of asshole or dick or whining windows ex-pat...
I gave FC4 a little over 2 months, as my ONLY home operating system -- i.e., blew Windows away completely, and recovered my docs & audio etc. from backups. It worked -- mostly -- but not as well as I hoped it would. Please feel free to read my other post on this topic (http://books.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169549
I want to love Linux, I really do. But every time I try it, I end up disappointed because my experience just isn't any better with Linux than it was with Windows.
Since when being a monopoly is intrinsically bad? It's legal and in certain cases (not all, and not even the majority, but still some) can be beneficial. Being a monopoly is a market result. If you make a product that's vastly superior to your competitors and sell it at a lower price than them, you'll probably end up with a monopoly. And that makes you bad? We might argue about playing dirty (which I don't agree with, based on my knowledge Microsoft doesn't play dirty more often than the average company) but being a monopoly doesn't have anything to do with it.
There are 12'000 people involved in devising the best methods to fling shit at the customers, to feed them with shit, to serve shit in the most appetizing way.
To be fair, I think that this is fairly inaccurate from MS's perspective. Microsoft has a fairly two-faced work environment (it is somewhat ironic that their DRM is named Janus): On one hand there is a great enthusiasm about doing a great job. And on the other there is a strong undercurrent which involves a *hatred* of competing products. Microsoft products suck, but it is not because people don't do a great job.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm not sure this guy really embraces the spirit of free and open source software...if he did, perhaps he would have considered licensing his book under a free license, like the GNU Free Documentation License or one of the Creative Commons licenses. I'm starting to see this with some frequency, even with books published by commercial publishers like O'Reilly and Apress.
Penny - plain text accounting
Some have complained that they're not extremely Linux friendly because, for example, they use ATI cards rather than Nvidia, but I would consider buying one. http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.as px/e510_nseries?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
Penny - plain text accounting
while you idiots are using Windows XP I'm using Windows 3.1..Ha..No bug here..!!
I've said in here many times: The universe does not and never has revolved around Microsoft. It *DIDN'T* *EXIST* when I first started using computers, and it's considerable that they won't exist when I'm still using them - or else they will dwindle to a defanged shade of their former self (like IBM).
To describe the sky by comparing it to the ground is to fail to understand both the ground and the sky.
The poster isn't exactly setting a good example with his horrible grammar and numerous typos. Let's hope he was NOT using a piece of OSS software to check as he typed.
I don't want to give any money to Microsoft, but when I buy a new PC, I have to anyway.
Um, no. You really don't. Even Dell will sell you a PC without windows (and it does reduce the price). Call and ask about n-series machines.
Not just Wal-Mart...the lowest-end box that Fry's keeps on hand for $200 or so (occasionally as low as $100) has Linux preloaded (Lindows^H^H^H^Hspire, specifically) on it. There's a certain other company you might've heard of that tends to ship its computers with something other than Windows preinstalled.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Looks like a lot of people are taking an interest in switching these days...
BILL GATES BE AFRAID! WOOO! :-O
Maybe I'm just extremely lucky, but I haven't seen a BSOD on my home machine since Windows 98 and I haven't seen an OS in the last few years other than Apple that hasn't had some sort of monthly if not weekly patching. Hell, even my black box (Linux based) media center has at least a patch a month. God, don't even get me started on how often I have to download drivers for my video card (3rd party).
Obviously free is cheaper, but that all depends on what price you put on your time...
If this is the gist of the book, I don't see any point in reading it. I get plenty of this propoganda on Slashdot...
I wonder why the the book isn't free. Maybe we should just say no to it as well.
The great thing about having $0 competition is that it will eventually force Microsoft to reduce its prices.
That would be true if the competition was an equal replacement. The thing is that they're nowhere near equal for most people (myself included). Case in point: I know that Linux exists, I've downloaded many, many distributions, yet I still buy Windows. They're not anywhere near replacements for each other for me.
Step 1) Format c: Step 2) Put SuSE install disc in drive. Step 3) Reboot, and learn it all over again. (It's really not any harder than the first time you used Windows.)
When I buy a PC, any PC, I have Windows preinstalled.
Have you been living under a rock for the last five years? Dell, HP, and thousands of independant system builders are happy to sell you a PC without Windows. Even Fry's and Wal-Mart have PCs without Windows.
The fact that those products sell poorly indicates that people want Windows.
Not to nit-pick, but the OEM and Retail versions of the Windows and Office products are not the same. Often the OEM versions provide reduced capability and, in the case of Windows, are often loaded with extra junk (try ware, etc...).
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Say No! to M$ but make sure to get counted! unless you are on the Better side => OSX!
- - - - - .
"Is /. worth a full website? Perhaps two pages (Linux rulz & FOSS is teh r0x0r) would be enough..."
I've got that domain already. Not sure what I'm going to do with it though.
http://linuxistehr0x0rs.net/
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Looking at the review, and the links suggesting ways of escaping from M$ware, the author is missing a trick or two. The key to the Outlook piece of the puzzle is its groupware functionality. Evolution / openxchange etc aren't the only game in town - try KDE Kontact / Kolab (http://www.kolab.org/) The only downer with it is its use of openpkg (reaches for helmet)
"The idea of saving money and never having to worry about a blue screen of death is the proverbial win/win scenario"
If you tell people X never crashes, you are going to disappoint a lot of people by making the claim that distros are worry free.
Vote for Pedro
This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.
presented by this reviewer definiatly make me want to run right out and by something else.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
EOM
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
I wasn't aware one could make an entire book a flame.
Or, if you prefern KDE over GNOME, http://www.kubuntu.org/
No mumbo jumbo. Drop in the CD, enjoy! Enough said.
That's exactly "broken window fallacy" or the sort of Keynsian thinking that believes that the market should be twisted for things like job creation.
What people should do is buy the best product for their company. The death of Microsoft would be natural economics and the money would go elsewhere. Maybe I would give it direct to a charity, or buy myself some DVDs with the money saved. The point is that opportunity would be transferred from one place to another.
Ok, Bill Gates is a Dummy. That should be the title of the book. But wait, Richest man in the world, uh, Largest Global Empire, uh, right, "...Bill Gates is not the technical genius that he is made out to be." I think you need to go back and research the topic again. I do agree that open source should be more available, but you try going to BestBuy or CompUSA and buying a computer without an operating system. Good Luck..... NoMorePoints.com
It's a little like the UK olympic bid. One of the arguments is that it will create jobs. In order to create jobs, money has to be taken from somewhere (right now, the national lottery, and later, London ratepayers). Whilst this pays for jobs, it also deprives jobs elsewhere. The bricklayers building the stadium will gain, while a bartender or shopkeeper on the other side of the city will lose.
Creating jobs should always be factored out and replaced with purpose.
So I checked out tonybove.com - its like late 90's code - 22 errors at w3.org on the front page alone - and just plain scary looking. Get off the crack man!
...They explained that shit has a much lower Total Caloric Overall, than vegetables...
Actually, unlike MS's TCO myth, ShitSoft may have a point, since shit is predigested material, in which the Calories have been stripped off. Undigestible material may be left, and the process is usually not 100% efficient, but there are less calories in shit than there are in vegitables.
However, Microsoft's products having a less TCO than Linux is a myth that cannot be easily proven by Microsoft financed (or even "wink, wink" independent) studies.
Buy a computer from the company I work for. I'll be happy to sell you a new computer built to your specs with absolutely no money going to Microsoft. Face it, you have a choice. You just choose not to exercise it.
Karma: Positive. Mostly effected by cowbell.
Sure, and the dateline on that 'Wal-Mart Expands...' article is 2002. Have you checked lately?
Cut and paste from the WalMart website right this moment. The MicroTel $199 cheapie: Not included: hard drive, monitor, CD-ROM drive, modem, floppy disk drive, operating system
I just surfed around on WalMart.com and it appears that WalMart.com no longer sells any computers with a version of Linux installed. And you have to dig in to non-obvious places on the page to discover this. Ummm. My tagline just changed, people....
resigned
...there is a strong undercurrent which involves a *hatred* of competing products...
There is? Microsoft employs about 55,000 people internationally, so I think it's a bit hard to say their employees, homogenously, hate the competition.
In my experience, Microsoft employees don't just tolerate the competition--the appreciate it. Not only do I know firsthand that many bring competing products to work (from Powerbooks and iPods to running Firefox, Linux, Google, and similar on their office computers), but you'd be surprised at the number of Mac bumper stickeres and Linux t-shirts you see on campus (granted, not nearly as many as the number of Windows bumper stickers and Microsoft t-shirts, but what did you expect?).
I even heard Bill Gates say publicly not too long ago that SQL Server was a really interesting area because it was "fun" to not be on top, to have some truly challenging competition. I think this embodies, to a large extent, how the company works as a whole (or really how most companies work): when you're on top and it seems like nobody can touch you, it's hard to figure out what you should be doing to make your product better. This goes for Windows as well as it goes for Ford and Chevy--when everyone wanted some big old American sedan, all they made were big old American sedans. When they started noticing lost sales to the Japanese, they retaliated--albiet very belatedly--with small, fuel efficient, relatively reliable and safe cars like the Focus.
Same goes for Microsoft: up until a few years ago, they didn't have any sort of secure practices, because they (apparently) didn't see why it mattered. They didn't do a lot of things, and people scratched their heads about what the big difference was between NT and 2K, or 2K and XP. But when they feel threatened, they don't just, as many Slashdotters would say, attack the competition--they try to figure out what to do better.
So to make a very long answer short, I don't think most Microsoft employees hate the competition--I think most have a healthy respect for it. It's not too hard to find the exception, and I suppose that's a bit understandable--when someone's paying your bill, stupid loyalties might get in the way of your better judgement. But as a whole, Microsoft has a healthy respect for the competition; the management know nobody's on top forever and the employees know that for every problem, there may be a different solution.
Let's face it - despite the MS bashers' fantasies, viruses are not much of a threat now that even Microsoft's email programs have some basic security built in, worms are less of a problem now that Windows has automatic updates, spyware is easily defeated with free and reliable programs that even my grandmother is savvy enough to run, and the BSoD hasn't actually been a common sight since 1999.
The real threat that actually catches and hurts computer users today is phishing. It doesn't take spyware to steal credit card details; it doesn't take viruses to trick you into revealing enough personal information for a criminal to assume your identity and clean out your bank account. All it takes is a clever plain-text email, and a sufficiently convincing fake website.
MacOS X is as vulnerable to phishing attacks as Windows is.
Linux is as vulnerable to phishing attacks as Windows is.
Which web browser is it that will apparently have some kind of anti-phishing technology in its next version? Why, I do believe it's Internet Explorer! Where is Safari's anti-phishing technology? Where is Firefox's or Konqueror's? Perhaps the geeks who currently use alternative platforms are smart enough and savvy enough that they don't need additional protection against fradulent websites. But when your grandmother switches, will she actually be any safer?
In the MS-basher's fantasy dreamworld, she's in danger of physical rape every second she sits in front of a Windows machine, but she'll inherit eternal life in Heaven the moment she switches. But in the real world, she'll still be just as vulnerable to the real threats that really face real people today.
Maybe we should look to the log in our own eye before we sneer at the speck in Bill Gates'.
My users (nearly 90% in our last questionnaire) love the Word interface and look-and-feel.
Oh! Did you have to bring the way office looks into this? And how it works too? Ohhhh big mistake! Have you *SEEN* what OpenOffice.org2.0 looks like? Try this: get a screenshot of OpenOffice.org 2.0, print it, and do a side-by-side comparison against Microsoft Word 11. I double dog dare ya! There is (1) thing different: the main menu has format/table in 00.o2.0, and table/format in Word11. Thats the ONLY difference you will see, and you won't see any difference in functionality because there is none. Now you can start backpeddling about how OO.o is difficult to install because you have to click next, or how it's not right that you should have to pay $500 for word when OO.o is the cost of a download, and it's just not right!
GPs claim is not bold -- parent is just uneducated. Most research suggests that roughly 80% of BSODs in Windows XP are due to 3rd party driver issues. Go over to cs295.stanford.edu and look at some of the fault isolation papers for reference.
Seriously, modded "Informative" for writing (almost) seven words, and being 100% wrong?
Look moderators, if you don't know the "fact" being said is true, don't mod it up as Informative. You're not helping.
Microsoft does commonly allow home use of their corporate licenses, even on a second computer, so long as their software is not in use on your computer when you are also using it at work.
Any BOFH worth his salt will tell you that... if you bring him beer and skittles and do not provoke his wrath.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Strange. I just ordered a Dimension 3000 for mom for christmas and got a quote on the box with windows then asked for the n series pricing and got 30 bucks knocked off. Maybe you need to call.
Put in a crappy video card. If you have a cheap Dell with the Intel video card you are on the right path to enlightenment.
;-)
;-)
;-)
Now try to load an MPEG of AVI file via the Windows player. On W2K and Windows XP if you do this right the second time in the OS will do a hard crash.
MS will tell you that the developers of the video driver don't know what they are doing.
Anyone who has ever taking a Operating Systems class in a Computer Science setting will tell you that if you put your video driver process in ring zero you WILL FLUNK the course.
MS pushed their video driver to ring zero when they added the Win32 API to the NT kernal. It was the NT 3.51 to NT 4.0 upgrade.
PC Magazine and others noticed that NT 4.0 was SLOWER in the benchmarks on the SAME hardware. Political powers in MS Dave Cutler and his team to move the video driver to the kernal.
If anyone has ever used or remembers BeOS. It could dynamically at run time swap out a NIC driver or a video driver with no problems.
MS is not in the business of shipping clean code. MS is in the business of selling OS upgrades.
Linux doesn't have to ship for revenue. It ships when foks think it is ready and it doesn't get product managers kludging it like in the example I've pointed out.
So how many MS books are there on the Information Highway and other trivia that everyone seemed to eat with a fork?
Can't see why someone wanting to use FREEDOM OF SPEACH in a book can't share as much as they want on a topic. I guess this makes me a close minded zealot.
I have been using windows from the start 3.1 I can do most anything I want to with the os . am I feed up with it yes . I have downloaded 5 distros and I love ubuntu . but guess what you cant play games well you can but installing them aint easy as soon as a distro makes it easy for the new linux user to install games and other apps then linux will have an upper hand till then the average joe will stick with windows most people dont have time to learn the make install or what the diff between rpm and deb are
There is? Microsoft employs about 55,000 people internationally, so I think it's a bit hard to say their employees, homogenously, hate the competition.
No. And I never claimed there was, any more than Americans were united in their approval for the Iraq war at its outset. Just because there is an element in a corporate culture doesn't mean that everyone subscribes to that. However, I *do* believe that the C and VP level management generally does. Below that, I would probably say that maybe 20% of the employees I met had a visceral hatred for the competition. But it was enough (combined with the fact that they could be quite vocal about it) to impregnate that hatred into the very fiber of the corporate culture.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Have you been living under a rock for the last five years? Dell, HP, and thousands of independant system builders are happy to sell you a PC without Windows. Even Fry's and Wal-Mart have PCs without Windows.
Really? And the Dell desktops that come without windows are more expensive.
I can't buy a thinkpad without windows (I tried).
meh
I was one of those that ran Linux at work at Microsoft with some reasonably tacit support of some managers. So please take this perspective for what it is worth. I had a Red Hat bumper sticker on my car, etc. None of this attracted any hard remarks from those who had issues with competition.
The fact that I was open about the fact that my *parents* ran Linux at home, OTOH, drew a *lot* of flack. Again those that hate the competition were in the minority, but they were sufficiently vocal to make this an element of the corporate culture.
As for Bill Gates, I have regretfully had to accept the fact that there is an element of both aspects in him. When they are the underdog, there is a lot of appreciation for competition, but once Microsoft reaches the top, there is only anger born, I think, in fear. Having read some of the emails cited in the court documents in Caldera v. Microsoft, I find it hard to think otherwise. Ballmer, according to many accounts, has vowed to F'ing bury Google, and I think that most of the VP-level individuals I have met seemed to follow the same sort of double approach.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Paying for a product that you are going to use is not a "TAX". Having money extracted from you with very little to no exchange in return by a government is a tax. I mean, really. You are paying for an operating system, without which your computer would be a boat anchor. And a suite of programs that do most of what is done on computers in an office. They are software products that you pay for. They aren't free, and you are not constitutionally guaranteed the right to have a working computer and an office suite. It's not a welfare system.
This is an appeal to one's financial self-interest! Self-interest - BAD! Collective interest - GOOD!
But... but... it's OSS. An aspect of OSS appeals to one's self-interest. And OSS is GOOD.
</sarcasm>
Seriously though, as Adam Smith, father of modern capitalism wrote some 229 years ago:
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
It starts with a bunch of machines that people don't want to replace because it co$ts and managers don't get bonuses from spending money.
/. asking for help with Samba. :-)
The eventual demise of Microsoft will come from the same source that saw the rise of the 'compatible' PC. It was cheaper than the alternative.
It doesn't matter how well your system is running, Microsoft is living proof that quality is not that important, but how little you had to shell out for something 'good enough.'
Cost of replacement and the slowing of the replacement cycle is going to be the death of Microsoft and give rise to cheap Linux boxes.
Books about OpenOffice (or NeoOfficeJ for older Macs) are telling people that its okay NOT to have to shell out the bucks for Microsoft (or even Apple).
I suspect that Vista will be an utter failure because people have a vested interest, read lots of bucks, in their existing machines.
When 'Joe Consumer' is faced with hanging on to his machine under Linux with OpenOffice or spendin '"beaucoup" bucks' he'll wave Microsoft 'Bye Bye' before he tosses all that green on all new hardware.
Would YOU like to have to cough up money to buy a new 64bit processor, gigs of RAM, a new mobo and a new video card, just to run an incrementally 'better' Windows experience.
Fuck that... My wallet and I voted for Linux years ago, though I my wife still owns an aging Win2K Windows box and I still own a couple of OS X 10.4.3 Macs. My last machine is an ADM64 Athlon running slackware.
People are going to vote just as they always have, with their wallets.
Not just Joe Consumer, but the corporation bosses who are stuck to buy 5K, 10K, 15K, or 20K boxes at a shot. We're still running Win2K and would still be running WinNT if we could.
Books about HOW TO DO IT for less are EXACTLY what's needed. They're not written for you. They're written for 'Joe Consumer' and to get the idea to the corporation bosses.
Just brace yourselves for all those AOLers and other newbies getting on
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
It might be that the online version has specific promotions which they've decided not to apply to the over-the-phone purchase. Or perhaps the sales person didn't want to go through explaining how it would cost more to buy it without Windows.
This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.
"Microsoft is not alone and joins companies such as American Airlines, Ford and General Motors, Wal-Mart and more that have engaged in practices that while good for their stockholders, have not been good for the competition."
Setting aside Wal-Mart, uh... really? AA, Ford and GM are all on the brink of bankruptcy after getting their lunch eaten by Southwest Airlines, Nissan, Toyota et al.
As for Wal-Mart, the bashing grows tiresome. It is not illegal or even uncool to beat the competition via economies of scale, great promotional sense, smart data-driven location scouting, low labor costs, and a world-class IT-driven distribution system. Contrary to popular mythology, their success at fending off unionization is primarily due to treating their employees well enough to dampen unions' appeal, not by treating them like s***. The failure of small-town Main Streets to compete with Wal-Mart is lamentable (for this small-town boy) but it's structural, not sinister; and there is no excuse other than poor execution for the failure of KMart etc. to compete.
I really tire of people continuously running their yap about the infamous BSOD. I used to see lots of these in early NT4 days. It was highly stabilized by the time SP6 was deployed if you had even half a clue what you were doing. I had servers that ran heavy workloads for north of a year at a time - no reboots. This of course meant that these ones went unpatched ;-(
Win2k still had occasional problems, though very rare. The first service pack eliminated most problems I had as far as actual stability.
Windows XP has been VERY stable - I think Roxio is the only thing that's ever actually bluescreened it on me. True, some occasional runaway processes, such as IE, generally as a result of some plugin. But I use it HARD.
Win2k3? Hmmm....I've supported hundreds of them. HP and Dell, a few IBM's. I don't ever recall a BSOD.
Why can't people put this in the past? Why do we keep dwelling on things that are no longer true? Your credibility is for sh!!t when you run around trumpeting this nonsense. Say whatever else you will about Windows, Microsoft, the oppression, the cost, but stability in the Windows world is really of very little concern.
As far as patches, try counting the number of patches that show up for a typical Linux system when you update via yum. Not all critical to be sure, but the idea of not patching a Linux install isn't practical either.
The fact that he completely misses VLC as a replacement for the media-schredder on his website... another hot-air putz caching in... ahh, fish in a barrel son, fish in a barrel...
Oh! Did you have to bring the way office looks into this?
I didn't. You are responding to the wrong post.
I have been around computers somewhat professionally since ~1995. I have survived and i have done quite well.
Around the time MS released win95, i despised it and switched to linux. I had done some hobby programming under win31, read books about 'programming in windows' and thought windows was quite advanced (compared to DOS). I didn't even like Linux at first.
What I did was get into web programming. It doesn't really matter what OS do you use and what tools do you use if you make your applications available for any user with a browser. I tried CGI skripts, perl, PHP, and finally settled on Java.
I usually work on Linux, use open-source IDE (eclipse), applications use open-source application servers (tomcat) and SQL servers (postgresql). And there are a lot of open-source libraries & frameworks to help (jakarta.apache.org). Servers usually also run Linux (my preference- debian). Unless some religious customers demand otherwise without realizing that running that our java app made to run on win2k/mssql or solaris/oracle could be made to run just as well on linux/postgres. Applications work quite well.
I think you can have good resume even when you cut MS out of your life.
--Coder
I just wanted to answer a few things that you put into your post. I'm not going to make any comments about system quality or user interfaces. You made mention of a couple of financial points that I think should be discussed.
First:
Well, the first link connects to a story about Microsoft donating computers to Nigerian Copyright Commission whose job it is to combat piracy and protect intellectual property rights. I.e. to protect Microsoft's sales. Not exactly benevolent now. The second one is a link to a story about Google donating money for a world library, with a tiny mention of Microsoft teaming up with Yahoo and a couple of others to make a competitor. The next link is to a story about the Gates Foundation donating money to malaria control and prevention. This seems to be part of a trend of his to donate money to kick start vaccine usage in the developing world. He also has significant investments in pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
Second:
For this I would just like to point out that the profit margin on Windows and Office are sitting at about 77% and 71% respectively, that means that for every dollar you spend on a copy of Windows $0.77 goes to the company's profit account and $0.23 goes towards the cost of making, marketing, distributing and selling it. That $0.23 includes the wages of the programmers and other workers.
Finally, I would just like to point out that although Microsoft has made a market place for third party software and solutions, that would have happened whoever became the dominant player. There is a health third party software market for just about every software platform there is, Microsoft's simply has the most punters. If the majority of the desktop users switched to something else, the hordes of software developers would switch too.
"I'll take the red pill. No! Blue! AAAaaaahhhhhhhhh"
- Monty Python meets the Matrix
First off, I must agree. The first one to name-call loses the debate. Their side of the argument has failed them and frustration takes over. One point deducted: asshole boy.
Lobby4Linux has been involved in the past 6 months on two fronts. Jr. High Schools and Assisted Living Senior Centers. We volunteer our time on order to help these people understand and then fix their computer problems. Where Windows computers have become completely hosed by viruses and spyware, we install PCLinuxOS as a replacement OS after data backup.
We have 12 year old kids and 84 year old great grandmothers using Linux in 2 hours. Now, it is different and it is not Windows, so there is a bit of confusion at first. That goes away about the second hour of use. So, if you are having problems using Linux, I would not mind setting up a mentor for you at Covington Middle School in Austin or at Gaines Ranch SALC. I am sure someone there will take you under their wing.
Windows assumes you are an idiot...Linux demands proof.
Note that I specifically said "in part." I am not arguing that Windows created the PC revolution, only that it played an important role. Do you really disagree, or do you just love blowing things out of proportion?
Yeah, I enjoy the dramatics ;-)
Not everyone has a dedicated tech support person. See the other reply to your post for an example of someone who has had difficulty adopting Linux.
Now, that guy is a prime example. He's come from Windows and therefore he expects a replacement for Windows - things don't work how he expects so he gives up in frustration. It's not anyone's fault particularly but he needs to learn about his new operating system before he can use it. Oh, and "easy to figure out" is not the same thing as "easy to use".
He (and other folks in the same boat) may find this article of interest.
Apparently OO doesn't provide grammatical advice. As your sentence made no sense, I have no refutation. However, I agree with you that the problem stems from "Power Users": those who have developed a working knowledge of Linux and cannot understand the difficulties faced by novices.
Yeah, sorry about that - it was a badly-written sentence. I was making the point that "power users" think "I know all about computers so this Linux thing should be a snap!". Of course, they only really know a bit about Windows so when faced with a problem they can't solve because things don't work like Windows, they complain "stupid OS doesn't work properly! This isn't ready for the desktop!" and go back to Windows.
Of course, as you say, with a dedicated tech support person (and don't we all end up doing that for friends/family?) then it doesn't really matter what the OS is - in my experience your average lay-person can barely use ANY OS with equal degrees of incompetence so it's easier to convert these folks to (insert fave Linux distro here) because they don't have to unlearn the Microsoft way first.
You are choosing just a small, vocal segment, that best fits you own prejudices.
Nice work, but pretty lame.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The reviewer referred to the BSOD (blue screen of death). I don't refer to it much in the book -- my point isn't so much about Windows crashing (Word -- that's another matter), but about vulnerabilities that allow malware to infest.
User friendliness is a completely abstract, non objective concept.
If you are used to a given user interface, by definition it is more user friendly for you.
What you are saying behind the lines is that as long as other applications are not more like MS's then they will not be good enough.
OK, we know your biases now, but those are not absolutes, so your first paragraph is close to worthless. If I was flipping burgers at $4/hour then the couple of minutes it takes me to configure my printer (or was 3 minutes?, I don't know, last time I needed to do it was 3 or 4 months ago, it is one of those do once forget about it jobs) then the time invested would be of some consideration, but alas, most likely I would have no money for a computer anyway.
Do you know that many devices that showed up previous to Windows 2000 are not supported anymore in later OS versions? Perfectly capable working hardware does not work in MS world.
Nowadays the only thing you are guaranteed is that your hardware will work with WinXP and in most cases W2K. Wait for Vista and lots of hardware going unsupported.
In the meantime in Linux world once a device works it does forever. No company droping support, no shenaningans claiming your hardware is too old or unsupported.
I have been using Linux as my main desktop system for years now, this last year has seen my first full one using Linux (wireless support included) as my laptop OS, and frankly the only reason I see for not switching to Linux is laziness. It would be intellectually more consistent to say so than to keep harping at things that were true 5 or 10 years ago but that now just sound hollow.
Hardware support is not ideal, but frankly it is a minor issue for anybody trying to get serious work done. Just get hardware one or 2 years old if you must (for printers this is immensely easier, since most of them use languages long time ago implemented in Linux and many can be networked, so a "physical" driver becomes a non issue when the printing language is a recognized standar) and most likely you will be ok.
Not that you must be guessing, commercial distributions will happily provide hardware compatibility lists for you.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Not everything has to be objective!
There is a point where you set the rules that you want to guide your life and you pretty much make those non negotiable.
Many questions involving morality can't be objectivized.
Nobody is objective nowadays, everybody has agendas based on their own personaly found rules of engagement with society. Not to recommend something useful because is biased (like if spotlighting a convicted monopoly abuser was such a thing) is frankly ill informed.
Say you don't agree and that it did not meet your opinions (i.e. was not biased in a direction you would have liked), but to claim something is not useful because it is not objective is not, er, objective....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Once again I see a pointless book written by anti-microsoft. The book doesnt even sound like it has an open mind (i.e well micrsoft does this okay but this can do it slightly faster because...) it just sounds like a pile of: OH NO, M$ IS NOT GOOD! GET LINUX OR OSS NOW OR DIE! Oh yes and I have tried linux before. I tried it and came back to windows after a month. It was stable, to be fair, but it couldnt support barely any app i needed the computer for. I.e propellerhead reason, cubase etc. Basically if you have a specialist use for a pc and your current os manages, then this book may not be for you.
Have you been living under a rock for the last five years? Dell, HP, and thousands of independant system builders are happy to sell you a PC without Windows. Even Fry's and Wal-Mart have PCs without Windows. The fact that those products sell poorly indicates that people want Windows.
Can I walk into a Walmart and walk out with a PC without windows?
Fuck no.
The fact that these products sell poorly is due to the action of many factors. Your implication that it is soley due to an active choice in a fair market is intellectually dishonest.
Life is too short to proofread.
Consumer Reports? Oh come on, you can't fool anybody with that any more.
Consumer Reports has lost my credibility in anything regarding computer technology. Take the report on mail clients and the report on digital photo editing for example. Excellent software from both closed source and open source was left out, slanting the deck leaving MS at the top of the tiny handful of crap that was left.
The mail clients report omitted two mainstream packages, Eudora and the Mozilla suite/Thunderbird, leaving only a pair of no-name half functional clients to compare to MS' offerings. Though security problems were mentioned, the security history of the clients evaluated was not even mentioned, though two of them were actively advised against for years.
The digital photo editing report specifically excluded Photoshop Elements, though made a point of explaining why the full blown edition of Photoshop was not appropriate for your average home user. That's specifically who Photoshop Elements is for. Also neglected is the Gimp which is used in schools, businesses and homes around the world for ten years now. You'd be surprised at how many people are using it. But no, neither were evaluated.
Granted that's a very small sample size, but it's 0 for 2. And it's a bad trend. The mainstream personal computing magazines used to review non-MS software and even report shoot outs between sets of programs, but that is now years ago. These days they only polish up the latest press releases from Redmond and wrap them in ads. Maybe Consumer Reports will go that way, at least with computers. I hope not, but the indications are strong that it has started down that path.
"I think you can have good resume even when you cut MS out of your life" - by coder111 (912060) > on Tuesday November 29, @07:27AM
.NET) & OS usage as servers + client nodes. You just see more Windows based computers out there as well as Win32 based software.
Sure, who said you wouldn't?
Yes, there's jobs out there for Linux, especially web-oriented ones, because that's where Linux shines (as a server, especially in combination w/ Apache)... just not as many as their is for MS based product type projects, which extend FAR above & beyond mainly webserver-oriented work.
Just a fact. Linux isn't out there as prevalently as Microsoft is in terms of applications built on the Win32 API & offshoots (like
Thus, your surface area using those apps, building on them (coding/maintaining them), & tuning/adminning them is better on Windows, period.
If you've been out there as long as you claim, you'd know this fact, just by exposure to what various companies utilize.
I've been around this field for 23 years now almost, & it's what I've seen happen - Microsoft came roaring out, dominating @ first the desktop only, then corporate departmental servers (knocking Novell out slowly) & has not stopped since & now, they're targetting all else, & making headway bigtime.
APK
The BSOD is just the windows kernels version of a panic...
Is WinXP really stable or maybe they just found ways to *ignore* unexpected situtations?