Microsoft's Bulk Deal With New Zealand Collapses

vik writes "The latest 3-year, pan-government deal that Microsoft has been establishing with the New Zealand government since 2000 has collapsed, opening the doors to the wider use of open source software in government. The NZ State Services Commission (already a prize-winning user of open source) says in a statement that it '...became apparent during discussions that a formal agreement with Microsoft is no longer appropriate.' Having lost their discount, individual government departments will now have to put their IT requirements out to tender individually."

Comments

RIP

[Smivs]

Another nail in MSs coffin?

Re:RIP

[Chlorine Trifluoride]

Another tree cut down to begin making the lumber that will eventually become the MS coffin.

Re:RIP

[Daengbo]

Maybe not a nail:

SSC spokesperson Marian Mortensen says government looks for three things in its negotiations: value for money, fitness for purpose and strategic benefit.

Mortensen says open source will be "part fo [sic] the mix, definitely". However, she adds, such choices will be made by individual agencies.

There's something, anyway, but it might not be much. It's up to the individual agencies.

Re:RIP

[vintagepc]

I like my toe cheeze and CLI, you insensitive clod!

Re:RIP

[Bert64]

Maybe microsoft should work on making windows more user friendly so you don't have to spend hours in the dos cli configuring irq numbers and io addresses, dealing with constant crashes and manually installing networking support just so they can get a workable graphic interface to check their mail with..

Oh wait, it's not 1993 anymore...

Linux these days is generally much easier to install than windows, and proprietary unix was always much easier than windows (because like macos, it came bundled with hardware designed to run it)

Re:RIP

[jsnipy]

What if you have an unattended install, how hard is windows to install then?

Re:RIP

[sumdumass]

It's likely a positioning move to get steeper discounts.

What would put another nail in MS's coffin would be them calling the bluff and forcing NZ to take on quite a bit of Open source software. Once past the "OMG it's different then what we have always used" stage, it might be more then enough to the government agencies and lead to more OSS adoption.

Re:RIP

[Erikderzweite]

Even if it's planting a seed that will grow into a tree that will eventually become the MS coffin -- it's still a good thing.

Re:RIP

[robthebloke]

I pity your troll status (alas I have no mod points). It's a fair point though - anyone using nLite and/or vLite to create an unattended installation disk can't say that windows is difficult to install. It's generally a good idea to use it anyway, otherwise the faffing around with service packs + updates is annoying (which appears to be what people are moaning about 99% of the time).

Re:RIP

[Anonymous Coward]

They have ents in NZ, you insensitive clod!

Re:RIP

[noundi]

This is getting fucking tiresome. At first I gave this argument (user friendliness) some thought, of course Linux is different so it has to be either easier or more difficult, no two OSs are exactly equal. Then after hearing this argument about a thousand times between showing everybody from coworkers to friends to my own mother, whom isn't the youngest hen in the pen to put it gently, how to use Ubuntu I come to realise that most of the times it's because you are so fucking lazy. In my experience most people reject it simply because it's different, and different is scary, it's unknown. When my mother asks me for help I refuse to help her, instead I tell her "let's pretent that you have psychic powers and with that you just 'know' where to look for the answer", while I survey. Most times she, being 60+, finds whatever she's looking for. For example if she would ask me how to change the layout of the document she's working with in OOo I'd tell her, "What would be the 'category' of this action? Would it fit more into e.g. changing views or handling files or editing the contents?". Naturally where I'm going with this is to show her that she doesn't need to be scared, she can, with some common sense and an eager index finger, check for it in the logical places she can imagine.

In my experience it's not so difficult to teach a person with low Windows knowledge to do the same fundamental actions in another OS, Ubuntu being my preferred alternative for these. The tasks these people do are virtually the same. What is difficult is to teach the thick headed thinks-he-knows-his-computer guy, that has learned some semi advanced tweaking and configuring in Windows, to start "all over". To me it's clear, these people push it away not because they can't, but because they thought they could and when they realise that Windows has tought them very little (since little hacking is necessary) about general OS structure and configuration. I'm saying this because the first time I really forced myself to give Linux a chance I started off, on recommendation from friends using Linux, with Slackware. As a thick headed thought-I-knew-my-computer I'd tell you one thing: I was fucking lost. This failed, that failed -- and I can tell you that from a Windows users perspective the word "sound server" was very confusing. But as I moved further and further away from the Windows concept (what I thought was how an OS was built) I began learning how OSs function in reality. Of course the hardware resources of your soundcard may only be accessable by one application, which is why you need a sound server to distribute/gather/tunnel the stream, but Windows never even hinted this very fundamental fact about hardware/software interaction. Also I have to add that this was many years ago and long before Mark Shuttleworth first spoke the word Ubuntu, nowadays the sound server example might be nullified by Ubuntu as well. But it wouldn't matter, my point is that you find it difficult because you find it difficult, not because it is difficult, if you understand what I mean. So you see there are 3 types of users, the one that knows, the one that doesn't know and last and worst the one that thinks he knows, don't be the latter, nobody likes this guy.

Re:RIP

[Elektroschock]

But Linux is great to reduce software procurement costs as a bargaining tool.

Currently there is a similar debate in Spain.

Re:RIP

[SpaghettiPattern]

and proprietary unix was always much easier than windows

Nope. UNIX was/is much easier to maintain when setup half decent. Keeping 10 workstations running was peanuts compared to Windows. To install it you needed to know your stuff. No deceptive comfy pillow was supplied. Ever installed SunOS 4? Ever added a 3rd party SCSI disk?

Re:RIP

[obarthelemy]

It's not only laziness. I've tried installing Linux on various PCs over the years, and out of 8-9 tries, got to the desktop only ONCE. Last try, ubuntu 8.10, gives me "snow " when it's time to launch the gnome desktop. On all those machines, XP runs perfectly.

I'm changing PCs soon, and will try once again. I'm growing afraid that, if the basic OS install gives me so many problems, I'll never get to install apps, though. I don't know if it's my skill level (I've fairly used to installin gXP, and a newbie in Linux), code quality (especially drivers), or documentation... Probably a bit of everything; so I'm partly to blame , but still. I won't be recommending/installing Linux for others till I'm confident I can do it for myself.

Re:RIP

[cbiltcliffe]

How does nLite ease the installation of Windows?
The act of using nLite to create your custom unattended install is more complex than just doing an attended install in the first place.

Unless you have someone else create your nLited disk for you, but then, you could have somebody else do the Windows install, too.

So your point is moot....

Re:RIP

[hairyfeet]

I'm sure it is great in the Enterprise market, but in the home and SMB markets? It is a royal can of suck. I'm sorry, but it's true. if you would like proof go to Bestbuy.com, Staples.com, and Walmart.com and buy any of the following WITHOUT doing research. You see home and SMB customers will NEVER do research, or spend hours trawling some forum to find out if device foo works on distro barr. They just walk into one of the above stores and buy based on price and features. Now try buying an all in one printer, a USB TV Tuner, and a Wifi USB stick. Remember-NO RESEARCH. Now go to distro foo and see if device barr you just got at Walmart works. I'll wait-

What is that? It don't work? Welcome to my reality. Pretty much zip you buy at the above stores works for the consumer. It is actually easy to explain. It is because Red Hat and Novell and the other companies writing Linux drivers only care about server and enterprise support. And as much as you'd like to believe it, I'm afraid that unless real money is spent on consumer hardware support those drivers aren't going to be written by some guy in his basement. Real support takes real money that simply isn't being spent on Linux. That is why even Ubuntu, the darling of the Linux community, is seeing a 400% higher return rate than Windows. For an OEM that is a dealbreaker.

So can we please just stop that "Linux is ready for home users" BS already? Unless your average home user consists of someone with a server and a $1000 enterprise network printer the facts just don't support it. There is simply way too much hardware being sold that has no support whatsoever in Linux. And you will never ever get Joe SMB or Sally home user to trawl forums and do research just to go buy a doodad at Walmart. It just isn't going to happen and you are deluding yourself if you believe it ever will. If you want the home and SMB markets you need at least 80% of the doodads that are sold at Walmart, Staples, and Best Buy to "just work".

And please don't say "But but but... they won't support us or open their specs!". Welcome to reality, where life is hard and nobody cares. The SMB and home users certainly doesn't give a shit about "free as in beer or freedom" when nothing they own or pick up at Walmart actually works. And they don't care about your excuses either. To them your "free OS" is "free as in worthless" if they can't print. Sorry, but it is true. On servers, it is a different ballgame. Linux is rock solid stable with excellent support. I would recommend Linux without a doubt for a server setup. But for home users it just sucks. Sorry.

Re:RIP

[bobsdesk]

You guy's still argue over this! Bashing MS so last year. The future is Google, they own the internet. At least Bill Gates recognized that, albeit, too late.

Re:RIP

[loutr]

anyone using nLite and/or vLite to create an unattended installation disk can't say that windows is difficult to install.

Sure, if you can make it through nLite configuration forms, you'll have no trouble installing Windows. But installing Ubuntu is still easier than creating a nLite install medium, and quicker too, and did I mention you could browse the web while waiting through the installation process ? ;)

Re:RIP

[cbiltcliffe]

Just out of curiosity, what type of computers do you buy?

I've installed Linux on everything from standard name-brand systems, to the most mongrel, hacked together pieces of random crap you could imagine.

I virtually _always_ get to the desktop. The only time I can remember that I didn't was when I installed Debian for the second time, after not having done it for a while, and forgot to install the package that includes the "startx" command. (I hate GUI login screens on Linux, so I didn't use any ?dm)
But that was really easy to fix, as I just had to install the xclients package.

These people that say they can't get the desktop to come up baffle me. I can honestly say I've _never_ seen that situation, and I've been dealing with Linux for well over a decade. The only thing I can think of is that you're using such a bizarre, esoteric hardware setup that virtually nobody ever sees in real life. But you've done this 8-9 times over the years. What are the chances that every computer you've owned has this type of setup? Virtually nil.

So, it makes no sense to me. Not saying it couldn't happen, but I have no frame of reference to relate to.

Re:RIP

[gbjbaanb]

Sure, its laziness, but we're all lazy. Sometimes we want a computer to act like a device that just works, without hassle, at all.

Now, I know that's a pipe dream of a utopian future we'll probably never have. But, when things go wrong, consider the difference between Windows and Linux - with Windows you type a search in google and get some results that nearly always apply to you, do what they say and you're done. With Linux, type a search into google and you get a load of results, too many results, some fixing your problem... but for a different distro, some requiring you to have a lot more knowledge and skill that an ordinary user should have to use a modern computer, and some just obscure and wrong.

That's the difference, that's why you have to go extra to help people out with Linux instead of treating them like n00bs. Until we get support sites for distros that really are helpful to the common user (hmm.. perhaps an Ubuntu wiki of common issues, solutions, and so on) then we'll have to take up the slack and help people out.

Mind you, I have to help out my Windows-using friends as well :(

Re:RIP

[obarthelemy]

latest try was on an MSI pizza-box style PC, with an i815 IGP chipset, an oldish CPU (Celeron or via), and no extension card whatsoever: some RAM, 1 HD, 1CD drive, and that's it.

Re:RIP

[noundi]

Thank you for proving my point. While you are using Windows you have little knowledge of how important driver support is, you take it for granted, just like my sound server example. You don't know that it's important to check for supported hardware because whatever you stick inside your PC has been supported so far.

You're saying that you're about to change PC equipment. Before you decide what you want google around for those pieces of hardware and make sure there are stable Linux drivers that support them. It doesn't necessarily need to be old equipment so don't sweat it just yet. Do this and I promise you that you will have the most painless OS installation you've ever experienced, no exaduration. Your initial thought might be "how annoying", but then again if you had low level knowledge (and wanted Linux) you'd probably end up buying a complete setup from a vendor that supplies Linux support, but you're not. If you were an advanced user you'd find no problem in doing this quick research. If however you're the middle person with, let's call it phantom knowledge, you'd try to do what the advanced guy is doing with the ambitions of the low level guy, getting you absolutely nowhere. The only way of learning this is by doing, so do yourself a favor and set yourself on the path of becoming an advanced user, it really doesn't hurt.

As I said, if you're really up for it the only thing you need to do is check for Linux support for the hardware you're going to buy, the same way as you've been ignoring Mac products due to incompability (or other more obvious issues not mentioned).

Oh and about "laziness". You can disagree with me all you want, and you probably should, but I've seen and helped so many people with similar/related problems and my conclusion is, even they'd disagree as well, that they've simply been lazy. They know google, they know english, they have fingers, and most importantly they have a question. Don't tell me that's not being lazy. :)

Re:RIP

[cbiltcliffe]

And this was the Ubuntu 8.10 attempt?

I've got a machine that's very similar hardware-wise to that. I'm going to try installing on it and see what happens.

Re:RIP

[Anonymous Coward]

Another nail in MSs coffin?

Offtopic? Surely this is another sign that Micro$oft are losing both ground and respect, and the OP couldn't be more ON topic. It has nothing to do with Linux fanboy-ism, just a recognition that people are now aware that there are alternatives to MS, and these alternatives may be better (cheaper, faster etc) for some people and organisations.

Re:RIP

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is ready, but the people (the masses) are not ready yet.

Re:RIP

[noundi]

Mind you, I have to help out my Windows-using friends as well :(

You didn't hear? The best IT friend excuse was formed, it goes by: "I'm sorry man, I never learned Vista so I can't help you. :(". Seriously though it's the best excuse I've found for bailing out of those people-taking-advantage-of-your-juicy-brain situations.

Back to the topic though. I understand your argument about scattered and misleading information, but this is a self solving problem caused by the small magnitude of Linux. As Linux grows, so will this problem shrink. However there are still many detailed and very helpful resources for your distro, if you're using any major distro. My favourite being gentoo wiki. Apart from you have the regular Ubuntu resources, launchpad, ubuntuforums etc. In addition to this you have great independent resources such as linuxquestions.org

I like to use Ubuntu a lot, as you might notice, in my examples. Not because it's "the master distro", not at all actually. But it's unique in a way where "automagic" is a key word. This is what the common user wants, and we will see more ubuntu-like distros coming as time goes. For now I support Ubuntu as much as I support FOSS simply because it's a milestone in FOSS development that has already made it to history, any person whom doesn't recognize that fact is lying to himself. You don't have to promote it, you don't have to use it, you don't even have to like it, but you should never lie about what it is.

Re:RIP

[slyn]

It depends on who's doing the slipstream.

I was able to get a fully updated, SP3 XP unattended install with DriverPacks for everything in less than an hour my first time ever working with the programs.

Doing an attended install means no million restarts due to the install disk I have only being up to SP1, not having to mess around with drivers, and not having to mess with the activation key.

If I wanted to go even further I could have set it up to autoinstall Firefox, Foxit Reader, and OpenOffice by doing a browse and finding the installers for each.

Now of course this preparation work is extra when compared to say, Linux or OS X, but any slashdotter worth his salt with a Windows install can make a slipstreamed disk that does an unattended install without any particular headaches, and the end result is a XP or Vista (if your using vLite) disk that is actually easier to install than Linux or OS X.

Re:RIP

[neomunk]

Put the Lexmark down and step away from 1998. Your 4 paragraphs detailing one area where Windows is better than Linux (and only due to market considerations, not technical considerations) is amusing but overall pointless. I've personally set up about 50 desktop linux installations for friends and family who want to use me as their "computer guy". You have a (very small) point in that you can't just pick up ANY hardware and have it work in Linux, only about 90% of it works immediately. You're completely wrong about people being too stupid to realize that they have to buy something that works with their computer in order to, ya know, use it with their computer. By your logic Macs wouldn't exist simply due to not being 100% compatible with your pet OS.

You keep on spreading that FUD, but in the meantime I'm going to enjoy the ease of maintenance on my household's 2 linux desktops, 3 linux laptops and my linux server. Hell, I've even completely replaced cable TV with internet video.

A quick re-read of your post basically comes down to this bit of logic: Linux is not ready for the desktop because a few hardware companies have not yet blessed it as ready for the desktop. Linux is inferior to Windows because Lexmark says so, and that's the bottom line, nothing you can do about it but not be good enough.

See how goofy that sounds? As it turns out, it's just as silly in practice, as none of the few vendors that are actually Linux hostile have a monopoly in their market, thus any part you need is available at a reasonable (for the item) cost.

Re:RIP

[fwarren]

Sure, its laziness, but we're all lazy. Sometimes we want a computer to act like a device that just works, without hassle, at all.

It is a lie. Repeat after me. "A Computer is NOT an appliance".

Some things are not inherently simple. A blender is simple, a toaster is simple. A telecsope is NOT simple. You have to adjust where you are pointing it and the focus, know about lenses.

Things are moving along. Compare an SLR camera from 20 years ago to a push and click digital camera of today. There are still things to learn but the simple "point and click" "appliance" camera of today is a very powerful camera.

Microsoft has done everyone a diservice by saying that a computer IS an appliance. Take any group of hardware and add $200 of Microsoft products and you will have a working system. Easy to use and secure.

Everyeone wants to do word processing, but they don't want to lean how their OS stores files...so they can't find what they saved an hour from now. Everyone wants to send email, but they don't know how to read an error message that tells them why their email could not be delivered.

Short of running a kiosk, we are not anywhere near the "appliance" stage of PC computing. Anyone saying otherwise should be swiftly kicked in the balls. Even if he is a geek with funny haircut and wears glasses.

Re:RIP

[K. S. Kyosuke]

That's called "free market competition", not "bargaining tool".

Re:RIP

[BrokenHalo]

It's not only laziness. I've tried installing Linux on various PCs over the years, and out of 8-9 tries, got to the desktop only ONCE. Last try, ubuntu 8.10, gives me "snow " when it's time to launch the gnome desktop.

Now that is scary. Back in the mid-'90s when I was playing around with various Linux distros on a machine with a no-name motherboard and SiS-based graphics card, I didn't get great results (the colour was 16-bit at best) but I never ONCE got snow.

And over the years since (and manymany Linux installs down the track) I have had 100% success in getting X11 to work. Go figure.

Re:RIP

[Ihmhi]

I'm in the computer repair business (sole proprietor). I'm looking into starting a company along the same lines with three colleagues, one of which is a big fan of Linux and OpenOffice, and another of which is a fan of Vista and Microsoft Office.

We have had a massive bitch of a time convincing Vista dude why we'd prefer OO for in-house use (main selling point: it's compatible with office dox and its free). We literally had to sit down for a half hour and run him through it.

Ultimately, the end user likes things simple. Plug & Play gave them the idea of "Plug it in and it should work; if it doesn't then something's broke". You can't ask basic users to mess with tar.gz files or hunt down drivers that didn't come with the OS.

For Linux to succeed it has to be idiot proof for the end user, and it's not there yet.

Re:RIP

[Ant P.]

Now try buying an all in one printer, a USB TV Tuner, and a Wifi USB stick. Remember-NO RESEARCH. Now go to distro foo and see if device barr you just got at Walmart works.

Having bought an overpriced prebuilt many years ago, I've been through all that and more. I still remember the five hour delay while Windows Update downloaded a 30MB bloated, shitty sound card driver over dialup because the OEM install CD didn't bother to include one. It worked on Knoppix "out of the box". Guess windows just isn't ready for the desktop.

Re:RIP

[Anonymous Coward]

Many people on Slashdot are not "Intellectually Honest"

Re:RIP

[Patch86]

I can never really identify with people who say this. Enough people say it that I guess it must be true, but I still can't reconcile myself to it.

I've installed Linux a bunch of times on a bunch of different machines, exactly NONE of which were bought with Linux in mind. All of these were off the shelf, relatively random, relative mix of budget and performance hardware, some branded and some not.

Off the top of my head, I've installed any of Ubuntu, Debian, or Puppy on a 1998 Dell box (originally Win98), two different 2003 homebuilds (XP), a 2005 HP laptop (XP) some random Elonex netbook (XP), and a 2008 Toshiba laptop (Vista). None of them had any hardware problems at all (including WiFi) with the exception of one slightly irritable sound card under Puppy and a Logitech MX518 mouse which can't use one of its more unusual buttons (the one that is essentially a proprietary alt-tab).

I think you're relatively unlucky if you're stuck with hardware which is completely incompatible, and should be completely safe as long as you Google "[hardware name] linux" before you buy anything.

Re:RIP

[JohnBailey]

What if you have an unattended install, how hard is windows to install then?

About as hard as a custom spin of a Linux dostro on known compatible hardware.

Re:RIP

[mgblst]

It is sort of laziness, but in some ways it isn't. Most people hate computers, and just want to get their work done. They learn the bear minimum, usually exact keystrokes and button pushes. They have no idea what they are doing, they just now press this button, then press return, then copy the text.

Learning a whole new system is not a small task for these people, and they have real work to do as well.

Re:RIP

[Anonymous Coward]

So long story short, NZ has lost their government pricing, and any discounts below RRP need to be negotiated separately?

Re:RIP

[Petrushka]

What would put another nail in MS's coffin would be them calling the bluff and forcing NZ to take on quite a bit of Open source software. Once past the "OMG it's different then what we have always used" stage, it might be more then enough to the government agencies and lead to more OSS adoption.

I think that's exactly what has already happened! That seems to me to be exactly the reason why the State Services Commission has taken the position they have.

As the summary points out, the SSC has won one award already from the NZ Open Source Awards; in addition, they've been using SUSE (both server and desktop) since at least 2005, and in 2006 they published a guide on using open source software in government departments. (An early version of the guide, prepared for them by a legal firm that also worked for Microsoft, was discussed on Slashdot and received a lot of flak -- so much that the SSC rewrote the guide themselves as a result.)

So yes, I think this is the nail.

Re:RIP

[socceroos]

I'm confused. How did your story have any relevance to your conclusion?

Are you really saying that because you had to sit down what sounds like a staunch Microsoftie and teach him OpenOffice.org that it means that Linux isn't ready? Also, what have you plugged into your distro that hasn't worked? When was the last time you used a tar.gz file for anything? Could you have just used the package manager?

I mean, honestly, I'm going to call troll on this one. Perhaps you could explain what you really mean and how you got to your conclusion with the examples you gave?

Re:RIP

[shutdown -p now]

Microsoft has done everyone a diservice by saying that a computer IS an appliance. Take any group of hardware and add $200 of Microsoft products and you will have a working system. Easy to use and secure.

Everyeone wants to do word processing, but they don't want to lean how their OS stores files...so they can't find what they saved an hour from now. Everyone wants to send email, but they don't know how to read an error message that tells them why their email could not be delivered.

You can lament all you want, but if people want to treat their computer as an appliance, and use it as such, then they'll go to those providers that offer something at least resembling that to them. See: OS X, Windows. Most "user-friendly" Linux distros are definitely heading there, too.

Re:RIP

[socceroos]

I'll back this up - and go one further.

I have all three components (all-in-one, USB TV Tuner and Wifi USB stick) and all three of them worked perfectly when plugged into my Ubuntu Linux box.

This is really old news, but people need to actually install a recent Linux distro and stop bitching about the 90's.

On a side note, I recommend MeTV for watching TV with your USB stick in Linux - great little program!

Re:RIP

[forestwalkerjoe]

how bout this.. i am in your boat.. in a way.. i started about 4 years ago.. actually.. my first try was nearly 10 years ago.. but it was a night mare in which i destroyed a perfectly great laptop... but anyway.. i started really.. 4 years ago.. i chose a distro on the net.. downloaded it.. had a hella time getting an ISO to burn.. sum checking and all that.. got it to run a LIVE CD.. and liked it.. didnt love it.. so i left it run as a LIVE only off CD.. some one showed me how to DUEL boot .. so i could keep my XP going.. just in case. there were plenty of tweeks i had to learn to do.. or have some one basically DO for me in the forums.. thank GOD for great folks in forums with patents enough to help me out. 9 months later.. i suddenly realized i had not rebooted back to XP for any thing. ANYTHING! i was not super thrilled with the version i had chosen.. but still.. it was not that hard.. not that different. SO.. i chose to do a delete of that version.. backed up my files from it.. and did the Distro WHORE thing.. started downloaded and demo'ing many many versions.. Some were just so far out of my league i could never have done without help to get them installed. SO since then.. i had 11 versions all multi booted on my system to TRIAL them. SUSE.. Mandrakes mandriva.. FREESPIRE.. PUPPY.. Ubuntu 6 i think it was.. Slackware.. COOLIO distro.. honestly.. and quite a few others.. I learned to see the differences.. a little bit.. SUSE is great.. gotta love it.. strong and stable.. i could go on.. but if you cant strait out install on your system.. do a DUEL boot.. or for some thing like MINT or UBUNTU.. a thing they call WUBI.. where it installs Inside the windows system.. if it ever does get to overwealming.. put the disk back in.. and hit Delete WUBI.. you still have to config some things.. and mess arround with tweeks.. but wonders of LINUX is there is no ONE way to do it. I have now set up Linux systems for so many persons.. that i am known as the LINUX DUDE.. the GO TO GUY.. i am in no way a master.. at all.. and get stuck all the time.. but with support being free.. i ask questions and find out why my hard ware or theirs has an issue..and what the WORK AROUND IS. so some home work on your install before you INSTALL.. it will be a lot better for you. take a copy of your system hard ware.. each part.. chip set.. ram.. video card.. sound system etc.. copy it print if you must.. and check the requires or support from a certain type of DISTRO of Linux.. make sure the largest portion of your distro supports your hardware.. or there are BUG FIXS for the other issues.. not PENDING but done..real fixs.. and TRY a distro that supports your hardware. ONCE you found one.. GO INTO the forums Before you try and install. leave notes for others to help your or support your choice to install fresh or DEUL boot or even WUBI.. some will give you crap for a wubi.. but if they dont want to be like MS monopoly then they need to back up and allow folks to be FREE. once you have smart and provable persons to help you.. THEN do the install.. see how much better your LUCK will be.. You'll need to relearn alot.. but once you get into linux.. your likely NOT going to go back to Microscrap. RJ

Re:RIP

[Anonymous Coward]

Also out of curiosity, did you manage to get to the desktop using the Ubuntu 8.10 LiveCD? If you can get the LiveCD to work, an install will work.
The PC you describe sounds like it should have no problem getting to the desktop with any recent version of Ubuntu.

Re:RIP

[hairyfeet]

Is Ubuntu 9.04 "new" enough for you? I repeat: Take the hairyfeet challenge. Step right up if Linux is ready for the home consumer. Just go to Bestbuy.com, Staples.com, and Walmart.com and buy the three things I listed WITHOUT RESEARCH. You may buy based on the first one listed or the cheapest, but no cheating! There must be NO RESEARCH, because as someone who builds PCs for a living(and is doing quite well,thank you very much) I can tell you that Joe SMB and Sally home user will NOT do research.

And there is a REASON why the three above stores carry so many PC peripherals. Do they do it because nobody shops there? Nope, it is because that is highly profitable due to the amount of customers they see buying those peripherals. So take the hairyfeet challenge. But you won't because you and I both know you will fail. You will fail because less than 10% of the peripherals sold at the above stores have any Linux support AT ALL. Most if you are lucky have some hacked together mess that after trawling forums for Deity knows how long will be pointed to some tarball which you are supposed to know how to configure and tweak and customize, because like the Lexmark Zxxx driver it was made for some device released years ago and hasn't been updated in forever. Do you HONESTLY think Joe SMB or Sally home user could have any chance at all making that work?

Sadly it is this failure to face reality that dooms Linux to such a tiny niche. A geek with IT experience thinks because after doing hours of research and buying certain model printer foo and tweaking config files on his X server to support his monitor setup that that suddenlt makes Linux ready for Joe and Sally, when nothing could be farther from the truth. It isn't your fault, not really. It is hard to think like a non geek when you have IT and CLI experience because it is so easy for you. It also doesn't help when your own community is hamstringing you. And believe me, they are. The likes of Red Hat and Novell and all the other corps that spend money on Linux couldn't give a flying fart about you or any home user. They also don't give a crap about Linux gaining marketshare. That is because they spend all their money and time on server and enterprise support, where the contracts are fat.

I actually feel sorry for those that say "Linux is ready for the home desktop!", I really do. It is like watching a preacher try to build a congregation while the repo man is carrying off the pews and hymnals." It'll get better!" you say as they carry off the desks. But the sad truth is it won't. It won't get any better than it is right at this moment. It won't get any better because to support the home user money is going to have to be spent. Big money on driver developers and support that frankly isn't there. I know my above statements are true because I work in retail. I deal with Joe and Sally five days a week, and sometimes weekends. I have tried no less than 4 times in 4 years to sell Linux to the average user, and in EVERY SINGLE CASE it was cheaper to pay the $89 price of XP Home than it was to deal with support costs. Unless you force every Linux customer to buy a multiyear support contract(thus making it more expensive than Windows) supporting Linux will bankrupt you. And no matter how much work you do they will STILL walk into the above stores when they need a doodad and then blame you when it doesn't work, which frankly it never does in Linux.

So I'm really sorry if the reality of the retail market is something you would rather not face, but it is a completely different ballgame from enterprise and server. And in its current state Linux may be "free as in beer and freedom" to you, but to 99.995% of the home and SMB market it is "free as in worthless" because nothing they own or pick up at the above stores works. Sorry. And I apologize for the length, but I think with work and dedication Linux does have a chance in this market. But until those that want it to succeed face reality that it simply isn't ready for the home and SMB markets and rally the community into fixing that situation it will simply never get there.

Re:RIP

[fwarren]

You can lament all you want, but if people want to treat their computer as an appliance, and use it as such, then they'll go to those providers that offer something at least resembling that to them.

I can treat my car the same way. Never worry about putting air in the tire or changing the oil. I will have to buy a new car every year. What matters though is I get to treat it like an appliance. Those are the same windows users that either buy a new computer every 6 to 12 months or live with 10 minute boot up times due to all of the spyware on their machine.

The problem is that if you treat your computer like an appliance it won' run for very long. No matter what Microsoft says, that is the truth. A Mac does better. But it is still the same deal. If you don't learn how to take care of your computer and intend to treat it like an appliance, it will soon be junked up. Anyone telling you differently is trying to tell you something.

Re:RIP

[socceroos]

You have some points in there, but they're surrounded in crap.

Despite what you may think, I have actually bought many products off ebay without any research (TV USB stick, cameras, printers) and every last one of them has worked without a hitch. Maybe I've been 'fortunate', but its a pretty big coincidence - I've bought many a product.

You say there are products not supported in Linux, this is true. For example, even after research, it became apparent that I would need to use Wine to get my TomTom GPS to update its maps with their proprietary Windows only application. Things like this are a barrier to the uneducated user.

I've installed Linux on a number of people's machines that needed it (Vista 'capable' laptops with 512Mb RAM and a celeron processor mostly) and instead of leaving these people out in the cold, I simply put a document right in the middle of their desktop explaining the very basics of their systems and offering to consult with them if they need help buying any extra gear. I make it apparent to users who switch to Linux that it is not a Windows clone. I explain this clearly, and make sure they get the point.

I routinely ring these people and ask them how their Linux computer is going and how they're coping with it. This gives them an outlet to tell me about something that might be confusing them. I have heard nothing but praise from these people. I'm not joking and I'm not overstating the facts. These people know that if they want to get some new piece of hardware that if it doesn't work straight away that they can then contact me and I'll help them.

Most of them run by me what they plan on getting and I'll just check for them so they don't have to go through the hassle of taking something back that isn't supported. So far, nothing has been unsupported - and these people have bought some odd peripherals. Even down to Windows only knitting software that works flawlessly on WINE.

I am by no means saying that Linux is perfect and that everything runs fine. But I can tell you that it is indeed ready for the desktop and that your average Joe can indeed use it as their main OS - I have clients that will attest to that. And some of these are people that have always feared Linux because they heard it was created by Satan. Others are over 80 years old, others are kids - they play their PC games on it too.

I'd wager that the situation isn't as bad as you make it sound. You seem to have little idea on how to effectively support users - try gently educating them.

Again, Linux isn't perfect. Not everything works out of the box, but I would wager that most does - its certainly been my client's experience.

Re:RIP

[socceroos]

Just something more about your comment: rallying the community isn't the problem. The community is doing all it can. The issue really lies with the manufacturers. This has been said over and over again - and its true: the more manufacturers see Linux, the more likely they are to support it. With the early explosion in sales of Linux netbooks and the recent revelations of Linux's exponentially growing market share, I believe this situation will soon change.

Honestly, it already is in the process of changing. There is more support from manufacturers for Linux that there ever was, and its only growing.

Re:RIP

[mrdtr]

I've tried installing Linux on a few computers too. I have had nothing but success. Not sure if it has to do with me always choosing KDE over Gnome (I doubt it). I've never tried on laptops so I have no idea what that outcome would be like. My advice to anyone who wants to try Linux is first to try it out with either Live CD's or in VirtualBox, and for goodness sake, pick up a book such as Linux Bible, a bit of reading never killed anyone.

Re:RIP

[Yfrwlf]

I still think a really nice Linux wiki/website of some sort to document hardware functionality in Linux would be helpful, for both components and pre-built models since normal computer users don't build their own.

Of course, most computer users don't install an OS, and end up paying for Microsoft's OS because they never knew they had a choice. That is going to be one of the last greatest walls to tumble is more Linux pre-installed on computers. I was somewhat surprised to see an EEE PC with Linux at Best Buy though. Maybe that's why Microsoft killed it so quickly. Sure wish more governments would kick their ass for their racketeering.

Re:RIP

[Yfrwlf]

Erm...this thread has gotten kind of silly. A computer being easy to use is exactly what 90-99% of computer users want. Windows is definitely not super easy to use, but it's not incredibly difficult either, from an average user's standpoint. Computers should keep working for a very long time without becoming "gummed up".

Re:RIP

[noundi]

There's a bunch of them but I know you're looking for "one ring to rule them all". There's no such thing -- yet, simply because the demand is low. Mind you that I'm differing between demand and request. Everybody using Linux would love to have a big central resource, but nobody demands it -- yet. It will come though. Meanwhile there are several other decent to good resources you can browse. Luckily there aren't that many drivers one needs to check for.

Re:RIP

[hairyfeet]

Actually it IS the community and they are 100% at fault. Do you want to know why? here you go, it is actually VERY simple. I am a hardware manufacturer, and I want to support an OS. If I go with Windows I only have to write THREE drivers and I have past, present and future support for the platform. No more money out of pocket, no need to pay developers to continue support for the device, none at all. I just have my software driver developers write a Win98/ME driver, and Win2K/XP driver, and a Vista/7 driver and I am done. If I want to be nice I have them throw in a 64 bit XP/Vista driver and I have even the niches covered.

Can I do that in Linux? Nope a chance in hell. I can't do that because Linux has NO stable ABI or framework for me to write devices to. None at all. I can't even be assured that my device driver will work in six months when Ubuntu puts out their next release, as seen on the amount of posts on the forums that say "Ubuntu x.xx broke my device foo" and you see those posts over and over and over again. Instead of fixing anything they just keep cranking out new versions. Pretty much zero backwards compatibility there, especially at the driver level. Everything from the kernel on up is in a constant state of flux. Trying to write device drivers for Linux is like trying to hit a dartboard with a live bumblebee. Theoretically it is possible, but I wouldn't want to try to do it.

So instead of freezing development and working to create a stable platform, Linux just keeps on changing the underpinnings at a break neck pace. And then you add in the hostility of binary blobs and is it any wonder why you don't have drivers? The vast majority of companies will NEVER release their specs to you, okay? Never gonna happen. So unless you give them a rock solid stable platform to target they simply are going to ignore you, just like they do now. They can release just 4 drivers and know with confidence that pretty much any Windows user on the planet can use their device. The last capture card I bought supported from Win98 to Vista64, and it did that with just five drivers. A Win98/ME, a Win2K/XP32, an XP64, and a Vista32/64 driver. And since Vista drivers work on Win7(since it is just Vista SP3) they can be assured that their device will be able to be sold until 2014 or later without needing to do anymore work.

Until Linux can say the same thing you honestly can't expect hardware manufacturers to support you. They are not going to bend over backwards for such a tiny niche, and they certainly aren't going to release their specs or spend good $$$$ on keeping full time developers in order to support every device they make in Linux. Because as surely as the sun rises any binary driver they release now won't work in 2 years, possibly even less. Oh, and before you say "ATI"? The ONLY reason you are seeing the specs on ATI hardware is because they and Nvidia are both competing in the HPC market, which spends high dollar on top of the line hardware to run massive mathematical computations and use Linux for a simple CLI environment to maximize the amount of power left for computations. You have absolutely nothing to offer the consumer market. Your platform isn't stable, it is a PITA to write drivers for, which will need to be constantly updated because the underpinnings shift like the sand, and they get derided for even releasing a driver if it is a binary blob.

So hold on to that dream pal, it won't make it reality. And Netbooks? Windows OWNS the Netbook market with over 90% while Ubuntu sees a 400% return rate on Linux Netbooks. And that is a nearly decade old MSFT OS against the latest Ubuntu. What happens when Win7, which I have tried and it is really a good OS, comes into the Netbook market? You and I know what happens-Linux gets its ass handed to it. Sorry, but that is reality. So if you expect Netbooks to help you...well you have already lost. Thanks for playing. Maybe next year,huh?

Re:RIP

[Bert64]

SunOS 4 was pretty easy providing you had a sun branded cdrom to install it from, it actually used to check the vendor string of the cd and wouldn't kick other brands (i had a toshiba) into 512 byte blocksize mode... But i know what you mean about third party disks, having to manually input the cylinder information etc.

Ultrix was trivially easy, boot from cd, say yes a couple of times...

IRIX was easy, click on the "install from cd" option in the bootup gui.

All simple because they have known hardware they're going on to, no need to screw around with drivers or anything.

Re:RIP

[Bert64]

So for windows you have to write 5 drivers to cater to every possible version someone might be using...
On Linux you can write one driver and submit it to the kernel maintainers, and providing your driver is up to snuff it will get rolled in and the kernel developers will help maintain it.

What's better, an old driver that works on a new os because that os provides tons of backwards compatibility kludges, or a driver that's been updated along with the new os?

Also, if you release your driver this way you will get ports to other architectures for free... Look at the MIPS based netbooks, and the forthcoming ARM based ones, not to mention cellphones and games consoles that can run linux...

To bring up your point about printers, HP released open source drivers for their printers and scanners some years ago... These drivers work great with the latest versions of Linux, Ubuntu supports them out of the box... I have an old all in one printer/scanner for which HP have stopped providing official drivers (this means no 64bit, no vista, no leopard or osx/x86).. So to use that printer with a proprietary os i need a 32bit xp or a ppc based osx 10.4, yet it works flawlessly with my 64bit quad core ubuntu box. When this printer dies on me or i just need a newer one, i'm far more likely to buy another HP because the brand has earned a level of trust from me.

Re:RIP

[Bert64]

You can do pretty much the same with Linux, only there is less reason to because it already ships with a decent set of autoinstalled software and the update process isn't going to make you reboot more than once.

Doing an unattended install just means that you only have to mess with drivers and the activation key once...

But unless you're planning on installing several machines in one go, is it really worth all the extra effort? Most of the advantages you get from a slipstream install are already provided by linux without having to do any extra work.

Also creating a slipstream disk requires that you already have a working installation available to you.

You can't say windows is either easier or faster when you have to roll your own installation media, because you have to consider the time and effort required to do so. This simply wouldn't be possible for an end user, especially one who only has a single computer. Ready for the desktop indeed...

Re:RIP

[SlashWombat]

Oh, you mean like SCO UNIX? Which was designed to run on the same boxes that MS dos ran on.

Oh wait, it's not 1993 anymore...

SCO now rests in the place it deserves to be. Had they done it the right way, they could have where microsoft is today! But at >$1500 a seat, they were just to greedy!

Re:RIP

[donaldm]

There's something, anyway, but it might not be much. It's up to the individual agencies.

You are right, however Government agencies quickly develop a sixth sense with regard to which way government policy is blowing. It is a "courageous" IT department that insists on continuing with the same spending when that department's budget is reduced and while nothing has been said about cost cutting you can be positive that the NZ Government is going to reduce all Government spending. like it or not Departments are going to have to make do with less money and when this happens you are going to see Open Source source being fully adopted by all even if the workers find the transition difficult.

When I stated "Open Source software" being adopted I mean packages like Open Office which supports ISO standards. I don't mean that Linux is going to appear on all desktops immediately although Linux on the desktop may start to take off, but in the interim most likely MS XP and possibly MS Vista (for those departments that have migrated) will be the OS that is used since I am quite sure that all Government departments still have valid licenses which Microsoft will have to provide patches for. The Government may mandate that a new laptop or desktop will have some Linux distribution but that has not been confirmed one way or the other.

Re:RIP

[DavoMan]

A pain. Because you changed some hardware and now the licenses dont work.

Re:RIP

[hairyfeet]

Again you are talking about corporations giving SOURCE CODE to the kernel developers, who may or may not use it and may or may not support it. Given the cutthroat nature of the market and the minefield that is software copyrights and patents in America, you would have to be frankly really really stupid to do such a thing. A company like HP can afford to do so because they have a warchest of defensive patents they can use to drop the hammer on anyone who opposes them. Same with IBM, MSFT, most of the top fortune 50 companies. For the little guy it would be suicide. Just look at Tom Tom and getting sued over Linux. Had to cave and pay up, didn't they? Most hardware manufacturers do NOT have a warchest of defensive patents to fight back with. And with patent trolls today just looking for any weakness handing over source code is like sticking your head on a chopping block and hoping you don't get it chopped off. Is Linus and the other developers going to pay for any and all legal fees if I give you my source code? Didn't think so.

And now you are betting all your hope on MIPS. Isn't that cute? The same thing was said when Netbooks first came out, remember? Kinda got the snot kicked out of you by MSFT though. If MIPS ends up more than a teeny tiny niche MSFT will simply release a stripped down version of XP or Win7 embedded that will support the arch, just like how WinNT supported Sparc and XP supported Itanic. But I honestly doubt that MIPS will make enough of a dent to even bother. Oh BTW, Loongson is building X86 hardware assistance into their into their new chips along with a custom version of QEMU to support it. Why do you think that is? It is so you can run Windows and Windows apps on their chips, that's why.

But MIPS will be nothing but a speck, nothing more. They would have to sell MIPS Netbooks for under $100 to get anyone but the geeks to buy it, as just last week I saw refurbed EEE Netbooks with XP Home selling for $150. So go right ahead and bet the farm on MIPS. Folks would rather have support for all their gizmos and if MIPS ever gets a big enough marketshare to actually be a threat to Wintel you will see "Win7 MIPS Edition" and you will see Linux get the living snot kicked out of it just as it did with Netbooks. After all, MSFT puts ALL kinds of restrictions on Netbooks carrying XP. Only 1Gb of RAM, no dual cores, limits to screen and hard drive size, etc. And yet hardware manufacturers would rather jump through ALL those hoops rather than make a more powerful Netbook with Linux. Why? Because your "free as in beer and freedom" OS has truly shitty consumer level hardware support and so for them and their customers it is "free as in worthless". Hell I could put out a Netbook with an embedded Win2K and support more consumer level hardware out of the box that Linux does right now. But hey, maybe next year will be the "year of Linux on the desktop" huh?

Re:RIP

[Bootarn]

From this perspective, the Asus Eee is an interesting machine. It comes bundled with a system (modified Xandros)that you can very much treat as an appliance.

In fact, "appliance computing", as we may as well call it, is the intended target market for the Eee. You use the Eee as an appliance for surfing, word processing etc. Some people may call this limited, but lets' face it, it's all a Joe Sixpack needs in a small, convenient package.

Re:RIP

[Golddess]

But unless you're planning on installing several machines in one go, is it really worth all the extra effort?

This is Windows we're talking about. The amount of re-formats/re-installs for a single machine alone makes it worthwhile. :P

To be fair though, Windows doesn't have that problem to nearly the same degree that it once did. I only ever re-install XP if I'm moving to a new MB.

Re:RIP

[DavoMan]

Shot, brother.

Re:RIP

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I've got to agree -- unsupported Linux hardware is getting harder and harder to find.

In many cases, Linux is more userfriendly than Windows.

2 examples:

I plugged in my USB WWAN card and started looking around for drivers, config howtos, etc, prepared to go through a long complicated setup. Finally I found that all I had to do was click on my network manager icon and select "Auto Mobile Broadband". 10 seconds later, I was on the 'net with no drivers to install. With Windows, I had to download some big software installer, install the software, then reboot my computer before the device would work.

I had a similar experience with my USB laser printer -- I plugged it in and started to search for drivers, but before I could even finish a Google search, Linux had installed the printer and it was ready for use.

I know there's still hardware out there that has proprietary, undocumented interfaces thus no Linux support, but I'm running into less and less hardware like that.

Re:RIP

[Ihmhi]

I've formed my opinion from working in the trenches as a computer repair tech going to people's home and fixing everyday problems. I don't have studies to cite or focus groups to quote; this is just my personal experience.

Are you really saying that because you had to sit down what sounds like a staunch Microsoftie and teach him OpenOffice.org that it means that Linux isn't ready? Also, what have you plugged into your distro that hasn't worked? When was the last time you used a tar.gz file for anything? Could you have just used the package manager?

He's not a Microsoftie, though. He's a "I don't wanna learn how to do new stuff"-tie, which is the attitude of most of my customers.

They want their computer to be easy, to work reliably, and not to change anytime soon.

I mean, honestly, I'm going to call troll on this one. Perhaps you could explain what you really mean and how you got to your conclusion with the examples you gave?

Okay.

Linux is too damn hard to use for the average user. That's the concise version.

The non-concise version: a Regular Joe's computer breaks down. He finds it'll cost him a couple hundred to repair it at Best Buy, or he could just buy a brand new one for a few hundred extra. (Big bonus: free computer parts that people throw out for garbage.)

He takes it home and plugs it in. Maybe it runs through a short setup, or maybe it works out of the box. Now he has his computer good to go.

Linux doesn't really have this nowadays. You can be pedantic and cite the one or two product lines a big box store might carry, or a little out-of-the-way shop or small franchise that carries a pre-installed Linux box, but it's nowhere remotely on the scale that Windows and Mac are out there. Hell, Linux even had itself in Wal-Mart's online store vis-a-vis Lindows and it was $100 cheaper than the XP PC, yet it's not there anymore and the company has been bought out. I'm not saying correlation = causation, but this is one of the few times that Linux in any form was in a chain of stores (albeit via their online division) and it bombed.

Joe can't drive to Staples or Best Buy and pick up a Linux PC, so he won't.

Next, Joe buys a printer, and wants to hook it up to his Windows or Mac. He plugs it in and reads in the instruction manual that he needs to insert the included CD. How many printers/cameras/devices etc. have Linux drivers on their CD, much less drivers at all?

Most Linux builds IMO ask way too much of the average user. I've had to explain what a .zip file is, what a driver is, etc. many many times to a lot of people who had the money to spend on expensive computers but had no idea on how to use them (much less an inclination to learn how to use them).

The consumer is ultimately lazy and wants a computer to work more like a television or appliance than a complicated device. The above "Vista dude" story was not relating how he was a Microsoft fanboy (he's not) but rather how he, like many average users, are highly resistant to change. Until Linux can unify around a single company and vastly improve the user-friendliness and corporate support (READ: plug & play and/or drivers ON the CD, click to install this downloaded program, a consistent visual theme and menu system, etc.), it's not going to be succeeding on a large consumer scale anytime soon.

Re:RIP

[socceroos]

"Hell I could put out a Netbook with an embedded Win2K and support more consumer level hardware out of the box that Linux does right now."

"For the little guy it would be suicide. Just look at Tom Tom and getting sued over Linux. Had to cave and pay up, didn't they?"

"Can I do that in Linux? Nope a chance in hell. I can't do that because Linux has NO stable ABI or framework for me to write devices to. None at all."

It is clear that you're trolling to your heart's content, so this is going to be my last reply.

The problem you highlight about ABIs is off mark. While the ABI is constantly improving, they aren't neglecting backwards compatibility. Only ancient calls that have no further purpose are depreciated. If a driver is missing in a Distro, its usually either because they couldn't be bothered to recompile it and include it or they think that the hardware it supports is too old to be supported.

Secondly, if a driver isn't compatible with a newer kernel it is normally because the manufacturer has shitty coders - really shitty coders. This happens often; the developers say its too hard because they can't be bothered to write quality code. So many of these 'drivers' are just quickly constructed hacks that could have been done better by a group of monkeys.

Either way, the problem you allude to is not the fault of the Linux kernel so much as it is the fault of the crappy programmers that can't be stuffed to write maintainable code. I'm not saying they have to release the source, but I've seen the source of some of these proprietary drivers - its enough to make you blow chunks.

Lastly, you are skipping over a big logical bomb that rains on your party; namely, that Microsoft are afraid of Linux because it will catch on.

Consider this, the netbook market started with tiny Linux machines. According to you, this wouldn't sell because no 'real' consumer could possibly use it. Wrong. They were selling like hotcakes. In fact, Linux was selling so well that Microsoft had to offer the only operating system they had for this hardware basically for free just to stem the flow of Linux getting to the public. For you to deny that Microsoft is afraid of Linux is for you to tell Ballmer he's wrong. Go on, ask him - whats Microsoft's biggest threat? He said it himself.

You quoted some return rates and market penetration statistics. I'm not going to bother repeating myself on this, so just read this article: http://socceroosd.blogspot.com/2009/03/netbooks-missing-bleeding-obvious.html

Long story short, Microsoft used its monopoly control over the market to bend manufacturers to its will. They are the ones who removed the Linux choice on netbooks and then lied to the market about how the 'consumer had chosen'. Load. Of. Bollocks.

Finally, this was originally a discussion on how you believed that Linux couldn't run 10% of hardware and that even Windows 2000 supports more hardware out of the box. It comes down to this: you're trolling, and you don't know what you're talking about! =)

Adios

Re:RIP

[socceroos]

Both of the problems you allude to are not the fault of Linux.

Comparing a pre-installed Windows machine to a user installed Linux machine is completely unfair. The last time I installed Vista/Win7 (tried both) fresh on my laptop, not even my USB controller was detected - let alone my default resolution, sound card, webcam, keyboard shortcuts and much other stuff. On the other hand, all of this was detected 'out of the box' by Linux. Both a manufacturer built Linux box and Windows box work straight away with all their hardware, and DVDs and MP3s, etc.

So the problem you cite is not that Linux isn't good enough, but that all the manufacturers aren't shipping it. And as a result, that's 'hard' for the user.

he, like many average users, are highly resistant to change. Until Linux can unify around a single company and vastly improve the user-friendliness

You've summed it up yourself. The problem isn't Linux's user-unfriendliness so much as it is the users resistance to change. Take mobile phones as an example, even I found it hard moving from one phone to another. Not because it was 'unfriendly' but just because it was different. This issue can't be blamed on my new mobile phone - its just that is looks different.

The same goes for Linux, it is user friendly - you just have to get used to it, like anyone has to get used to a Windows box when they first use one. I have cases where clients have started using Ubuntu (non-techies) and now find Windows frustrating to use because it feels 'clunky' to them. Honestly, they've adapted to the different look of Linux like the different look of a new mobile phone and they love the advantages.

The whole Plug&Play thing you refer to still grates with me. I still have to come across hardware that doesn't just work when plugged into a Linux box - ESPECIALLY printers, cameras, scanners and iPods etc. Maybe its just me? But in Windows I always have to install a driver before I can make any of these devices work.

If you use a recent Linux distro you should notice that if there is no immediate driver it can use it will automatically find the appropriate one on the internet. I haven't had to use this yet, but it seems mighty useful.

In terms of having drivers 'ON THE CD'; that's just a market penetration issue. But I'll just say that its changing. Especially with the advent of millions of Linux netbooks floating around, manufacturers are ensuring support for their hardware on these devices is good. Positive forces are at play, and Microsoft are having a hard time trying to choke it out! =)

Re:RIP

[hairyfeet]

Hmmmm.....Let me translate that into English. Not my fault, shitty coders, all companies suck that can't right teh awsemez Linux code, etc. funny how the have NO problem whatsoever with writing Windows drivers that work year after year after year. Hmmmm...usually when someone goes around screaming "it's not my fault!" to every problem, you know what? It really is. As my Grandpa used to say(RIP) "excuses are like assholes, everybody has one and they all stink". Will those excuses make my customers printers work? How about their scanner? Fax? USB Tuner? Your excuses won't make the hardware go. if the hardware don't go, nobody will use the OS,okay? it is really simple like that.

And your "evidence" is some blogger in Australia whining "teh M$FT is cheatin!". That is you evidence? You have to be kidding right? You want to know why Linux has bombed on the Netbook, how about we take the word of Canonical, the creators of Ubuntu instead? Quote-"We don't know what the XP return rates are. But I will say that the return rate is above normal for netbooks that offer open-source operating systems," But we do know what the return rate for Linux compared to Windows is for MSI, it is 400%. Do you think ANY corp can survive with a 400% return rate? Or how about ASUS, who started the Netbook market with the EEE? What do you say to the fact that phasing out Linux across the board? Are you going to claim "teh evils M$FT backed up teh moneyz truk!".

Please. We know why they are doing this, it is because the market has spoken with 400% return rates that your OS isn't ready for home users. And you know what, it really isn't. you can't fix even the simplest problems without CLI or editing config files for really simple stuff like setting the resolution on a monitor, less than 15% of the devices sold in Walmart, Staples, and Best Buy have any support in your OS AT ALL, and due to the chaotic nature of the Linux underpinnings writing drivers that will last long term without divulging your source or constantly rewriting them is virtually impossible.

So why as a retailer would I want to sell your OS again? So I can put every sale of a Linux system in escrow in case they return it? So I can refuse to sell machines without the customers buying a lifetime support contract for said machine? So I can stock countless printers, all in ones, TV tuners, and a whole other bunch of stuff I don't want to deal with just for the "privilege" of hoping I can sell a bundle deal and having my gut tied in knots every time there is a new Ubuntu release for fear that half of my devices won't work anymore? Tell you what, if Linux is such a great OS, why don't you sell some Linux boxes? Ads in most papers are totally free. And you Linux guys are all about the DIY thing, right? But you won't and we both know why. It is because nearly every box you sell will be returned by an angry customer wanting their money back when their new printer from Staples doesn't work

. And THIS is why Linux will stay a niche. Not because of the evil M$FT, not because nobody will give your OS a chance, it is because they have and have found that for home users Linux sucks. I'm sorry, but your support for home gear is piss poor at best. I don't make reality, I just live in it. And all the excuses in the world won't give you an extra 1% market share. But hey, there is always next year, right?

Re:RIP

[gbjbaanb]

Most people do not care for their cars - they fill them with petrol, some check the tyre pressure, and once a year will take it for a service. That's it.

Some people service the cars themselves, but they are enthusiasts, or professionals. Like you are with computers. The vast majority of people want the product they buy to work all the time, and to have it repaired when it goes wrong. They do not want it to slowly degrade over time almost as if it was designed that way.

Linux

[p!ngu]

Doors open! Get 'em, boys!

Re:Linux

[elrous0]

Remember that David only defeats Goliath in the movies. In real life, David usually ends up with a slingshot shoved up his ass.

Re:Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

True enough, but the global Linux community is considerably larger than Microsoft so the particular placement of that slingshot is open for debate.

Re:Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

It's likely the NZ gov will spend more money for the tendering process and trying to support Nth variations of Linux in an impossible attempt to standardize. Not that MS is the best company, but they have become the de facto Industry Standard for Desktop OS's. Enterprise server OS's are different matter. I would bet this is an attempt by NZ to get a better price out of MS not to move to open source.

Re:Linux

[Runaway1956]

How can people make stuff up, like this? I mean, really, HOW?

Supposing that they go with BSD. It is ALREADY standards compliant, and secure. The government need only decide which programs are necessary for their uses, and MAYBE have them tailored and tweaked for thier purposes. Nothing more than what is necessary for any MS system.

Every single step required to put that BSD system to work for the government, would be required for an "equivalent" MS system. Or, Solaris, or Linux, or whatever. You seem to suggest that using MS systems eliminates some of the tedious work? I hardly think so.

Training is the single expense that will probably be higher with an open source system - but that is a ONE TIME expense, which is more than offset by the money saved (ie, not sent to Redmond)

More and more governments are switching to open source. Those that insist on proprietary continue to be embarassed. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13639_3-10129373-42.html http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/Royal-Navy-Catches-a-Virus-from-Russia-With-Love-05256/

Re:Linux

[rbanffy]

Sure... Remember Microsoft against IBM (Goliath ended up with the sligshot soved up its ass twice), Google against Digital...

Just to name a few...

Re:Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

hey dude, dont forget we told Goliath to shove there nuclear ships up their asses, and they took it! (even secretly enjoyed it!) Don't underrate us kiwis man, ya get rolled!

Re:Linux

[donaldm]

Training is the single expense that will probably be higher with an open source system - but that is a ONE TIME expense, which is more than offset by the money saved (ie, not sent to Redmond)

Most clerical people use a word processor, email client and web browser. They may also use a spreadsheet or presentation software. Open Source software does this now and you don't have to use a Linux distribution to run them.

Using a Linux distribution a user will use one of three graphical session managers, these being gnome, KDE and possibly Xfce although this is debatable. There are others but most distributions have an option of installing the first two by default. Once you pick a session manager you can customise to what you want if required or are told to use. Now you can use Open Source software which will be compatible with the same Open Source software running under MS Windows.

I can just about hear the Microsoft apologists stating that the average business or even Joe public won't be able to send their data to the appropriate government department. They are spot on with this however I can just imagine the following scenario:

Business man: "What! your department can't read my Microsoft "doc" file (OO actually can do this but for the sake of comedy say it couldn't ) and I will have to send it again in ODF or even PDF, well let me tell you were to stick it."

NZ Tax Office: "No problems sir we are so sorry you don't use international standards, but since we cannot read your documents we will have to audit your records going back over seven years. Oh what's that sir your ODF document is in the mail, well I guess the audit is off. Thank you so much sir and have a nice day."

Re:Linux

[elrous0]

Ha, silly fool! Don't you realize that all those film and TV shoots are just covert operations to bring in the ships anyway, behind your back?

Yay!

[master5o1]

All I can say is Yay!

Re:Yay!

[Anonymous Coward]

So when you get back from work and open the front door you might say "Yay, yay yay!"? Does that get tiresome?

Open Formats

[Nerdfest]

The individual departments should be required to use open formats where open formats exist. It's far past the time governments should be held hostage with proprietary formats.

Re:Open Formats

[Daengbo]

I agree that should be the number one short-term goal for governments of the world. The only problem is, what do you do about issues like OOXML, which is a standard, and which MS supports in name, but which isn't actually supported by anyone? Gaming the standards system has become too easy and corrupting standards has no penalty.

What ever happened to the good ol' days when you put up an RFC and a reference implementation and everyone tried to make sure new stuff worked with the old stuff? If there had been a reference implementation (ahem ... OO.o), we wouldn't have the weasel ODF support in MS Office SP2.

Re:Open Formats

[morgan_greywolf]

If there had been a reference implementation (ahem ... OO.o), we wouldn't have the weasel ODF support in MS Office SP2.

What "if"? OO.o pretty much is the reference implementation of ODF, or am I missing something?

Re:Open Formats

[Daengbo]

As far as I know, it wasn't completely ODF1.0 compliant in the beginning and wasn't offered up officially as a reference implementation. I think it should have been, obviously.

Re:Open Formats

[Narpak]

I agree that should be the number one short-term goal for governments of the world. The only problem is, what do you do about issues like OOXML, which is a standard, and which MS supports in name, but which isn't actually supported by anyone? Gaming the standards system has become too easy and corrupting standards has no penalty.

I know I have posted something similar like this before. However I believe it bears repeating.

The Norwegian Government, in a moment of clarity, decided to embrace open standards. From January 1 2009 all departments, institutions, schools and public sites; should deliver and accept all documents that are ODF, PDF or HTML (which ever is appropriate for the information in question). This doesn't bare those sites and institutions from putting up, or accepting, Microsoft document formats; but at everything have to be there in Open Standards first and foremost.

Re:Open Formats

[morgan_greywolf]

Well, not all reference implementations are completely compliant. They should be, I know, but they aren't necessarily. I don't think sendmail, for instance, was originally 100% compliant with the RFCs that sendmail was offered up as a reference implementation of.

And, no, not the same as Office not being a complete implementation of OOXML. OOXML, as spec'd, cannot be implemented by anyone other than Microsoft. At all. The missing ODF compliance in OO.o is very minor compared to that nonsense.

Re:Open Formats

[jimicus]

The Norwegian Government, in a moment of clarity, decided to embrace open standards. From January 1 2009 all departments, institutions, schools and public sites; should deliver and accept all documents that are ODF, PDF or HTML (which ever is appropriate for the information in question). This doesn't bare those sites and institutions from putting up, or accepting, Microsoft document formats; but at everything have to be there in Open Standards first and foremost.

You'll forgive my cynicism, I trust, but does that actually happen or is it on the statute books but neither followed nor enforced? I'd be particularly interested to know if they make a lot of things available in ODF format.

Re:Open Formats

[catman]

To quote the press release:
ODF (ISO/IEC 26300) is to be used to publish documents to which the user should be able to make changes after downloading, e.g. public forms to be filled out by the user. This format is also made obligatory.

The government's web site in English is at http://www.regjeringen.no/en.html?id=4

I didn't dig much, but all I could find was either html or pdf. There's a hearing document out mandating open standard formats for communication between local governments as well. And more on topic: Under a previous, non-Labour government, Microsoft tried to get schools to subscribe to a Windows-only system where MS was going to get paid for every computer in the school - including Macs and Linux machines. The government put its foot down and each school district now negotiates for itself.

Re:Open Formats

[belmolis]

If the purchaser is actually serious about open standards, then it will reject OOXML for three reasons: (a) it is not an open standard; (b) there is no conforming implementation, even by Microsoft; (c) in spite of the bizarre stance taken by ISO, it isn't a standard of any sort since no complete specification exists, much less has been voted on by ISO. Microsoft may well be able to trot out OOXML for organizations that want to go with Microsoft and just need an excuse, but this won't work with any organization that cares, nor should it survive legal scrutiny.

Re:Open Formats

[TheRealSlimShady]

Interesting.
a) it is an open standard
b) there can be no conforming implementation because the standard has not been finalised. You can bitch about this once the standard has been released, but until then there is no way to conform
c) by the same token we should also reject ODF, since the specification is both vague and incomplete (formulas anyone?)

Re:Open Formats

[Daengbo]

"C" was true about ODF 1.0, but not any more.

Re:Open Formats

[Anonymous Coward]

Formulas in OOXML are also underdefined and misdefined, as the spreadsheet formulas in OOXML are not defined and there is no open source implementation.

Re:Open Formats

[TheTurtlesMoves]

It's far past the time citizens should be held hostage with proprietary formats.

Why should I be force to fork out for MS products to work with the government?

We'll see....

[Daemonax]

I'd be happily surprised if a National government was the one to embrace Free software and start the process of eventually seeing it used in schools, which then flows to the work place and homes... But we'll see... I would be very surprised if the government picked open source.

Re:We'll see....

[faceleg]

If they pick up Open Source, I will vote for them in the next election. ......kidding. I'd be SHOCKED if they converted even 10% of their software to open source.

Re:We'll see....

[Umangme]

Well, just so you know, not very far from home (for me at least) there is this semi-Utopian place where people say "Windows? What's that?".

But everyone is still going to fuss because it is communist... and Linux is now being seen as a communist thing... and only Obama can change things... yes I know. It is still a ray of hope in a world of darkness. It should be worth mentioning, though, that this state elects a communist government every five years, and have the option not to and had the world's first elected communist government.

*Bang* goes the hammer...

[vintagepc]

Hopefully to be pounded in by Linux :) Seriously... where's the Micro$oft of olde, which would rush in with massive software discounts to lock in the client? I wonder what they have up their sleeve this time. As is said, better an enemy whose methods you know than one with those unknown.

Re:*Bang* goes the hammer...

[LordKaT]

Wait ... hammer's don't go "bang" ... and they don't get pounded in either! Something's fishy about this post. I think we need Inspector General Taco to come take a look at this; we may need to bring in the NSA to crack this one.

Re:*Bang* goes the hammer...

[vintagepc]

They do when they explode... Google search: Mythbusters exploding hammer

Re:*Bang* goes the hammer...

[TeknoHog]

Wait ... hammer's don't go "bang" ...

Maxwell's silver one does.

A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[freedom_india]

Before you all rejoice in hallelujah glory please remember that:
1) MS is a powerful marketing organisation with a single control center. It has millions to spend on lobbying. Instead of one central purchasing order they will go after each state/county and government organisation parallely and independently.
2) To take advantage of this situation the FOSS/Open Source has NO marketing budget or marketing plan except for some backdoor geeks.
3) Lobbyists that MS hires far outmatch the abilities of what FOSS can bring up....
Let's face facts ok?
We have been a good, in fact excellent opening in a battle. The enemy has taken a big kick in its balls and is down for a few moments.
But, we lack the control center and resources of taking advantage of it.
If i were Red Hat or Ubuntu (in a corporate sense), i would be in NZ now talking to the main permanent secretaries and other pukes down there to hammer down an initial PoC for Linux/Open office.
And yes i would offer a central help center staffed by real people who can train the department's IT staff and/or assist them in installing, fixing bugs, training staff, etc all the things Microsoft will do.
And yes, i would sign a one-year contract with them offering them a FREE software with paid support.
But, as FOSS supporter do i have a centralized marketing budget, people, resources to make it happen?
NOOOO.
Its likea Sniper going against an entire armoured division. Yeah it sounds gung-ho, but that does not win a war gentlemen. We need the three C's of marketing. Command, Control and a Corporate willing to take risks and Money.
Once we have that in form of Red Hat or corporate Ubuntu we can talk about a Master Plan on taking down MS...
Until then shut up the vodka bottles. Its too early to celebrate.

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[Rogerborg]

Instead of one central purchasing order they will go after each state/county and government organisation parallely and independently.

And they'll say "Whoa, you're thinking of using what filthy hippy app? You know that it's AIR-QUOTE compatible with Office, right? All the cool counties are going to go Office - do you want to talk to them or not?"

I think all that's up for discussion is whether they actually make air-quotes, or just say it out loud.

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[MichaelSmith]

I think it would take an established IT organisation to get behind FOSS for it to be accepted in the market place. The only such organisation I have experience with won't have a bar of it. All their people are trained on windows.

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[morgan_greywolf]

1) MS is a powerful marketing organisation with a single control center. It has millions to spend on lobbying. Instead of one central purchasing order they will go after each state/county and government organisation parallely and independently

I agree to a point: I personally don't think that Microsoft has the domain knowledge to after individual provinces or localities in New Zealand, but then I may be underestimating Microsoft's presence in NZ.

2) To take advantage of this situation the FOSS/Open Source has NO marketing budget or marketing plan except for some backdoor geeks.

Red Hat, Novell, Canonical, Mandriva, Sun, IBM, etc. all have marketing budgets. With the sole exception of IBM, none have as large a marketing budget as Microsoft, at least not by themselves.

3) Lobbyists that MS hires far outmatch the abilities of what FOSS can bring up....

There is no "open source lobbying" organization. ("FOSS" and "FLOSS" are ugly terms, IMHO). But certainly there are individual groups that, together, are extremely power, each from different angles. From the "online freedom" aspect, you have the EFF. From the "Linux is good" dept., we have The Linux Foundation. There are several organizations pushing open standards. IBM pushes open standards and open source. And there are tons of other examples. Together, these organizations outweigh Microsoft's lobbying efforts.

And there is no "we": Open source represents a bunch of diverse elements with diverse agendas. That's why open source is winning (yes, I said it: we are winning!). Many individuals and organizations with many agendas easily outweigh the one agenda and one organization, no matter how big or how much money said agenda and organization are.

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[freedom_india]

That's the problem.
That's EXACTLY the problem.
Open Source is owned by none giving it NO respect in corporate sense.
IT departments have been saying this for many years.
To be considered for real, open source must be "adopted" by a corporate entity which has the financial muscle acumen and the willingness to take risks.
This is exactly what our Company Law allows us to do: taking risks without risking our pensions!
Why hasn't anyone created a for-profit corporation which can "adopt" open source and whose charter says it will give back any profits back to the open source community? In a way a shell corporation for all the excellent stuff?
Damn, Red Hat is nowhere near it and all other IT cos are not willing...

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[drinkypoo]

Pure FUD. There are a number of companies which will offer you support on your Open Source software, including redhate. The availability of the support contract was enough to fill your requirements. The problem now is vendor lock-in.

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[jellomizer]

Lets also realize that Open Source isn't the only alternative to Microsoft.

You got IBM. Yea Yea IBM is a big supporter of Open Source Software (Enough to influence the FSF to add verbiage in GPL 3 to add the commercial use exception, to its anti-TiVoization clause), However not all their products are Open Source and they may not push the open source projects for the need that New Zealand needs. Perhaps a Nice AIX, Lotus, Informix combination. Or how about Oracle solution Solaris, Oracle and Star Office (The closed source version of open Office). Heck With Microsoft lost it just may mean that New Zealand will still go with Microsoft products but threw an other vendor say via a Dell or a HP.

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[ykiwi]

Yup - except we don't have states in New Zealand. Or counties - unless you count Counties-Manukau, which is a Region.

We do have Government Departments, and Microsoft will have to go after each one, like any other vendor. That means tendering and the like. I imagine that many solutions will be provided by big vendors such as Gen-i and IBM. There are plenty of folk around to support roll outs.

Lobbyists get relatively little influence over here as well - they can be involved in the process like anybody else, but it is pretty transparent. The OSS folk are pretty good and pretty influential here - here's hoping they can keep pushing.

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[freedom_india]

IBM is strong on servers / mainframes. That's their bread and butter. Unfortunately, Websphere Studio Application Developer and Rational Software Architect can't be used to write the daily memos and do mathematical worksheets.
Star Office is closed. Shut down. So forget it.

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[freedom_india]

...yet none of them are on the bid in NZ. Surprising isn't it?
Visibility my friend, is the first lesson in marketing.
You gotta be out there selling yourself. You can't wait here and expect NZ to find and come to you.
I bought Diskeeper instead of the better/free/competitor products when it came to defragging my drives. Why? Marketing.
Which is why i think an iPhone is better than a Nokia E95. Even you maybe.
Why?

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent point.

I had hoped that IBM would fill this position, but for the last year, I've been working for a Fortune 100 company, and we use IBM as our IT support organization. After what I've seen here, I would NEVER trust IBM to manage a system. They are (at least those who have been working on our systems) totally incompetent.

I don't know whether Redhat is good or not, but none of the large companies I've worked for would ever consider hiring a company like Redhat, unfortunately.

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[Elektroschock]

Ever heard of partisan and guerilla warfare?

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[drinkypoo]

...yet none of them are on the bid in NZ. Surprising isn't it?

No, but not for the reasons you describe. It's called simple bribery and collusion, and it has to do with Microsoft, and big bags of money. If the corporations didn't come along with complete programs for these government pinheads to look like they were doing their jobs, they might actually have to do them.

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[Elektroschock]

Think about guerilla warfare. They cannot win this as long as there are enough attacks which require wasteful counter-action resources. Microsoft can't win all the time but has to. Otherwise open source gets a bridgehead. Fighting open source makes open source stronger.

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[fatgeek]

I don't think it is appropriate to describe the NZOSS and other Open Source groups in New Zealand as "backdoor geeks". There are some very professional, well organised geeks promoting Open Source Software in New Zealand many of whom are running commercial businesses some of significant size for the New Zealand IT industry. Not that I wish to diss in anyway the great work being done by the backdoor geeks out there.

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[Seriousity]

Microsoft is quite present here in New Zealand. On a few occasions I have mentioned that I run linux on my desktop PC to IT tutors / teachers; the responses have varied from "what's that?" to "isn't linux just for servers?"(that one was today)

In fact, barely anybody else that I know is familiar with linux; everybody assumes it's Microsoft as far as the eye can see - how can there be possibly something better out there if everybody still uses MS?

There was one person I tried to introduce to linux, and to my distress the result wasn't exactly glamorous - after spending half a day figuratively breaking through brick walls with my forehead to configure PulseAudio with his 5.1 surround system, grr, I find out that ATI had decided to dump support for his relatively new card, grrrr.

So X is pulverized completely and he has a filesystem he can't access on a brand new hard drive that's good to kill small bugs with or stop paper from blowing away. I tried to explain to him that this was ATI's doing, not the fault of Linux.... Seems he'll never give FOSS another chance after that.

All in all there's many walls to break through to get linux out there, and many of them come back to Microsoft doing what it does best, which to be blunt is using it's inflated wealth and influence to overstay its welcome.

At any rate, we need to tighten a lot of loose screws before we can really get Linux out there. I hope and pray that Ubuntu considers changing the fixed release cycles so there isn't something major broken with every new release, as the OS has the potential to go far. But I digress...

At the end of the day, the less I see of Microsoft in my blessed country the better. My uncle works in government in New Zealand, and the laptop that Microsoft pilfered down through the grime channels to him has made his job a bit harder - in his words, "Computers are supposed to get smaller and faster, this thing is huge, heavy and slow". So yes, Microsoft is indeed hampering productivity here; this news gets a begrudging thumbs-up from me to a government I like as much as the smell of a long-dead seal.

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[yuna49]

There was one person I tried to introduce to linux, and to my distress the result wasn't exactly glamorous - after spending half a day figuratively breaking through brick walls with my forehead to configure PulseAudio with his 5.1 surround system

People working in government offices (or most businesses for that matter) don't have any need for technologies like these. What may present issues for consumers have little relevance to professional usage situations. Millions of people are sitting in front of vanilla machines with Intel motherboards and graphics.

There are lots of reasons why supporting Linux on consumer devices can be difficult; few of those apply to professional settings with IT staffs. For them the bigger issue is software compatibility, particularly with home-grown or vertical applications that only run on Windows. Some of these applications might run fine with something like Wine or Mono, but I doubt many admins in Windows-only shops spend any time testing to see how difficult it might be to convert to Linux.

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally don't think that Microsoft has the domain knowledge to after individual provinces or localities in New Zealand, but then I may be underestimating Microsoft's presence in NZ.

You are, Microsoft itself isn't exceptionally strong, but there are a number of partners with good evangelists that have their foot in the door pretty much everywhere.

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[freedom_india]

Ever heard of partisan warfare defeating a regular army in a regular battlefield?

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[freedom_india]

That is what i was referring to by money!
MS has a unified source of income and is able to spend it on caviar and Limos for the pukes.
OSS cannot.
Oh please, you are not expecting a civil servant to put public good over his career???

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[freedom_india]

You are basing your opinion on emotions. Facts state otherwise.
Guerilla warfare has never, ever won a regular army on regular terms.
Its a mosquito that bites a fly. Yes it can annoy the lion, but the lion eventually develops a thicker skin.
Please don't start by saying partisan warfare in Russia drew the Nazis out. Because they did't. And neither did the french. All they did was to betray jews.
Historically, regular armies have won with massive resurces.
Partisan warfare can annoy but can't compete with a regular army on a regular battlefield.

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[Anonymous Coward]

Somehow referring to these decision makers as "pukes" is supposed to help?

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[helios17]

If you think the corporates have any interest in marketing GNU/Linux or Free software, please take a minute and educate yourselves. This was a real eye-opener for me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG9HhXBFDUM

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is quite present here in New Zealand. On a few occasions I have mentioned that I run linux on my desktop PC to IT tutors / teachers; the responses have varied from "what's that?" to "isn't linux just for servers?"(that one was today)

Sadly I have to agree. I work for a non-MS software and services house in NZ and we're constantly having to fight one simple fact:
New Zealand is a Microsoft shop and has been for a long time.
A lot of the geeks / techies I work with are favourably disposed to linux but only a few have actually taken the time to develop any skill with it and almost no-one uses it outside of their servers. Even long-time MS haters such as myself have more knowledge and experience with Windows than anything else.
The bean counters and a lot of the non-geek techies (read: "architects") actually have no idea there is an entire world outside of MS. In part this is because in a small country like NZ you're considered big if you've got more than 100 staff. Thanks to MS cornering the home and small-business market years ago, MS is all the decision makers have ever known.
Two rays of sunshine:
  - some of my contacts in IBM are using Ubuntu or Fedora on their laptops. Happily.
  - I have a windows box at home so I can play my beloved SimCity. Alongside that I have several linux boxes which my family use with no guidance. They just asked for a login and that was it.

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[Patch86]

If i were Red Hat or Ubuntu (in a corporate sense), i would be in NZ now talking to the main permanent secretaries and other pukes down there to hammer down an initial PoC for Linux/Open office.

And who's saying they're not?

If I were Red Hat, Canonical, et al, I'd do exactly the same as you suggest- go and talk to the potential customers. In fact, if I were any vendor of any software (FOSS or otherwise), I'd be down their trying to sell my wares to them, because that's what software vendors do.

Neither Linux nor OpenOffice are developed by just hobbyists and startup companies. They're both backed by a number of very large businesses, with vested interests in selling their products. They'll be sending down the usual salesmen and marketing brochures, exactly the same as MS and the other proprietary companies.

Whether they're successful or not is an entirely different and unrelated matter.

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[Petrushka]

I agree to a point: I personally don't think that Microsoft has the domain knowledge to after individual provinces or localities in New Zealand, but then I may be underestimating Microsoft's presence in NZ.

Microsoft NZ is pretty strong, and knows which side its bread is buttered. They're not going away anytime soon. I presume they'll be moving their attention to the next big target: the government of the new "super-city" of Auckland, as there's a big synoecism of separate boroughs going on right now. Small by international standards, but the new city will have about a third of the country's population, so it will most certainly matter to Microsoft NZ.

Red Hat, Novell, Canonical, Mandriva, Sun, IBM, etc. all have marketing budgets. With the sole exception of IBM, none have as large a marketing budget as Microsoft, at least not by themselves.

I suspect the main reason that Red Hat, Mandriva, etc. are not appearing in the news much is because Novell has cornered the market: the State Services Commission has had a deal with them for four years now.

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[Anonymous Coward]

MS use LAR network (Large Account Resellers) to do the dirty work. They do not deal direct.

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[donaldm]

Redhat does not normally manage systems it provides support and updates to those people who manage the systems that run Redhat operating systems and their products. IBM and other companies like HP and EDS (now part of HP) provide resources to manage systems but normally don't provide Redhat updates or Redhat support.although some of their sites do actually mirror Redhat updates and other Linux/BSD distributions which can be quite useful and convenient for those people actually doing the maintenance.

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[donaldm]

Ever heard of partisan warfare defeating a regular army in a regular battlefield?

No but I have heard that partisan warfare rarely if ever fights on a regular battle field but they can cause so much disruption that the enemy eventually is forced to admit defeat.

Re:A small win, but MS has lobbyists

[Elektroschock]

Microsoft cannot beat a crowd which applies organised and orchestrated techniques, and which is not visible, has no gravitation.

The costs of counter-action are driven up. Microsoft wins, like they won in MA with a lobbyist army and a lot of cash, and hope they dissuade the next state to try the same. The public scandal is a recruitment tool and further spreads the policy technology. They screw up MA but some guys in Fungistan will ensure that the minister overtakes the wording for the national ICT laws.

The basic technique is enexpected, decentral attacks on the cash cows.

More diverse or just trickier?

[dov_0]

So the NZ gov will not make a contract with MS centrally, leaving individual dept's to tender individually. Well, it just means that the central States Service Commission with it's liking of FOSS will no longer have as much influence on software purchases, leaving possibly less open-minded dept CIO's to make contracts. At a higher price due to lower volume? No great loss for Microsoft there. It may even be a winner for them.

Re:More diverse or just trickier?

[noundi]

FYI we don't care about Microsofts loss, we only care about the gain of FOSS. :)

Re:More diverse or just trickier?

[dov_0]

FYI neither do I care for Microsoft, but if you carefully read what I said, you will find that I was pointing to the possibility of MS actually GAINING from the loss of the central contract.

Re:More diverse or just trickier?

[noundi]

I did, and I'm not attacking you so chill. I'm merely pointing out that we shouldn't care if Microsoft is losing or "GAINING" anything, but instead focusing on the gain for FOSS. :)

Re:More diverse or just trickier?

[socceroos]

But if you're focused on FOSS 'gaining' then you would conversely be concerned with FOSS 'losing' too. This is what dov_0 is pointing out.

Is New Zealand any where near Vancouver?

[auric_dude]

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/24/1851226

Re:Is New Zealand any where near Vancouver?

[MichaelSmith]

In longitude it is pretty close.

Re:Is New Zealand any where near Vancouver?

[rbrausse]

I'm not sure if this is funny, informative or just dull.

anyone here with a 3-sided coin so I can decide?

Re:Is New Zealand any where near Vancouver?

[catman]

It's very near to the antipode of Norway: http://www.friprog.no/In-English/ That's a very small agency under the Ministry of Government Administration and Reform.

Re:Is New Zealand any where near Vancouver?

[Plug]

They fly direct!

(For fourteen straight hours)

They want better deal

[paziek]

I bet they just want better deal, and think this will help. Who knows, they are probably right about that.

Nothing will change though

[flyingfsck]

NZ will still buy all software from MS, just at much more inflated prices. Buying OSS from a zoo of little guys is just too much hassle for IT and the buyers.

Re:Nothing will change though

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a symptom of other changes - not the cause of change. The NZ Government has been moving towards FLOSS and Open Standards for a while. Schools, for example, can choose between a support agreement for Microsoft systems or SUSE systems - negotiated by the Ministry of Education.

Do a quick google on New Zealand Government Open Source for more.

Second - Microsoft probably won't inflate prices to individual departments - departments are still reasonably large, and bumping up the licensing costs will just make alternatives even more attractive.

open for business

[SgtChaireBourne]

Instead of one central purchasing order they will go after each state/county and government organisation parallely and independently.

And they'll say "Whoa, you're thinking of using what filthy hippy app? ...

The 1990's called, they want their talking points back. Notice that after all these years, the best MSFTers can do to counter RMS is to call him names? Can't handle any of the ideas or technologies, can they?

We've known for decades that FOSS is about making money. Some discussions which might make the point that FOSS concepts dovetail with that:

• Open Source Means Business
• Open Source and Capitalism
• Capitalist view of Open Source
• Is Open Source capitalist or communist?
• • Open Distribution vs Open Source
  • Open source is a capitalist's game
  • It's about capitalism, not freebies

and so on...

Well, duh!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Guerilla warfare has never, ever won a regular army on regular terms."

Yup, and a regular army has never won against a guerrilla army on guerrilla terms.

And the lion gets malaria.

Elephants will be eaten alive by hugely swarming army ants.

And a regular army cannot compete on an irregular battlefield (read Terry Pratchett's "Nightwatch" for a fairly realistic account of how an army in irregular battlefields will lose).

Re:Well, duh!!!

[freedom_india]

Microsoft fights in regular battlefields. Exclusively.

Sad Irony

[ThatsNotPudding]

I pull up this story about Microsoft vs Linux and Slashdot is showing me an advert about OpenSuse from Novell.

Epic Sigh

Re:Sad Irony

[thetoadwarrior]

I pull up this story about Microsoft vs Linux and Slashdot is showing me an advert about OpenSuse from Novell. Epic Sigh

The ad is OpenSolaris for me. I win!

Re:Sad Irony

[selven]

Microsoft Visual Studio Team System :(

RIP M$ more shilling aand nonsense

[omb]

I am writing this on an HP Presario V6000 with Brother MFC240 printer on SuSE 10.3 11.0 11.1 and all works
out of the box bought at Staples and MediaMarkt.

The reason some stuff dosnt work is it is carp or a one-week remaindered junk line WallMart bought up.

What about asking "will it work with linux" and getting an undertaking to take it back if it dosnt.

I cant speak too highly of Brother support, and their MFC's dont cost more than a tomer cartridge. Dont use
the wrong refill inks, they need dye inks with 10% flush added. If they sold replacement heads they would
last 10 years. Do not buy Lexmark or GDI printers. They can do very high colour quality and are fully programmable
for paper type and ink-dry time. The fax functionality is also fully programmable

On the laptop I have WiFi and Bluetooth and an external USB SIDE disk, 2G, replaced 320G SIDE internal
so I hardly use my desktop unless I need more than 2 CPUs.

If I need to run some Windows only stuff I have Wine that runs Office an VISIO and AutoCAD just fine using
a windows partition I share with a VMWare Windows install where I can run the BMW ETK + TIS for my car and
test web pages for IE tolerance.

Another chance for FreeBSD

[petrus4]

Everyone here only ever talks about Linux in business, but this is as much a chance for any of the BSDs to gain in government, as well. FreeBSD can be used anywhere Linux can, and also has some advantages:-

1. Potentially much simpler per-host configuration. The three files in question are /etc/rc.conf, /etc/sysctl.conf, and /boot/loader.conf. Sysvinit isn't used, and custom kernel recompilation is a lot easier than with Linux as well.

2. The ability to fully emulate the Ubuntu "user friendly," desktop; the only thing missing is Flash support at the moment, which is only going to be needed by end users. Gnome, HAL, and dbus are all present, and FreeBSD also has devd, its' own udev equivalent, which means it can handle USB devices with the same degree of ease as Linux.

3. A much freer license, which is possibly to be the major point of interest for government. The New Zealand government would be entirely free to customise the system on a per-department basis, and then sell it in its' entirety, open or closed as they chose.

NZ is kinda small

[oceanicicefloe]

A few people are talking about 'counties' and 'provinces' of New Zealand purchasing contracts.. for reference, our total population is less than half that of New York City, so we don't have provinces as such... maybe we should have boroughs ;-)

It's not about OSS - just the value of upgrades

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't see this as throwing away Microsoft products for OSS. The NZ Govt must already own a gigantic pile of Win2008 / SQL2008 / Exchange2007 licences. They have what they need. I'd say they've just worked out they don't need to pay exorbitant prices for the right to any of the UPGRADES in the next few years. The value of new features will have diminishing returns, and Microsoft have a slow release cycle anyway. So they can keep using all of the MS products they have been using, for the forseeable future. If any of the upgrades available in 4-5 years time are worth it, they can pay the full repurchase price then, and probably still come out ahead. And they can keep getting Microsoft support. Remember that in the Microsoft world, paying for upgrades isn't the same as not paying for support - separate charges.

FOSS Patriot

[frup]

Nothing would make me more patriotic than seeing NZ have the guts and foresight to install FOSS on government computers!

Government Microsoft usage is the worst tax of all.

National Radio segment about this

[Eythian]

There was a bit on our National Radio programme about this today, downloadable here: http://podcast.radionz.co.nz/ntn/ntn-20090527-0908-Government_reliance_on_Microsoft.ogg (Vorbis, 13Mb)

It starts with an interview with the head of the NZ Open Source Society, and follows with an interview with a local Microsoft guy.

Some detail missed from the discussion

[BlackSmithNZ]

Typical slashdot discussion immediately turns to Linux, FOSS and if Linux us ready for the desktop and if it works well with Walmart printers.None of which is very relevant.

This article gives a better information:
    http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/tech/813B5F0E4A319412CC2575C0006F561A

As I read it, the state services commission - the type of government body that supervises other govt departments, has since at least 2000, rolled over government wide contracts for Microsoft every 3 years. Basically since most govt depts were running MS software, then negotiating one government wide agreement covering 10,000+ desktops got bulk discounts from MS. Makes sense.

This year (they started negotiating 2008), MS pretty much didn't bother to discount for the bulk deal; they acted like a monopoly & thought the (smallish) NZ govt would roll over and accept it anyway. Whoops.

With the recession the government was really looking at ways of saving money; and rolling out more MS software with no discount was no discount. So I suspect a lot of departments will just stick with XP/Office2003 or Vista/O2007 (the last deal covered them buying cheap MS products 2006-2009) and not buy as much MS software over the next few years, until MS have an attitude change.

The MS team negotiating this contract will be feeling a little sick right now.. which is good .

I am a New Zealand based developer, and had have sold software to the NZ govt. Previously we sold a Windows desktop app but now (2009) switched to selling a replacement product which is SaaS on a LAMP stack - which tells a story in itself. I think this deal is a good thing as a whole; instead of the department looking at using using some unholy (but cheap) combination of Excel, Access and Sharepoint, they could buy my home-grown solution... which I think is better, but I do have to compete with MS at some level; some potential clients would rather burn hundreds of hours using Excel to crunch data manually than buy our software that does it automatically.

My experience is that government departments are getting a little smarter about purchasing; they all need things like document management systems, so tend to buy Java platform independent solutions and instead of all rolling their own, tend to talk to each other more about sharing solutions. One smallish department I dealt with was proud of having pretty much no printers; every document entering the system got scanned & handled electronically until a letter had to be printed and sent; even then the department mostly replied with emails and txt messages. NZ does do e-govt reasonably well; I can do most interactions with the government online; things like setting up a limited liability company take a few minutes and few bucks online, which does not seem to be common world-wide. I can't think of any government interactions in which I have had to actually go physically to a government office.. the last time was probably 20 years ago, applying for a grant after I left university.

With the move to SaaS suddenly needing MS and assuming there is no important looks less important; which is why this news is news.

Really?

[jotaeleemeese]

I booted Sun4 machines from Apple CD readers.

SCSI is SCSI after all, so you were more likely to succeed than not.

tar.gz files? What about zip?

[jotaeleemeese]

If Windows users can deal with zip files (all done by an graphic decompresser) are they really that monumentally stupid that they would not grasp that a tgz file (with the same compressed file icon) is just another kind of compressed file? (Linux will open them in the same way you open a zip file in Windows, unless you chose to use the CLI).

I think many people out there seriously underestimate the intelligence of people that are not computer specialists.

Re:tar.gz files? What about zip?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think many people out there seriously underestimate the intelligence of people that are not computer specialists.

Exactly, dude. If people assume something will be hard, then they switch off and cant see the forest for the trees. People also forget the trouble they go through in Windies....

We have the power of reason.

[jotaeleemeese]

That eventually will beat any group of lobbyists, no matter how big.

Australia and Gershon Report

[Anonymous Coward]

Australia .gov reckons it can 'save' by doing a NZ, and centralizing purchasing.
However as NZ discovered, 'savings' are not to be had.

Potential .gov options
1) Keep licenses from side of mass produced PC's
2) Buy/ Import 2nd hand licenses, from say Germany /EEC.
3) Stop loosing licences it already has - stay on XP and older office forever

If MS is like Adobe, max discount is 40-50% on 5K-20K odd licences.

Drug companies pulled this shit in the 60's , then PBS was set up for world wide sourcing. NZ should pull a PBS trick too.