Slashdot Mirror
Australia Mandates Microsoft's Office Open XML
littlekorea writes "The Australian Government has released a common operating environment desktop policy that — among security controls aimed at reducing the potential for leaks of Government data — mandates the ECMA-376 version of Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) standard and productivity suites that can 'read and write' the .docx format, effectively locking the country's public servants into using Microsoft Office. The policy [PDF] also appears to limit desktop operating systems to large, off-the-shelf commercial offerings at the expense of smaller distributions."
The land down under just went under.
all these /. articles about gov't IT and Internet policy in OZ. It's hard to believe they're truly that clueless. (Not that us Yanks are much better off, it's just more centered around "security from terrorists," and ""intellectual property"". - same, only different)
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
iirc, even MS office doesn't use the standard as published ???
Urgh.
Even better, mandated support for .zip as the default compression format. LZMA is so much better, and free too.
7-zip does have a pretty horrible UI though. I can see why you might want to standardise on WinZip, but still use LZMA compression.
I also note that Firefox's crap central management support will probably also rule it out of being included in Aussie federal SOEs. Guess it'll be the latest version of IE for the government (again)...
so there standardizing everything? sounds good to me...
Too bad they haven't standardized their grade school grammar and capitalization tests.
Is this really such a big issue? Microsoft isn't the personification of the devil, they're a business who are good at doing business. A little less tall poppy syndrome is in order.
Sneaking the word "Open" into this specification was a really dirty trick by Microsoft because
- it implies that this standard is somewhat "open", and the word "open" has positive connotations
- it (seemingly deliberately) creates confusion with "Open Office" ie the product OpenOffice.org, or open source in general.
I wouldn't be surprised if a number of people were taken in by this, thinking that by making the decision to support OOXML they were somehow contributing to more "openness" in the sense of open government and/or open source.
Speak for yourself. I haven't used Windows in years, and I haven't suffered for it. Anytime I'm forced to open an office document (which is more often than you would think over the course of a CS degree), I just use Openoffice and everything works.
At least at University, I'm seeing more and more students primarily using free operating systems. In my CS courses especially, it's all over the place: a show-of-hands survey in one of my upper-levels recently had probably upwards of ten Linux users in a class of thirty. Of course, it's a lot more prevalent among CS students, but even among the less technical students Linux usage is extremely common. When I first got here, I was shocked when I would see a Linux laptop or two near me in a class...nowadays I'm a little surprised if I don't.
Free software may not be catching on as well as we would like with the older generations, but it most certainly is with the younger folks.
That's right. Freedom is a lot of trouble. Just give it up.
It's not capitalism. Capitalism is based on open markets. When a government mandates a certain platform that is not open. Actually....it's more like socialism.
Unfortunately this seems pretty typical of this government. They like to make policies up on the spot and those policies don't have any thought put into them. We've had stimulus spending that - helped keep the economy going. They didn't actually plan what they were going to spend on though and they never put proper policies in place and we ended up spending way too much on stuff that didn't work.
I especially like the opt-out section:
51. This policy is subject to the process for administration of opt-outs from Whole-ofGovernment arrangements.
52. Initial opt-out considerations will be factored into the transition plan and are expected to
show how alignment to the policy will be achieved as part of the transition plan. Claims for
opting out will not be considered during the transition phase.
53. When seeking an opt-out, an agency will need to include a remediation plan to detail how it
will return to the WofG COE policy. Opt-outs are limited to a maximum of 3 years, after
which the original business case will be reassessed to ensure it is still valid.
54. While it is recognised that agencies may have a need to develop separate SOE images, it is
expected that these images will comply with the standards set out for the COE to ensure
that agencies can still share data and services in a seamless manner.
Whoa shite! Opting out is a massive process and has to be reviewed every 3 years.............
The thing about government and politicians is a small number of loud and aggressive people can change things. Sure you can give up, but open standards are good for consumers, good for every business that doesn't have a locked down IT product, good for transparent government. Quit if you want to, but they haven't won.
If America and the USSR had open space programmes, do you think they'd still be assing around trying to get to the moon right now?
This is why I can never bring myself to move to Linux and cut ties with Windows entirely. It's just too much hassle when you end up having to interact with content produced using Windows-only software and you cannot guarantee perfect parsing of the file formats used.
This is indeed why I keep a Windows partition around, occasionally remote into a Windows terminal server or boot a VM.
But I'm not quiet about it. If they can write docx, that implies they've got a decently new version of Word. Decently new versions of Word natively support odt.
Fortunately, I find I have to do this less and less, both as I have fewer documents I have to read from people period, and as people get the hint and start producing PDFs that everyone can read.
It's time to give up the fight against Microsoft and succumb.
Remember IE6? Remember how fucking long we were stuck with IE6?
Because a few people kept fighting, we have Firefox. Call them crazy, call them zealots, but it worked. In the end, they dragged Microsoft kicking and screaming into this century.
That has to continue. Microsoft has repeatedly shown that they only really do their best work when they actually have competition. Let them completely dominate an area, and you end up with crap like Vista, and the long, long gap between IE6 and IE7.
I'm sorry you've given up. It also means you've become part of the problem -- you're yet another person who might one day decide to email me a docx instead of a pdf, an odf, or even html.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Or you could just use different tools for different jobs instead of trying to do everything with one. I use Xubuntu (or Wary Puppy if the machines is more than 2 years old) as a "Use this if you break your PC until you can get it to me" for those customers that can tear up a Sherman tank with a toothbrush, and it works just fine. I have also set up several older machines with Edubuntu for kids and any old 1.5GHz and up with 512Mb of RAM makes a great "my first PC" for the kiddies while giving them plenty of learning tools that are fun to use.
But to try to switch the masses to using Linux daily? Or interacting with businesses and government? You'd really have more luck pissing in the wind. There is always one app and unlike what many FOSS advocates think it is NEVER Windows or Office that ends up biting you in the ass, like Photoshop, Quickbooks, that app they need to run from work, etc that there NEVER seems to be even a halfass solution that will work on Linux, and of course all those proprietary data formats takes a big old bite out of your ass when dealing with businesses.
So don't try to build a house with just a screwdriver, use the right tools at the right times. If you want to use Linux at home just set up a dual boot or use a cheap KVM switch and have a dedicated Linux box. That way that "Windows only" app can't bite you in the ass and you can still play/surf/do whatever in Linux without consequences. I tried selling Linux boxes alongside Windows and quickly found out unless the customer was an ubergeek (in which case they wouldn't be buying B&M, they'd be DIY) there was simply too many gotchas involved. Now I simply hand out a Linux live CD with the PC and if they break their PC on a weekend it'll get them through until they can bring her in. But even then I found I never had a customer go "I want to keep that live CD thing, can you install it?" but instead got "I was able to check my mail okay but it won't run (insert Windows app) so I need my real PC fixed." I've found it is just better to accept it and move on and leave the evangelism for the militants.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
~223 years on, they are still ruled by idiots.
Was ever a country ruled by smart people? Please provide examples if possible.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Freedom is only trouble because it steps on the toes of the powerful.
Government is mandating for itself, not for companies or anyone else. There is no political theory that prevents the government from choosing its own internal tools, it would make no sense (except completely stateless anarchism, I guess).
What could - but its hard to say - be happening here is corruption, which is possible in every organization (including private companies) regardless of the political ideology.
Dilbert RSS feed
What about the ISS, the LHC and all those science programs which are based on international cooperation, and hence openness? Openness doesn't preclude competition. In fact, it stimulates it by ensuring you can't rest on previous achievements, since they'll all be copied soon.
Of course, I don't see what any of this has anything to do with the choice of software by the government - it's not their secrets that closeness is protecting, it's lock-in to manufacturers.
Dilbert RSS feed
According to the policy PDF, the only limitation is that the office application used supports ECMA-376. It doesn't state whether it needs to be ECMA-376 Strict or Transitional conformance.
So why couldn't someone use one of these?
Are we not jumping the gun with the claim that this will lock people into Microsoft Office? OpenOffice does open and write .docx format(if I remember correctly) and only the document standard is fixed, not the software to be used. I Don't see any other choice for a standard, since the standard has to be widely used and Microsoft Office is the market leader right now.
~223 years on, they are still ruled by idiots.
Was ever a country ruled by smart people? Please provide examples if possible.
Hutt River Province...
Seems rather pertinent under the circumstances.
It is, after all, the second biggest country in Australia.
GrpA
Enjoy science fiction? "Turing Evolved" - AI, Mecha, Androids and rail-gun battles. What more could you want?
...as long as the Australian Government doesn't lock them into Myspace over Facebook.
If you have to interact with government systems and the system confines you to one platform for that task it is by default a government mandate. You must use the platform specified to do business with the government. If you don't want to do any government business of course their is no problem. Nice.
It's just one crazy law after another down under..
What crazy laws have there been? And this is just some govt policy, not a law.
freedom is trouble because you have to get your fat ass off the couch to claim it.
Australian government announces that it will officially keep doing what it has done for years.
/. ers something to complain about.
aka - use microsoft products. Not sure how this is news, but I guess it gives the
dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
Said documentation is in .docx format...
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
freedom is trouble because you have to get your fat ass off the couch to claim it.
Freedom is trouble because you and enough other people to make a difference have to get your (our!) fat arses off the couch.
(That's right, I said "arses". I'm Australian, and I don't have an ass or any other equine.)
If they insist on actual compliance with the standard, even MS will be out...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Here's the thing - we're all gonna die in the end, so all these fights against proprietary formats won't mean jack.
In that case, so is replying. Yet you seem to care enough about justifying your position (perhaps to yourself) to reply, so don't give me this nihilistic bullshit.
In life we pick the battles we can fight. These are potentially important issues, but basically given you're effectively saying about 90% of people are part of the "problem", I don't give a fuck anymore.
When 90% of the people are part of the problem is when I absolutely do care.
Take another battle I've picked: Religion. There's a small minority which does some really crazy shit. And they get away with it in the name of "religious tolerange", because a majority of the world believes enough crazy shit of their own that it takes a lot to make us as a culture say, no, you can't let your child die because you'd rather fucking pray than get help.
Easily 80-90% of the US population is religious, which makes it a safe bet that you are, too -- probably also Christian, probably believe faith is a virtue. If so, merely by supporting the idea that faith is a virtue, you are encouraging yourself and those around you to turn off their critical thinking and skepticism when the situation calls for it. That kind of thinking leads to atrocities. Never mind that merely by calling yourself "Christian", you lend credibility to these fuckwits.
Am I going to win? Not really. I do hope to reinforce separation of church and state, to promote actual science education instead of "Intelligent Design", and to establish some basic rights the religious would deny, like the right to marry. I'd love to see people tolerate less of the extremists. I really doubt I'm going to see the religious become a minority in my lifetime.
But you know what? I'd like to think that when I'm lying on my deathbed, I lived for things that matter. I'd like to think that I'd still be the kind of person who would be ashamed to think I gave up because it was too hard, or because there were too many people who disagreed with me.
Life shouldn't have to be some damn crusade.
You're right, it shouldn't. But this is the world we live in, and there are some issues which tend towards exactly that -- either you're a good little worker propping up the status quo, or you're actually helping to move things forward.
And life should be meaningful -- and it's up to you to find that meaning. Maybe you honestly don't care, but that's not what I'm hearing. What I'm hearing is that you do care, you're just too lazy to do anything about it anymore.
Yet somehow, you're not too lazy to post, and to try to justify how much you don't care. That says a lot.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I'd like to see some experience from someone small who's tried to support OOXML as standardized by ISO. All this polemic is just that.
It's called a rant. People do it on Facebook and Twitter all the time, and on forums for even longer. I care enough to reply, because it's bothered me for ages. Trust me, this will be the last I say of it but won't be the last anyone else says of it.
Technically I'm Greek Orthodox but I'm not practicing. I'm not ready to say there is no God, but I'm not prepared to believe in a God either.
Good, you're realistic about your hopes and hence are someone who understands how the real world works (compared to some zealots who can't see reason).
Ditto. I suppose we just have differing opinions as to what matters enough.
I've tried to convert to Linux, on and off, for about 5 years. Believe me it's not for a lack of trying. However, time has caught up with me and it's become clear that instead of actually using my computer, I've instead focused more on trying to get the Linux desktop up to scratch with the standards I've become accustomed to in Windows. I've given up because I've realized how much time I've wasted try to achieve something I ALREADY HAVE (i.e. Windows), so why am I making life more difficult for myself?
I care because of all the suck effort I guess. All that time I won't get back for a pursuit that wasn't (for me) a worthy goal.
Was Australia not paying attention to the Stuxnet situation? It was a HIGHLY TARGETTED malware designed for the purpose of infiltration of very specific systems. The fact that Windows and office is a highly predictable execution environment guarantees that there will be vectors of attack that Australia will be vulnerable to. And there WILL be people who see this as easily as I do because I'm no genius in these matters. And of course, the empowerment of anonymity combined with the foolishness of youth, they just painted a big target on their backs if for no other reason than the "glory" of it all.
As long as they provide information to the public in an open format such as HTML or PDF, I don't care what they adopt in an SOE.
The major beef I do have however, is the Windows only tax return software provided by the Australian Taxation Office. The fact that I have to use Windows if I want to file my tax return electronically is totally unacceptable.
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. *sigh*
~223 years on, they are still ruled by idiots. .. in private... one by one...) would be far more accurate.
If only! Sycophants (Imagine a prime minister saying I did but see her passing by, and yet I love her till I die". About the Queen...)
and (G.W. Bush visit, US agents decide who gets into our parliament, allow CNN in despite Australian security saying no)
lackeys (Chinese officials allowed to question Chinese political dissidents
BM3
That may be true for product development, but it is a load of unadulterated steaming dog shit when it comes to standards.
For example, and here's where I get to use a car analogy, would you argue that there should be special roads for Toyota that Ford can't use at all and Mercedes Benz has only figured out how to drive backwards on? Perhaps Mercedes could require mandatory 6-monthly servicing to ensure that all other cars attempting to drive on their roads crash by frequently changing the way the roads are built?
How about a different type wall outlet for each appliance in your house, including different pin size, shape and arrangement as well as different voltages and frequencies? Some AC and some DC?
Sounds abso-fucking-lutely tremendous to me! So much opportunity to get rich!!! BRILLANT!
Or didn't you read the bit about this being about carriage and storage of information across a large group of often disparate organisations, much like roads are for the carriage and storage of cars?
A format is not a product. Software that reads and writes a format is and if a commercial company can compete on quality without having to resort to creating false "standards" good on them. If an information storage format is so dependant on kludges and proprietary code, then it clearly has no place in public service.
I don't therefore I'm not.
MOOXML, aka Microsoft Open Office XML
Quick! Spread the meme!
~223 years on, they are still ruled by idiots.
Was ever a country ruled by smart people? Please provide examples if possible.
Hutt River Province...
Seems rather pertinent under the circumstances.
It is, after all, the second biggest country in Australia.
GrpA
Is secession still possible?
How does it work with "compulsory land acquisition" laws - see the current Kimberley-related matters?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Must be pretty nice to be able to say that on a network developed by a government agency.
-1 overrated isn't the same thing as "I disagree".
Not sure you realize this, but many people are STILL stuck with MSIE6.
And for Microsoft, competition is a "last resort" measure.
This really isn't a drastic change from policy that was already in place within many government agencies in Australia.
As much as our Amercian cousins here on slashdot lament the stupidity of their representatives they are streets ahead of those who inhabit the parliaments of Australia in terms of their tech savvyness - our mob are truly luddites and assume that M$ are the only competent people in the whole IT industry.
It's especially true in the national capital... it's one of the few places in the country where you can get a job in IT with reasonable working conditions. The unfortunate down side is that unless it's defence or foreign affairs no one seems to have heard of any other OS apart from windows.
Andy Warhol got it right / Everybody gets the limelight
Andy Warhol got it wrong / Fifteen minutes is too long.
Can't comment on the "smart people" bit, but if a kingdom is ruled by a king and a principality is ruled by a prince, then a country is ruled by...
Not really, since MS Office is better than OO.org in just about every way (except for price, but hey that may change soon!) it makes sense that they would choose an MS based standard.
Too MS is going to spend more money pushing their standard (not necessarily greasing palms, but maybe) than Oracle. You can't win if you aren't even trying.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
It's really strange to hear of someone who has ahd the opposite experience to me.
Windows... you have to mess around with finding and downloading drivers, you can't find decent (free) software equivalents to most of the stuff available on linux, if you do then you have to download them from some untrusted third-party. The platform experience just isn't that good.
The other day win 7 popped up a "you didn't shut down properly" or "failed to start properly" screen whilst I was booting. Naively I hit the top option which took me to some auto-recover tool that proceeded to take two hours to 'attempt recovery', denying me the opportunity to cancel out whenever I hit the cancel button, and then finally reported that recovery failed. Then I rebooted it and everything was fine.
Updates to windows take absolutely forever these days too.
Linux now just works. For me, anyway.
After Wikileaks, governments are going to be all about rights management protection for documents. RMS stops people opening sensitive documents that they've copied to a USB stick.
Open / Libre Office doesn't have this functionality (and because of the Open Source movement's philosophical objection to rights management technologies probably will never have this functionality).
The recent wikileaks saga has been a big wake up call to business and government - because they want to do their best to make sure that their information isn't plastered all over the Internet. Office 2007 / 2010 support this out of the box (just that few people use it). Open / Libre Office won't support it in a million years because "DRMs is Teh Evil"
I guess this confirms the other story about sharks swimming down Australian business streets?
That is why the title for the next article makes more sense : Sharks Seen Swimming Down Australian Streets
http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/01/18/1724200/
developer http://flamerobin.org
If you are used to one thing the other is always going to be worse.
You are going to have a hard time using the same fonts as Office uses since Open Office doesn't license the same fonts, you can choose to install them by yourself. OO will keep the font settings of a Office document but use its own fonts. Having done the switch my self, and having a big and expensive font collection I can tell you that OO handles fonts perfectly fine, even the standard OO fonts are fine.
In racing, everybody knows the course. And much money is spent trying to keep the secrets under the hood (and, especially in F1, the shape of the 'hood' itself).
I think your point is good, but your analogy sucks. Open standards are there for automobiles: width of the road, location, how many lights are required, etc. The exact details of meeting that implementation is left up to each manufacturer. If they want to open them up to the world, so be it (and Mercedes essentially does this when they offer an S420 for sale at the dealership. Ford is more than able to purchase one and disassemble it. Not so much for the McLaren racing engines and chassis.)
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
That's why they should publish the slides as pdfs.
~110 years actually.
It really does make me sad. Lately it has been looking like the Australian government had gone even loonier than the U.S. government has.
Weird. And sad.
How is being locked in to a proprietary format supposed to stop things like wikileaks?
Or do they think that wikileaks won't be able to buy or pirate msoffice in order to read the leaked documents?
I have worked with companies and governments that try to implement various restrictions to stop employees taking data out of the organisation...
I have found that:
The restrictions are generally flawed (often the fault of ms for flawed implementation) and people can get round them easily.
The restrictions only serve to hinder people's ability to work.
Windows typically requires expensive additional software, eg software to prevent access to USB storage devices, and when this software crashes the underlying os allows the unwanted devices anyway.
Even if the restrictions work, there are other ways, eg taking photographs of the screen, printing stuff out, stealing the internal hdd from the machine etc...
You place restrictions on removable media, uploads to the web, attachments via email, people will just find another way... It's better to log rather than to restrict, because if there are no restrictions people will often pick the easiest route and you can at least catch them in the act, and everyone else can get on with their work unhindered.
When implementing security policy, people only tend to think about the front door, they concentrate on features rather than implementation... They buy all kinds of junk claiming to support fancy sounding buzzwords not realising that there are often ways around all of this stuff...
I saw a system where someone was using a web based application to keep data of different security classifications and belonging to different customers separated, now sure if you go through the web interface it won't let you access other people's data but if you get access to the underlying server you obviously have access to everything... And yet, people were claiming that an admin on the server wouldn't be able to access the data because they cant do so through the web interface!
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
As far as I remember, Open Office could read and write .docx formats easily, so wouldn't OO also qualify for this requirement?
The same thing happens when using different versions of msoffice, their formats are so poorly documented that even their own apps can't open them reliably.
This is why a properly specified open format is important, so that everyone can implement it reliably... Unfortunately it seems that even tho MS have implemented OpenDocument, they have done so pretty badly...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
The analogy is good, noone really cares *how* someone implements a given standard so long as their implementation complies with the standard and interoperates with other implementations...
Perhaps a better example is TCP/IP, there are thousands of different implementations out there including open ones (linux, bsd etc) and closed ones (windows, various proprietary embedded systems) and yet they all manage to talk to each other over the Internet just fine.
The Internet exists and has prospered precisely because it's based on open standards. There were plenty of proprietary networks back in the days, and they have pretty much all died out.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
... for paying the "Microsoft Tax" in addition to their own taxes, to prop up the US economy at their expense.
I can't imagine why they'd do it; but the US sure could use the money to pay off some of it's debt.
Well it's not actually so much the collection of font faces that I'm talking about (although it can be an issue) but the font rendering itself. Whenever I open (or create a) document in openoffice, I find that many of the fonts I like to use or are used by others in existing documents (Calibri is a good example), rendering the font face is often blurry or the lines are poorly rendered compared to pretty much any other program I use the font with.
I've not personally used openoffice in Linux so I'm not sure how the quality shows up there, but on Windows it has been an issue for me.
I used to have a screenshot that illustrated the problem but I can't seem to locate it anymore.
The masses don't use photoshop, and certainly don't buy it... They also don't use quickbooks... Most people browse the web (and a significant proportion these days do so using firefox or chrome - which also run on linux), read email (probably via a web interface anyway) and talk to their friends through an im client (again, sometimes through the browser)...
A lot of people would get on just fine with a stripped down linux that booted straight into a browser.
Sure there will be niche users who require particular apps, but they are generally in the minority and if the masses switched over to linux you can guarantee these niche apps would make the move sooner or later too. That said, there are also various niches in which windows is either poor or completely unusable.
Giving someone a livecd isn't terribly useful, they will use the livecd environment as if it was windows and get a bad impression of it because running from cd is slow. Instead, install it as a dual boot and show them what it can do and explain its advantages (eg package management, greater safety online etc).
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Do they know that Microsoft won't fully support the standard until Office 15, Office 2010 is non-compliant.
Do you mean that the only way you can achieve your goals of universal OSS adoption is through government force? Doesn's sound free to me.
Fortunately, at my university most everyone uses MS Office either with Windows or a Macintosh. Although occasionally a student you work together on a project opens a Powerpoint file that you so carefully crafted and screws the layout up with that abomination that OOO is. Computer science has nothing to do with dicking around with file formats or office software.
What I want to see is for someone to step up to the plate and provide evidence that OpenOffice (or LibreOffice or whatever its called these days) and Microsoft really do render documents differently.
Specifically, a set of documents along with screenshots of the document in LibreOffice and the document in Word showing the differences in formatting between the 2 and an explanation as to why these differences matter.
There is no reason (other than a lack of information/patches) why it wouldn't be possible to improve the reading and writing of the Office document formats in LibreOffice so that more documents will appear the same in LibreOffice and Microsoft Office.
Capitalism's not based on open markets. A free market economy is only one way to implement capitalism. Another is to allow all the people who have capital to use their capital to crush any potential competition and form monopolies. Check out the history of Standard Oil for a fascinating example of laissez faire capitalism that produced the richest man in history at the expense of nearly all competition.
I've never had problems with .doc files in OpenOffice, but I have had problems with excel files. I try to avoid both, though.
It's not capitalism. Capitalism is based on open markets. When a government mandates a certain platform that is not open. Actually....it's more like socialism.
I think you're confused. Socialism is about the cooperative management of resources and the means of production, leading to equal power sharing among citizens. I don't see how mandating a particular proprietary format (which it is, despite the ECMA and ISO standards) fits anywhere in the socialist spectrum.
On the other hand, it seems to be capitalism at its finest (or worst, depending on point of view); a company on the free market gets big enough that it has an effective monopoly and can use that power to leverage government regulation. Of course the end result is counter to free market principles, but a completely laissez-faire market almost inevitably results in the biggest fish taking over the pond, so it is a natural consequence.
Thats not socialism, thats fascism.
Fascists seek to organize a country according to a particular nationalist strand of corporatist values and perspectives, with an emphasis on enforcing a collectivist form of political and economic organisation based on a tightly prescribed national identity.[5][6]
Socialism is an economic and political theory advocating public or common ownership and cooperative management of the means of production and allocation of resources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
*snip* *Free software may not be catching on as well as we would like with the older generations, but it most certainly is with the younger folks.* I'm over forty and I use Linux you insensitve clod
I run Windows. I run Mac. I run Linux. I run FreeBSD. Openoffice will open ODF files consistently across all these platforms. Word has trouble amongst different versions doc. Trouble really arises when you have various versions of Word and complex documents.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
There is no single program on the world which can read and write the ISO certified OOXML correctly. Beside that, other countries like South Africa, Japan, France or Germany (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument#National_level and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument_adoption).
To make it short. Why in hell do they adopt a format which is not used in the western world and will most likely not succeed in Asia? As such India is heading for ODF and even though China has developed UOF they rather go for ODF than for OOXML.
This is definitely not a logical decission.
I felt similarly until I left my (higher paying) job in industry and went back to work in academia at a supercomputing institute. It's not perfect but I'm a lot happier there. Why? Because the values of the people there and the Institute itself are a lot closer to mine than where I used to work. If you really care about openness, freedom, and open-source, there are ways you can surround yourself with it and still make a living. It may not be as glamorous and it may not pay as well, but its still possible.
Same here.
I wrote a docx-generating module in C# for reporting around 2 years ago. There were no problems with OO then and I've heard no complaints since (I tested it on OS X, Windows and Ubuntu).
It is after all just a zipped xml-file.
How is being locked in to a proprietary format supposed to stop things like wikileaks? Or do they think that wikileaks won't be able to buy or pirate msoffice in order to read the leaked documents?
Yeah, and why buy MS Office when data forensic tools can get much more information out of Office documents than Office itself? Not the first time this has bitten people in the butt.
Was ever a country ruled by smart people? Please provide examples if possible.
Hutt River Province... [principali...-river.com]
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Nope.
If everyone is using Office 2010, then you don't have to worry about some weird .doc format screwing stuff up.
Have no experience with Office 2010, but document formatting never was its forte. WinWord encourages bad formatting practices by making proper formatting a chore. Ribbon doesn't help. But both WinWord and Writer, as reliable formatting goes, ages behind WYSIWYM editors like LyX (though the latter lacks embedded/embeddable graphics editor).
Not to mention how much better Excel is than any Open Source spreadsheet program.
In my experience, OO is better than Excel in many aspects. Both have bunch of problems, but at least for OO workarounds are plenty, while in Excel it is generally "it is a feature, not bug."
They'd rather have things work, instead of pander to some zealots on the internet.
That is precisely my sentiment against M$O. In OO, albeit it is oftentimes is slower than M$O, document editing is much smoother. Add here the lack of ribbon - and you have the winner.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
That's true regardless of the tool they choose.
What I mean is that you can disagree with the solution chosen, but it's absurd to call them any -ism because of it.
Dilbert RSS feed
Hmmm. Thanks for the observations. I was beginning to feel like I was surrounded by people who wouldn't touch Linux. I had no idea that the younger generation was so willing to experiment and I'm glad to see that is happening.
I use Linux myself after years of using Windows and a Mac. I started out on an Amiga and at the time, I so wanted to avoid Microsoft. Eventually, Amiga gave way to a Mac, then to Windows. I laughed when I saw how much software was available for the PC. Now I laugh when i see how much software is available for Linux and it's only one sudo command away.
It took me a few years to make a complete break from Windows and it's been a few years since I have done it. I'm now quite comfortable with Linux and I just cannot see myself going back. When the antivrus license expires on my wife's laptop, we're going to install Linux for her, too. Then the transition will be complete. She has watched me work and noticed that I'm doing just fine.
I am so grateful for Linux and I share what I know with anyone willing to listen to get them started.
The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival.
Exactly. Open standards prevent entrenched incumbents from resting on their laurels while they collect their checks. This is not just true in open standards and open source software, this is true in terms of the rate of innovation. If there were no patents (note that OOXML is encumbered by patents), then anyone could copy anyone else's ideas. Even the incumbents would have to keep moving and making things better as the competition would follow them.
That is the best way to describe why patents aren't really a net gain to society. Thanks for that.
The diversity and expression of human opinion is essential to human survival.
When 90% of the people are part of the problem is when I absolutely do care.
While 90% may be religious, 90% aren't part of the problem. Many, many people manage to reasonably combine spiritual beliefs with science and a secular state. Some 90% are religious in my country as well (85% christian, 5% other). Yet there's no problem teaching science in science class, in fact I think this problem is largely limited to the US. Committing adultery is a pretty clear violation of the ten commandments, but it's not a crime. Religious matters are a matter between you and God, not you and the state. And in this case, your spouse.
There was a discussion up this christmas regarding christmas dinners and muslims, as a traditional christmas feast has both alcohol and pork. I think the general sentiment was clear, we will provide alternative food and non-alcoholic beverages as we generally do for allergics and pregnants and drivers and people who simply don't like it but trying to impose on everyone else that they won't eat or drink it either is out of the question. We would not be excluding them, they would be excluding themselves. I'm not afraid of others living their lives differently, I'm only afraid of them imposing on my life.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Computer science also has nothing to do with carefully crafting Powerpoint presentations. Leave that to the management majors. Most everyone using MS Office shows a lack of curiosity and critical thinking skills. Please post your university's name, so I can make sure my kids don't apply there.
The over forty crowd is where you get the users who tried to avoid Windows in the first place. We remember when there used to be choice, and the term PC wasn't associated with Windows.
...is a joke that writes itself.
I assume you got your definition of socialism from Fox News.
A few points ... one can still buy a commercial operating system and support open source / free software to push the "cause" forward. Mind you, the "cause" doesn't give a rats ass about him or you in any way.
Two ... life isn't defined in binary oppositions. Saying that you either support the status quo or are moving forward is disingenuous at best.
Three ... just because a person is religious does not mean he or she has turned off critical thinking skills. Start using your own critical thinking skills for you are defining the whole by a very small albeit extreme part.
Four ... if you see someone losing faith in something you believe in (ie, free software), you don't bring him back to the fold by making grand speeches with "big" ideas and how he is failing to meet those ideals. You reach out to him and offer personal support. You become the bridge. Save the speeches for the politicians.
en tee
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Unlike a (religious) fundie, his reasoning is sound. Big difference there.
What all religions have in common is that they declare a universal cause of human suffering and claim to know the cure. Fundamental atheists claim religion is the universal problem and fundamental, evangelical atheism is the only cure. It's a religion of religion-bashing. That type of circular logic makes me think of a dog chasing its tail.
The logical flaw is that religion isn't the cause of all human suffering. People are, according to Sartre, but I lean toward the more broad, Buddhist perspective: Life itself is the cause of suffering.
Notice how few militant atheists attack Buddhism, Taoism, and even Judaism. They go after easy targets: Fundamentalist Christians born out of the Great Awakenings who lack a solid theology, Islamic extremists from countries that aren't very advanced, and a Hindu caste system that doesn't even really exist anymore.
What I find especially humorous is that the parent used South Park in some of his citations. I guess he missed the Dawkins episode.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
This, shentino ...
It rings so true that I think I'm going to add it to my random ring of email signatures. (think back to the QWK mailer days where your offline mailer on FidoNet would randomly pick a signature from your signature file.)
Thank you kind sir.
Cheers,
Miser
Font problems are a common problem when dealing with WYSIWYG word processors, not only with OpenOffice but also between different versions of Office itself, or even installs on different computers.
It's been long known that, if you want your document to look exactly as intended everywhere else, you make a PDF out of it. Or use baseline TeX, Knuth was pretty good about backwards compatibility when designing it.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Never mind that merely by calling yourself "Christian", you lend credibility to these fuckwits.
I bet you, I, and Fred Phelps have a lot more in common than we don't. I'm an American, and I like it here. I like hamburgers and apple pie. My family immigrated from Europe. I think republican democracy is a good idea. The mutual cultural background I share with Phelps should not in any way be construed as endorsing him, condoning him, or giving him credibility.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
...and the term PC wasn't associated with Windows.
You mean the Pocket Computer from Radio Shack? A friend of mine had a PC1 that was so cool! I think he had a printer for it too!
http://oldcomputers.net/trs80pc1.html
"The Australian Government has released a .. desktop policy .. aimed at reducing the potential for leaks of Government data — mandates .. Microsoft Office," ..
"Core Services: Antivirus MANDATORY" ..
"Operating System: MANDATORY" ..
"a. The operating system must be procured in accordance Commonwealth Procurement Guidelines and in accordance with Whole-of-Government ICT policies including the ICT Customisation and Bespoke Development Policy" ..
"Network: MANDATORY" ..
"a. Must support the WofG Internet Protocol Version 6(IPv6) Strategy" ..
"Hardware: All desktops need to be procured in accordance with the WofG Desktop Hardware panel" .. link
--
Microsoft, the company that made text dangerous ..
"Built into Windows.. is a role called "Active Directory Rights Management Services" .. You can stop cutting, pasting, forwarding, editing ..
If you can see it, you can copy it ...
If you don't give up your freedom, the terrorists might come and take away your freedoms!
At least, that's what they keep telling me here in the USA.
I am officially gone from
Fundamental atheists are a strawman.
Amazingly enough, this is the first semester (and this is my sixth semester here) that I've had a professor publish slides in PDF.
They bribe to get ISO to approve the format which nobody does yet on a fast track when they already have one that had to do the process. It shows ISO isn't honest and doesn't function well enough to sustain an attack.
They bribe governments to start Microsoft addictions at low prices and high bribes or even charity "donations." ...Microsoft!
Now with governments having over a decade of problems with their Microsoft addictions started looking for standardization to avoid many big problems CAUSED by Microsoft we have Microsoft bribing them to solve the problems they created by standardizing upon
Corruption and ignorance continues well funded.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Some people, possibly most Americans are stupid; HALF are below average....
The rest of us get upset when you tell use the obvious and are just being argumentative and literal minded. It is a democracy just like the "1st democracy" in ROME thousands of years ago-- not literally democracy (narrow minded) because that was NOT possible millenniums ago in "simple society."
Democracy picks the reps, there are various systems on how that works (largely hacked.) The reps democratically vote for you with various systems on that (largely hacked, or DoS in the US Senate.) Repeated all over at all levels is the democratic process (functioning or not) because its fundamentally democratic; but practically not an extremely ideal literal minded implementation which is impossible and not worth serious consideration.
Your distribution is not linux! It came with more than just the kernel. Or its not linux, its compiled linux-- only the kernel source code is linux...
Amy Goodman probably already gets death threats from foxtards.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
RTFA. The OOXML recommendation is only a minor part of a bigger set of policies. If you'd spent the time reading the article instead of typing, you'd know that.
I don't see how you can have such a thing as an atheist fundie, given that the only unifying property of atheists is the lack of belief in gods. What "fundamentals" would I be trying to get back to?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Fundamental atheists...
Contradiction in terms. The only unifying property of atheists is the lack of belief in gods.
...claim religion is the universal problem...
Not even Hitchens claims that.
It's a religion...
While religion is incredibly poorly defined, I don't see how you can have a religion without any dogma or core belief.
The logical flaw is that religion isn't the cause of all human suffering.
So, your logical flaw right here is a strawman. Who claims religion is the cause of all human suffering? If I ever made such a claim, I'll gladly retract it, but please, show me where!
What's more, I know plenty of atheists, and I can't think of a single one which would make that claim you just suggested. Again, not even Hitchens, let alone Dawkins, Dennett, or Harris. None of the atheists I know personally would make that claim. Some of them agree that religion is a cause of suffering in the world, even that it's an exceptional cause -- and not all even agree on this -- but none would say it is the sole cause.
For what it's worth, I've also noticed that outspoken atheists tend to be assumed "fundamentalist", "extremist", or "militant", simply for expressing their lack of belief. Not for "evangelizing", not for picking fights -- many are offended simply that atheists exist.
Notice how few militant atheists attack Buddhism, Taoism, and even Judaism.
There's that word again. I don't think it means what you think it means.
For one, Buddhism and Taoism can both be atheistic -- neither require a belief in any gods. As for Judaism, note that many of the arguments against Christianity are also valid against Judaism and Islam. The Problem of Evil, for instance, is equally problematic for all Abrahamic religions unless they want to define God in a very, very strange way -- and it seems likely that any answer to that problem would apply equally to all Abrahamic religions as well.
Also, note that the major outspoken atheists are generally British or American, and in both countries, Christianity is the dominant religion. For my part, I live in America, where we not only have a majority of Christians, we also have a pretty sizable percentage of Creationists -- roughly 40% of Americans reject Evolution.
Islamic extremists from countries that aren't very advanced,
Islamic extremists also tend to blow people up, and they do so for explicitly religious reasons. So hell yes, if I can present a compelling argument that convinces a few of them to stop believing or at least not to blow themselves up, that's a Good Thing.
a Hindu caste system that doesn't even really exist anymore.
I don't tend to argue against that except in the company of followers of Transcendental Meditation -- the TM movement seems like it would very much like to bring the caste system back.
What I find especially humorous is that the parent used South Park in some of his citations. I guess he missed the Dawkins episode.
I have, in fact, seen every South Park episode. I found that one hilarious -- also another in which the majority of South Park become atheists at the same time as they find a way to eat by shoving food up their asses, and shit out their mouths -- the punchline being something like, "But when you become an atheist, a bunch of shit starts coming out of your mouth." Remember that?
Yes, I do have a sense of humor, and I am able to laugh at myself, unlike Isaac Hayes. Is that so surprising?
I also understand the difference between humor -- even pointed political humor directed against me -- and an actual argument. For example, "Praise Science!" If someone actually attempted to use that as an argument that atheism is a religion, yes, I'd laugh -- I'd laugh them out of the room!
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Very good points. Just a few clarifications:
one can still buy a commercial operating system and support open source / free software to push the "cause" forward.... Saying that you either support the status quo or are moving forward is disingenuous at best.
I think I may have reacted too harshly here. After all, I own a copy of Windows myself. But if I can find a way to do it outside of Windows, I will. The person I was replying to had not only given up on using Linux, but had done so in order to deal with having to work with MS Office documents -- this is something for which clear open alternatives exist, and for which I don't think it's too much to ask to suggest that an office use open standards instead.
But I didn't mean this as a "with us or against us." I was drawing a clear line here between either using MS Office -- thus creating, manipulating, and consuming content that will work best on MS Office, thus making it harder for the next person to try Linux -- or pushing things forward, which is really the only other alternative if you have to collaborate on documents. The only way to really have a third position is to do what I do, and avoid sharing editable documents in the first place.
just because a person is religious does not mean he or she has turned off critical thinking skills. Start using your own critical thinking skills for you are defining the whole by a very small albeit extreme part.
Using both my critical thinking skills and my observations, I conclude that the vast majority of religious people turn off their critical thinking skills where religion is concerned. One I was talking to today -- a happy, friendly, relatively new Mormon, who didn't seem to be particularly brainwashed or "extreme", someone who shared quite a bit in common with me, in fact -- flat-out admitted that she didn't know how to explain logically why she believes what she does.
Even in politics, people can answer that question, though how well they answer it might vary. Certainly in other areas of our lives, it often becomes a habit. For example, which should I get for a new laptop, solid state or spinning disk? Should I eat cake for lunch, a stir-fry, or a salad? What's the best place to park my car? Should I own a car? Can I afford one? We may have vastly different answers to these questions, and certainly, there's more information needed -- for instance, the fact that I want to lose weight should rule out the cake -- but we generally either analyze these with reasoning skills, or decide we don't care enough (one cake won't kill me.)
And the bigger a decision it is, the more likely we are to use careful reasoning. Which university should I attend? Which job should I take?
Only very occasionally do we turn this off. Do I want to spend the rest of my life with this person? Far too few couples actually apply enough critical thought to ask the right questions, like "Do you want children?"
And of course, religion. If there really is a god who may send you to heaven or hell based on what you believe, and you think there's any chance this god is real, you'd think that would be the most important decision you've ever made! It'd certainly be the most important bit of knowledge you could ever possibly have, so you'd think people would want to be sure they're right.
Instead -- and again, these generalities come from personal experience talking to so many of these people -- they haven't asked the simplest questions, and they don't like being challenged on this issue. Actually, it's worse than that -- they see "faith" (roughly translates to "believing something without good reason") as a virtue.
I don't think that religious people are incapable of critical thought. Instead, I think the better educated ones, the ones who should know better, are just good at compartmentalizing. These are the things you're allowed to question, examine, poke at, chew on, tease apart with logic and see if they make
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Most mainstream Protestant denominations, as well as the Catholic church, fully accept scientific findings like evolution and the 15 billion year age of the universe. I think promoters of "Intelligent Design" and the like are completely wrong.
That's good, though about 40% of the US disagrees with you.
And the Catholic church has its own problems. If I recall, the Pope himself has said that condoms do more harm than good when it comes to preventing AIDS, which is also factually wrong.
"Faith" doesn't really mean what you think it means.
Apparently, it also doesn't mean what almost anyone I talk to thinks it means. Be careful, or you might make it have as little meaning as you claim Christianity does. Nevertheless:
Faith doesn't mean "believing things without evidence".
Let's try to keep this in mind. More specifically, I claim Faith, in the religious sense, means "believing things without sufficient evidence." There are enough eyewitness accounts of alien abductions to count as evidence, but I imagine you don't find that to be sufficient to believe aliens have visited us.
It means recognizing the limitations of one's knowledge (and mankind's knowledge)...
Ok. I recognize my limitations.
What's more, I recognize that there are things humans may never know. That's fine. I'm alright not knowing. It's good to acknowledge what I don't know. I see no need to fill the gaps with a god, no reason to accept anything on faith when I could simply not know.
...and trusting that our lives ultimately have a purpose.
If you mean "purpose" in the universal sense, this is exactly the moment where you are believing something without sufficient evidence. What evidence do you have that our lives ultimately have a purpose?
And if your evidence is sufficient, why do you need faith?
All you've done is restate "Faith" as a more specific sort of thing to believe without evidence. You haven't presented another meaning. This is painful to read, and I apologize for splitting you up by the sentence fragment -- I don't normally do that -- but you keep sounding like you're going to say something good, I agree with everything you say, almost... and then you lose it. For example:
I don't claim to know what will happen to me after my death,
Neither do I. We have some pretty good ideas, but I'm not sure there's enough evidence to say that I know that what I call "me" is entirely physical.
but I accept that I should live my life by the principles taught by Jesus (tolerance, forgiveness, humility, etc)
While Jesus taught a few things I absolutely don't agree with, those three I can accept. Thomas Jefferson would also agree with you, but he was a Deist who found the stories of Jesus' life so unbelievable that he created his own bible which was essentially the story of Jesus and his teachings, with all the miracles taken out.
So far, we're in complete agreement, and indeed, you can find good reasons for these, or you can at least reduce them to matters of opinion. For example, should you live your life according to the teachings of Jesus? How you want to live your life is largely a matter of opinion.
And then...
...and that in the end, God will take care of me.
...now we're back to believing something without sufficient evidence.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
For what it's worth, I don't really like hamburgers, and most of my family are essentially all-American mutts -- sure, my ancestors immigrated, but from too many places for me to bother trying to count. I'm not convinced Phelps thinks a democratic republic is a good idea, or that he likes it here, though I may be entirely wrong about that.
However, being American, eating hamburgers and apple pie, being the descendant of immigrants, and even liking the idea of a democratic republic are all incidental.
To put it simply, Phelps doesn't claim apple pie hates fags. He claims God hates fags.
I'm beginning to think this is a bad argument, and that you're absolutely right that you personally don't condone him, and that I shouldn't assume that you or anyone else does.
However, there is a sense in which the fact that we have such mainstream tolerance of religion and religious ideas, and the fact that they're seen as off-limits to criticism, leads to exactly the sort of environment in which we can even ask whether or not parents are allowed to deny their children life-saving medical care because they'd rather pray.
If you want to be able to criticize others for their beliefs, you have to open your own to criticism.
So, I withdraw my comment about lending credibility, and I realize I'm actually changing the subject a bit, because what I really (now) want to say is this (watch till about 11:10). I suspect that's much more a point about culture than religion.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
However, the monopoly of IE6 is broken. It is no longer considered acceptable for a website to slap a "best viewed with" disclaimer on a site which effectively only works with IE6. In general, it's not even acceptable anymore to have a website which is "best viewed with IE" and doesn't work in Firefox.
That's the important point. It means that the public Internet is no longer tying you down to IE6. It also means that in general, the lowest common denominator is no longer IE6, so it's also considered acceptable to develop a site which requires newer browsers and newer standards, which means standards can actually move forward.
And Firefox did that. So did the users who refused to "just use IE" and complained loudly until people switched -- those people who refused to give up brought Firefox to critical mass. Several critical masses, really, sort of a snowball effect -- as more sites tolerate Firefox, it becomes easier for people to switch.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Why is AU so servile to first Britain, then USA? Many nations, corporations, individual etc use Linux derived systems to avoid penetration/ spying/ sabotage as already happens frequently every second. "Evil", unethical, criminal, .... activists very easy share the knowledge of cracking Microsoft systems. What is worse is that many (most) non-government agencies trust AU "experts".
So the rest of AU will stay with being exploitable by the "baddies". CLEVER AU ... very well done (over).
Retired (medical) IT Consultant, Australian Capital Territory
Australian Capital Territory
However, there is a sense in which the fact that we have such mainstream tolerance of religion and religious ideas, and the fact that they're seen as off-limits to criticism, leads to exactly the sort of environment in which we can even ask whether or not parents are allowed to deny their children life-saving medical care because they'd rather pray.
On that, I'll agree completely. I hate the word "sensitive". I respect everyone's opinions on things that only affect themselves. You like liver and onions? I think it's gross, but have at. But when someone's opinions cross the line into making another person's life worse - or shorter - then I reserve the right to tell them that their ideas are stupid. Fred Phelps and Jenny McCarthy are sociopaths who don't care which lives they harm, and I have no respect or sensitivity for their harmful opinions.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Actually Quickbooks and TurboTax are THE big apps in my area, along with those downloadable little popcap style games which also don't run on Linux. And why would I want to go through all the trouble of setting up dual boots and dealing with devices and hardware with flaky/non existent drivers for no money or advantage to myself? The whole point of looking into Linux was the "free as in beer" would have allowed me to sell for lower than my competitors. And you must be messing with some seriously crappy hardware if a Live CD is slow for you. On modern duals and triples with 2GB+ of RAM (the minimum I sell anymore except for a few off lease) both Puppy and Xubuntu run from RAM so if anything it is faster than the HDD since the entire OS is in memory.
But again the Live CD is simply a courtesy that gives me an advantage over my competitors, just as giving them Firefox with ABP and a free Office Suite (along with several other freebies like a scheduled reg and HDD cleaner/defragger, codec pack, etc) means machines from MY shop do more OOTB than the other guy does. But I think you are seriously underestimating the ease of use of Windows when compared to FOSS. My customers can walk into ANY store in the nation, grab ANY device off the shelf, and it will "just work" thanks to every device coming with a CD that has XP, Vista, and Windows 7 drivers now. Looking at my local Walmart you are looking at less than 35% Linux support for the devices being sold and without serious research there is no way for the customer to tell and with their exchange only policy on most computer gear you are looking at burned customers on Linux.
So until I can sell a machine with Linux only and know it will 1.-Work for at least a year with upgrades/updates with ZERO driver problems and 2.- Be able to sell a Linux only PC and have a simply way for a customer to walk into Walmart and just "look for the penguin on the box" so they don't get burned then it simply isn't worth my time. It gives me NO advantage over my competitors, it irritates the customer because the PC doesn't "just turn on" without choosing or waiting for a timer to end, it takes more of my time (which I can't charge for) and doesn't drive more business to me (because geeks that have heard of Linux don't shop B&M) so there really isn't a point.
It is the same thing Walmart found out when they tried selling Linux, and those OEMs like ASUS found out when faced with higher returns on their Linux offerings VS Windows XP. While Linux as a desktop sounds good in theory in practice it raises my after sales costs while giving me no advantage over the competition with the local consumer. So if it works for you great, I'm happy for you. But from a retail standpoint Linux as an OS simply doesn't drive sales or even break even. It simply takes too much work and comes with too many hassles. Hell if it wasn't for the "free as in beer" I'd probably just use Windows Live CDs, but the price MSFT wants for WinPE licenses is just insane.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
When Russia and China appear to be moving away from paying for a ridiculously overpriced OS and Office software, our government is locking it in! Aaaargh! Don't they realise that if Western governments finally wean off the evil giant by growing their own Open Source versions of Linux, and creating beautiful efficient User-Interfaces in Open Office software, the whole economy can eventually wean off America's software and we all win? The Australian government should have mandated exactly the opposite! Today is a sad day to be an Australian. Geeks across the land will be tearing their shirts and throwing ashes over their heads, crying "Alas! Alas, we are undone!"
With a few notable exceptions (Scientology), religions are not formed with the intent to be a religion. Religion is just the hoopla that forms around an idea (specifically, one that claims to hold the solution to mankind's ills). The religiously atheistic aren't being religious about their atheism intentionally, it's just the result of worshipping their material worldview.
What I consider 'militant' or 'fundamentalist' atheists are those who make the claim that religion is the cause of all of man's problems. When you cross that line, you've made a religion of atheism. You've asserted a dogma and condemned those who don't abide by it.
You're the one who referred to your anti-religious stance as a battle you've picked. How does the word militant not apply?
militant - combative and aggressive in support of a political or social cause, and typically favoring extreme, violent, or confrontational methods
The beliefs you've purported are the subject in question, so it's not a strawman I've propped up to attack. Dawkins has repeatedly made it clear that religion is an impediment to a better society, that we suffer unnecessarily because of it. His solution for society? Abolish religion.
No religion claims to abolish all suffering, that was a careless hyperbole on my part. But every religion makes a claim of a primary cause of suffering and offers a solution to it. All of your evangelical atheist heroes and your own little rant make it explicitly clear that there is nothing that causes more suffering in the world than religion, and that the only solution is to end religion. That's making a religion of atheism.
Mankind is inherently religious because we reflect on our dilemmas and conceptualize solutions to these problems. Sometimes these solutions make sense, sometimes they're riddled with fallacies, sometimes they're hypocritical.
Religion isn't invented by man. Man is invented by religion. -- Robert M. Pirsig
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Religion is just the hoopla that forms around an idea (specifically, one that claims to hold the solution to mankind's ills).
The dictionary definition disagrees. Yes, it's what forms around an idea, but it's not just any idea.
You're the one who referred to your anti-religious stance as a battle you've picked. How does the word militant not apply?
Have you never heard the phrase "choose your battles" in a non-militaristic scenario? Maybe as a general life principle? By your logic, what wouldn't be "militant"?
Dawkins has repeatedly made it clear that religion is an impediment to a better society, that we suffer unnecessarily because of it.
I would agree with that.
His solution for society? Abolish religion.
Ah, but here, citation needed.
make it explicitly clear that there is nothing that causes more suffering in the world than religion, and that the only solution is to end religion.
If I said so explicitly, please show me where. You do know what explicit means, don't you?
You'd think you'd be more careful after your earlier "careless hyperbole". Perhaps you meant implicitly? If so, I'm waiting to hear your explanation, because I think you were inferring something which simply isn't there -- that is, yet another strawman.
In fact, I'm not convinced that religion causes the most suffering, but I find it particularly evil because it's one of the few things which can make a good person do evil things, while believing they are doing the right thing.
I certainly don't think the "only" solution is to eliminate religion, and I don't think that's a solution at all, largely because it wouldn't work, and if it did, the cost would be too high. I would rather seek to ensure religion has no privileged status, that it can be freely questioned and debated, and that it loses the influence it still has on government. That would be sufficient.
Certainly, I would rather a majority accept the same epistemology I do, but I would never seek to abolish something simply because I disagree with it.
Even here, it doesn't work. Unlike religion, I am open to being shown where I am wrong -- I would rather be proven wrong than forever be wrong.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!