It's interesting to see that someone is working on a free Windows clone rather than a Unix clone. What they have managed to develop till now seems pretty impressive. If they can churn out a beta release in the next couple of years, Microsoft is definitely going to have some competition (no matter how small it is). Unless of course they decide to sell themselves to M$ by that time or M$ forces to shut them down.
This is precisely the answer Dell does not want: I want Fedora, Ubuntu would be better, oh wait have you got SuSE? Dell cannot support dozens of distros. What Dell should do is that to 1) claim support for only one or maximum two distros 2) claim support for a specific kernel version.
Even when I had configured my Symantec Corporate AV for daily updates, I don't remember seeing virus definitions being updated daily. Besides there were instances where I had to resort to using AVG Home Free Version to clean some viruses which Symantecsimply couldn't take care of.
Problem with Dell is that they can't find a Linux distributor/reseller wealthy enough who can pay them for a "Designed for XYZ Linux" sticker at the front of cabinet or a "Dell recommends XYZ Linux for Business" recommendation.
I remember seeing a laptop ad in a newspaper a couple of months ago. It ran like this - What Other Low Price Laptops offer: Celeron processor, 512 MB RAM, Linux OS. What We Offer: Centrino Processor, 1 GB RAM, Windows XP Home. It was trying to point out out Linux as a part of sub-standard configuration. Such predispositions from leading hardware vendors (Dell included) have mainly
contributed to the reluctance of average PC user in considering Linux as an alternative to Windows.
But once the word got round that thay were selling infected softweare, they'd lose all their sales.
And then? Will they purchase original software or will shift to Free software?
I personally feel that MS is spreading like a fast cancer in software community. Cure it or it will kill all innovation and competition in the industry.
Netscape wasn't a bad product at all. IE killed it. I still Netscape more 'usable' than IE. User preferences, connection settings, themes are much easier to navigate through in Netscape as compared to IE. Netscape's failure just shows that to survive in market, just being good isn't enough.
I remember reading an old O' Reilly book on HTML which covered both the browsers. At that time there were certain tags that were rendered differently on the two browsers. The book strongly advised that whenever this be the case, design your pages keeping Netscape in mind since this is the dominant browser nowadays and will continue to be so - a prediction which is nowhere near to reality now.
I personally feel that such a move by a communist govt. may actually spoil the chances for FOSS. Communists are known to fight for supposedly pro-poor causes (fuel price cuts, subsidy hikes, PSU disinvestment opposition etc) which are largely populist in nature. Going by that, Communist support for Open Source may be deemed as adoption of software for the poor, technology for have-nots and so on. It can thus run at a risk of being branded something as "not so good as proprietary software but still FREE" which won't exactly help. Open Source should be marketed as something that is technologically superior than it's proprietary counterparts, not merely as a free second-rate product which 'almost' gets done what you want.
I really find that annoying that Windows requires Active Directory to be set up prior to configuring a Win2K/WinXP node as an NTP client. It's just one of the many restrictive practices M$ adopts. The simplest of these being that MS Paint every time redirects me to 'My Pictures' folder whenever I wish to save a picture file. Some registry hacks may bypass such restrictions at times but this is not something an average user would want to do.
... some statements which may sound quite unusual from mainstream press, especially if targeted to home users: 'Using a non-Windows-based PC may be one defense against these programs, known as malware...
I can't more than agree to this. Most "tech" journalists at leading publications (Times of India is one such example) don't even know that an OS such as Linux exists. For them, a computer basically means Windows. So reading such an article in NYT surely must have been some sort of enlightenment for most readers.
Traditionally, Unix vendors have always been wary of high CPU clock speeds. In a typical Sparc, HP-UX PA-RISC or IBM RS/6000 workstation, CPU clock speed would be typically = 500 Mhz. Unix vendors have always argued that clock speed is not an important factor in determining efficiency. But it seems that towering hardware requirements of software (mainly Java apps) recently have forced them to change their minds.
Ya, right. United India Assurance uses a lot of (Red Hat) Linux internally. And they have been doing so for quite some time (4 years or so). Interestingly, a couple of years back I appeared for an interview in this company for a vacancy of system engineer. I had 2+ year exp. on Linux admin with an RHCE certification. I thought that this would help. To my dismay, the supposed technical members of the interview board asked me questions such as What Is Red Hat? RHCE what? and so on. I wasn't selected. God bless them.
I am cynical about this. Large scale migrations are usually not successful. And when they happen in govt. enterprises you have every reason to be cynical. Nearly eight years back, treasury department of MP (another Indian state) had adopted Linux in a big way. The project was more or less successful. The erstwhile Chief Minister had made his preference for Linux/OSS clear for the forthcoming govt. projects. But then his govt. got voted out in next elections, new CM took over the reins and announced her allegiance to Microsoft. MP is not as financially well-off state as Tamil Nadu and could have saved a lots of money by adopting Linux. Let's see what happens in TN.
Silly and bereft of facts. Just somebody says something about someone does not qualify as a thing(truth) that we all need to know this year. Example is the one related to standard condom sizes not fitting Indian men. That's just a piece of frivolous shit not based an any solid finding. The BBC needn't tell me what size best fits my cock.
Slashdot Mirror
This research yet again provides the conclusive evidence that humans are direct descendants of mice..
In my top ten I would have included Fatal Car Racing as well.
It's interesting to see that someone is working on a free Windows clone rather than a Unix clone. What they have managed to develop till now seems pretty impressive. If they can churn out a beta release in the next couple of years, Microsoft is definitely going to have some competition (no matter how small it is). Unless of course they decide to sell themselves to M$ by that time or M$ forces to shut them down.
This is precisely the answer Dell does not want: I want Fedora, Ubuntu would be better, oh wait have you got SuSE? Dell cannot support dozens of distros. What Dell should do is that to 1) claim support for only one or maximum two distros 2) claim support for a specific kernel version.
Even when I had configured my Symantec Corporate AV for daily updates, I don't remember seeing virus definitions being updated daily. Besides there were instances where I had to resort to using AVG Home Free Version to clean some viruses which Symantecsimply couldn't take care of.
Problem with Dell is that they can't find a Linux distributor/reseller wealthy enough who can pay them for a "Designed for XYZ Linux" sticker at the front of cabinet or a "Dell recommends XYZ Linux for Business" recommendation.
I remember seeing a laptop ad in a newspaper a couple of months ago. It ran like this - What Other Low Price Laptops offer: Celeron processor, 512 MB RAM, Linux OS. What We Offer: Centrino Processor, 1 GB RAM, Windows XP Home. It was trying to point out out Linux as a part of sub-standard configuration. Such predispositions from leading hardware vendors (Dell included) have mainly contributed to the reluctance of average PC user in considering Linux as an alternative to Windows.
But once the word got round that thay were selling infected softweare, they'd lose all their sales. And then? Will they purchase original software or will shift to Free software?
I personally feel that MS is spreading like a fast cancer in software community. Cure it or it will kill all innovation and competition in the industry.
So you are a Manager with Microsoft.. A Manager that too with Microsoft. Probably that gives you plenty of free time to post comments on Slashdot
I remember reading an old O' Reilly book on HTML which covered both the browsers. At that time there were certain tags that were rendered differently on the two browsers. The book strongly advised that whenever this be the case, design your pages keeping Netscape in mind since this is the dominant browser nowadays and will continue to be so - a prediction which is nowhere near to reality now.
I personally feel that such a move by a communist govt. may actually spoil the chances for FOSS. Communists are known to fight for supposedly pro-poor causes (fuel price cuts, subsidy hikes, PSU disinvestment opposition etc) which are largely populist in nature. Going by that, Communist support for Open Source may be deemed as adoption of software for the poor, technology for have-nots and so on. It can thus run at a risk of being branded something as "not so good as proprietary software but still FREE" which won't exactly help. Open Source should be marketed as something that is technologically superior than it's proprietary counterparts, not merely as a free second-rate product which 'almost' gets done what you want.
I really find that annoying that Windows requires Active Directory to be set up prior to configuring a Win2K/WinXP node as an NTP client. It's just one of the many restrictive practices M$ adopts. The simplest of these being that MS Paint every time redirects me to 'My Pictures' folder whenever I wish to save a picture file. Some registry hacks may bypass such restrictions at times but this is not something an average user would want to do.
They release their products 5 years later, claim that they were the ones who invented it and still manage to eat out all the market share.
The heading is a bit puerile. I thought that yet one after Indian spacecraft crashed after takeoff.
You were really trying to use HTML italic tags or whether those square brackets have some meaning?
I think that Microsoft should just shed its inhibitions about Linux and release a Linux binary of IE. Come on M$, come to terms with Linux.
... some statements which may sound quite unusual from mainstream press, especially if targeted to home users: 'Using a non-Windows-based PC may be one defense against these programs, known as malware ...
I can't more than agree to this. Most "tech" journalists at leading publications (Times of India is one such example) don't even know that an OS such as Linux exists. For them, a computer basically means Windows. So reading such an article in NYT surely must have been some sort of enlightenment for most readers.
Traditionally, Unix vendors have always been wary of high CPU clock speeds. In a typical Sparc, HP-UX PA-RISC or IBM RS/6000 workstation, CPU clock speed would be typically = 500 Mhz. Unix vendors have always argued that clock speed is not an important factor in determining efficiency. But it seems that towering hardware requirements of software (mainly Java apps) recently have forced them to change their minds.
Ya, right. United India Assurance uses a lot of (Red Hat) Linux internally. And they have been doing so for quite some time (4 years or so). Interestingly, a couple of years back I appeared for an interview in this company for a vacancy of system engineer. I had 2+ year exp. on Linux admin with an RHCE certification. I thought that this would help. To my dismay, the supposed technical members of the interview board asked me questions such as What Is Red Hat? RHCE what? and so on. I wasn't selected. God bless them.
Why, isn't it already there- Microsoft Linux :)
I am cynical about this. Large scale migrations are usually not successful. And when they happen in govt. enterprises you have every reason to be cynical. Nearly eight years back, treasury department of MP (another Indian state) had adopted Linux in a big way. The project was more or less successful. The erstwhile Chief Minister had made his preference for Linux/OSS clear for the forthcoming govt. projects. But then his govt. got voted out in next elections, new CM took over the reins and announced her allegiance to Microsoft. MP is not as financially well-off state as Tamil Nadu and could have saved a lots of money by adopting Linux. Let's see what happens in TN.
Just like Bush v/s Saddam or America v/s Iraq? Which one is more appropriate?
Silly and bereft of facts. Just somebody says something about someone does not qualify as a thing(truth) that we all need to know this year. Example is the one related to standard condom sizes not fitting Indian men. That's just a piece of frivolous shit not based an any solid finding. The BBC needn't tell me what size best fits my cock.