He said this "jihad about technology" between rival operating systems ignored the bigger problem that IT is badly regarded in the boardroom. "We need to better communicate the value of IT to business," he said.
Wow, he's admitted that his company's hype and poor performance has pissed on everyone.
Other than that, these "open and honest" Microsoft debates have the stink of a fake town meeting. The USSR had a few after Chernobyl and Bill Clinton never stopped having them. They were staged affairs with ringers in the crowd called to ask "insightful" prearranged questions. These questions were answered by a few talking heads who would blither on with distracting and meaningless abstractions, on the order of "wouldn't it be awful if we nuked the plannet." I can imagine the M$ equivalent, "we see your potential," (hand over your cash!) and, "Linux is Hanson's dissease."
All too often, high-level language programmers pick certain high-level language sequences without any knowledge of the execution costs of those statements. Learning assembly language forces the programmer to learn the costs associated with various high-level constructs. So even if the programmer never actually writes applications in assembly language, the knowledge makes the programmer aware of the problems with certain inefficient sequences so they can avoid them in their high-level code.
Fair enough. Like he says, it works with any speed processor to make things faster.
Most of the rest sounds like praise of free software. Free software does not suffer, "unrealistic software development schedules." Free software authors can go read the source code to gcc and gcc and the gnu debugger both have had more attention lavished to them than any proprietary equivalent.
If you really want to keep your current life style, you'll learn to roll with the punches, pick yourself up and get back in the game.
If the economy was free, what you say would make sense. What makes you think that the company that made you sign a NDA and train your replacement is going to let you go back to work for them or, gasp, compete with them? The same companies doing this have also brought you the DMCA. The two are connected. Many companies offshoring have significant government patronage, telcos, Microsoft, GE and other utility companies, aerospace. It is my prediction that the more an industry is regulated or protected, the faster the jobs will go. That giant sucking sound are your tax dollars at work and your life.
How do we know that someone working for a US company in India isn't actually creating jobs in the US through their work?
If you can't see the convergence of DRM and offshoring, there's not much I can say to help you. It's not that the jobs are going overseas, it's that the jobs are being put overseas by people who intend to prevent competition with bogus "IP" laws. IT is only the start as the DMCA is being applied to everything. Non free economies are terribly inefficient but those who run them could care less as they enjoy their relative wealth.
When Linus was creating Linux in Europe, who knew he would be creating tons of IT jobs doing Linux work in the US? Would it have mattered if Linus lived in Bangalore?
Heh, I'll take my free software from anywhere and I don't mind who uses what I write. I don't have much choice where the other kind comes from and there's the rub. The real injury comes from not being able to chose what software I want to run or do it for myself, friends and clients.
If you're all for getting gov't out of business, then why are you mad that nothing's being done about outsourcing?
I don't like a lie. Private studdies contradict admittedly low numbers and people are ignoring the implications of sending US research and knowhow overseas. That's a real problem for a country that is making fewer real goods.
As I mentioned in my reply, outsourcing on it's own is not a problem that requires action, especially government action except where government purchasing is concerned. Outsourcing is a symptom of government intervention in the economy. It would not exist or be a real problem in an economy that was free. US engineers are competent and competitive, but when the work has all been "consolidated" into one or two government protected companies, everyone is out of luck.
I'd be interested in hearing more about how the gov't standards for these surveys are worse than industry standards, though, and how that actually solves the problem of lying companies.
You solve problems of dishonest reporting by asking more than one interested party. Some obvious flaws of the reporting method were listed in the NYT article, the most important one being creation of an overseas job that did not "directly" lead to a lay off. Private companies may have sampled the recently laid of workers and asked their opinion. I don't really know. Given two or three private studies that agree with personal experience and one, admittedly undercounting government study it's easy to pick one over the other.
Congratulations on your academic progress.
It's the combination of anti-competitive IP laws and outsourcing that has me worried. I'm not really scarred of outsourcing on it's own. I can deal with other people being able to do my job and I don't think big dumb companies that offshore are efficient. Laws that would keep me from competing regardless of what know are what gives me nighmares. I'm afraid that laws like that are what's behind the "consolidation" large US companies and is why whole sectors of the US economy, such as automobiles and steel, are not competitive. There are many forms of "protectionism" and they don't just work against foreign companies.
Things are picking up and even I might get a job soon if the price of oil does not shut everything down. It's predicted that the economy will be back to 2001 employment levels by November. I still don't see US manufacturing recovering.
This is a real invention, but it does not prove that the patent system protects small inventors. He had to share the patent with the University, though all of the effort and brainwork might have been his. He did it at his house, so the research was possible. At the same time, I doubt that the fees and paperwork required by a patent are something he could have managed on his own.
The bureau has always taken companies at their word. Are you going to pay for them to audit American companies for labor statistics?... It isn't worth it.
With several easily found private studies already done, you could say the BLS should not have done anything. The least you should demand, if they do decide to waste your money, is that they live up to the standards set by those private firms.
How are the basic studdies at the local Community College going? Got your EE or CE yet? I'd recommend CE because state government has not figured out outsourcing yet and it's tough to do that kind of work without visiting the site.
Because a statistically significant number of companies are scared to reveal the truth they will lie to the gov't about how many people they are offshoring?
No, because the issue is a political football punted by Kerry. It's probable that the Bush administration wants to lower the numbers to protect itself from the attack, regardless of situation. You can read my other posts to see what I think of the issue, but I doubt either parties has a clue.
Yes, you will find deep, deep cynicism from a man who's been out of work for more than 18 months.
It's not 3% of all jobs - it's 3% of the jobs that have been lost.
Yes, that's true. It's also what I meant and I'm sorry what I wrote could be read both ways.
I wish that the Labor Department were trying to inflate the figures instead of ignore them. They are, like you denying that a problem exists.
Lets get the government out of business - yes that means that some companies will outsource some of their labor.
I'm all for getting government out of business. We can start with reforming copyright law, the DMCA and other anti-competitive crap that keeps free men from working and makes it possible for big, inefficient companies to exist and use slave labor in China. "Consolidation" and "Downsizing" are not accidents, they are a direct result of government interference in the economy.
Keep smoking, DRue. People as smart, well mannered and helpful as yourself deserve all the benefits cigarettes bring.
The 830,000 figure is a forecast by Forrester and it's two to three times the Sachs estimate. It's time to wake up to two very evil trends: anti-competitive IP laws and offshoring.
Have you visited an engineering department in a fortune 500 company lately? All you will see is grey hair. The average age of engineers in sectors like aerospace is 55 years old. They have not been hiring people for decades. When these people retire without replacement, they won't be counted as lost to offshoring but the job will be gone.
Offshoring research, development and engineering coupled with strict anti-competitive IP laws is an evil solution the greedheads are contemplating. For decades, these companies have been using graduate level slave labor from foreign countries to get their research done. Been to graduate school lately? You will live off less than 8k a year. Training the same talent abroad is the next step. The DMCA and similar laws and red tape will keep everyone but big dumb companies out of the market.
It's also a dissaster for the US. With all our know how abroad, what will the US have left but a big military? How long do the greedheads think that military will be able to keep it's edge while GE, Lockheed, Boeing and other contractors are getting research done somewhere else? Anti-competitive laws will enslave us, force us to enslave others and ultimately ruin us. It's all very unAmerican and companies that go this way have already destroyed what the US stands for.
Slashdot's reader base is finding it more interesting to complain and play the victim than actually put some effort, thought, and most importantly creativity into improving their situation.
Actually, I recommend avoiding NDAs. Got any ideas yourself? I doubt it, seeing as you don't make your living in Engineering and are still wet behind the ears.
For self improvement, I've headed back to graduate school in an area that no one else wants anything to do with, Nuclear. My last job with a fortune 500 company was a real eye opener, however, and I'm afraid that I've wasted my time.
Fortune 500 companies, especially technical ones, have not hired people for decades. The last place I worked was filled with people over 50 in entry level positions who were routinly working 60 hour weeks. I've heard and seen this is true in other areas such as aerospace. I fear that these companies are dumb enough to think they can put their IP into place like India and have everything work out for them.
Current anti-competitive technology laws, such as DMCA, have the ability to reach back into all forms of engineering and design. Jobs lost to consolidation and outsourcing will never come back if people are not allowed to compete.
Someone who graduated with a BS last year should not be so cock sure about the future. That goes double for a Mac programmer who's tools and toys could be sent to Hyperbad tomorrow. Seeing that you are, in real life, an English teacher in France for a living, I wonder what you think you have to offer engineers on this subject. Do you have a real interest in this or do you just have fun trolling Slashdot with flames?
be the best ! No matter the cost, if no one is able to do your job, you are safe.
What this overlooks is the power your company has over you when you sign NDAs and other IP rape agreements. What are you left with when you have given GE your all and trained your successors better than anyone else in the world? They own your body of work and will prevent you from competing against it with a gang of lawyers. Just the mention of impending legal action is enough to ruin your business.
I was surprised to learn that people could say whatever they want... providing it would not cause imminent action
Besides cases like shouting "fire" in a crowded bar, I'm surprised by the imminent action bit. If we stubstitute the term "treason" for "terrorism" in these cases, we see that the US has always had very high standard for what it actually forbids.
my responses are becoming too painful for you to deal with.
It's boring trying to talk sense to people like you, but I'm patient even with rude children.
No, actually I'm still sort of waiting for you to address my point.
I'm not sure what your point was. You claimed I called the parent a troll because I did not like them and you demanded to know how much money IBM and HP were making from free software, as if no one could do so and you pointed out that Red Hat makes money off free software.
The parent poster was a troll. They compared Slashdot's parent company to SCO based on a decline in market value of their stock and a proported lack of profit. That's a stupid assertion, designed for insult only. I don't like trolls, that's true.
The rest of your comment is weird and self defeating. I'm not sure how to respond to something stupid like that, besides to tell you what an idiot you are.
Why do they not just disable links to outside pages entirely? It is experimental, right? So why have links to other websites at all?
Links could create a bogus page like:
you have linked to the URL: http://somesite.wherever.net
That's not very helpful because it would be difficult to test the link that way. The idea is to encourage legitimate users to actually make and edit pages.
It is unfortunate that Wiki site administrators have to do anything at all. Phillip admits that he does not get it:
I still don't understand why something like a newsgroup alt.test could possibly be hurt from anything (spam, backlink-postings, whatever) but I guess I still don't get it.
Phill, baby, it's rude to use other people and expect them to clean up your mess. As many of the posters stated, Wiki administrators did not set up their service for your purposes and you caused them grief. I can't believe you said this after apologizing.
He also insults Wiki software itself:
In any case it seems Wiki software is not up to handle these things.
Bad attitude, Phill. You bragged about how clever you were, how about comming up with a solution instead? Someone might even give you an ipod or something.
Oh and twitter, I hope you actually reply instead of just "slithering away" (your words) after someone calls you on your bullshit.
Thanks for the Red Hat link, it kind of makes my point about people making money with free software as well as investing in companies that use and sell it. There are others, would you kindly research them too?
There is a huge segment of the market with 64-128M PCs who don't want to be forced to upgrade their hardware just so as to run XP. If Linux could run responsively on that much memory, it could own that market. But instead, modern distros are too slow.
Fedora Core two != all modern Linux Distros. The author's dispair over his Fedora is strange.
It's surprising to see what kind of hardware will run the most modern of Linux. Knoppix is a grueling test that runs entirely in RAM using on the fly decompression of binaries on a CD. Yet, I've run full KDE sessions on really ancient hardware. PIIs even P1s with 128MB of RAM will work. I've got Debian Sarge, with all the latest KDE goodies on a 450MHz K6/2 and it works great. Fedora Core 1 runs fine on these kinds of machines too, though it is a bit heavy. I run Mepis on a PII 233 with 128 MB and it works OK.
You don't have to drop all the way down to fluxbox just to use older hardware. It's true that I can use Dillo and Fluxbox and KDE 2 to run my 24 MB 75MHz laptop and have way better performance than the Windoze 95 it came with. It's also true that the same laptop would never run XP. What the author of the article overlooked was older software that's still available. The packages in Debian Woody still work better than XP and do all the things the average user needs. KDE 2, Balsa, Gnome Card, these things still work just fine and are well maintained. It's more fair to compare that generation of software to XP anyway, they are the same age.
Companies have plenty of examples of alternates to the big honking distro. Largo Florida made the switch to free software long ago. Their basic approach of using servers and terminals is still valid today and makes excellent use of old hardware.
Try comparing same year software and full feature sets and XP fails miserably. XP was released in 2001. Gnome and KDE from the same time period compare favorably. KDE 2 and Gnome 1 are both lighter and still provide far more features than XP ever dreamed of for way less memory and processor. I'd say that the newest software is still faster for the features it provides. Multiple desktops, simultaneous users and all the other services offered by modern distros would turn an XP box into a frozen mess. I can run new KDE stuff on boxes that XP won't install on. The future specs for longdong make the craziest of KDE / Gnome setups look very thin but longdong still lacks a useful GUI and stability that business users crave.
Very friendly software works just fine on older hardware. I know that Debian testing, with KDE 3.2 works just fine on 450 MHz and 128MB RAM. I'd even go so far as to call it snappy. I've used Mepis on machines as low as 233 MHz. Sure, OO was slow on that, but any reasonable company can use it's old "server" to provide that via terminal services to machines of this class.
More importantly for business is the that XP is just the beginning of what Microsoft pushes. Not only does a company have to buy new hardware to run it, it also has to purchase "servers", CALs and other eXPensive junk. Free software has and still makes better use of hardware and has a lower TCO, regardless of what Fedora does.
People are making money with free software, get over it. Investors are all doing as well or better than greedheads who have lost half of their money listenting to the greedheads at Microsoft. Anyone who put money into the SCO extortion plan deserves to lose every penny and will.
I'm glad Linford stepped up to the plate, though his corrections are mild. ZDnet's article spun the facts to protect Microsoft. Changing the sending location from Zombies to China fits the reporter's goals, but it was not what Linford said and he should resent having the words put into his mouth.
I doubt that Linford himself would say something as stupid as "Russia and China 'behind current spam deluge' when Americans advertisers are paying for it and 80% of it originates on computers running a broken US OS. I also doubt that Linford would blame the Russian or Chinese governments for the actions of organized crime in their country.
Graeme Wearden should do some more research and think. There's a real story here and the pieces are being put together. Where is the spam really coming from? Follow them money. Does anyone really buy penis enlargers, diplomas and drugs from spam? What companies have recently announced profitable new email schemes that depend on the death of normal email? Could large ISPs run by unethical companies, that have a proven record of breaking competitor's service, be trying to break competing ISP's email service by deluging their customers with spam and then advertising spam blocking email of their own? Russian and Chinese criminals seem sensational, but the truth is always much more interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
He said this "jihad about technology" between rival operating systems ignored the bigger problem that IT is badly regarded in the boardroom. "We need to better communicate the value of IT to business," he said.
Wow, he's admitted that his company's hype and poor performance has pissed on everyone.
Other than that, these "open and honest" Microsoft debates have the stink of a fake town meeting. The USSR had a few after Chernobyl and Bill Clinton never stopped having them. They were staged affairs with ringers in the crowd called to ask "insightful" prearranged questions. These questions were answered by a few talking heads who would blither on with distracting and meaningless abstractions, on the order of "wouldn't it be awful if we nuked the plannet." I can imagine the M$ equivalent, "we see your potential," (hand over your cash!) and, "Linux is Hanson's dissease."
All too often, high-level language programmers pick certain high-level language sequences without any knowledge of the execution costs of those statements. Learning assembly language forces the programmer to learn the costs associated with various high-level constructs. So even if the programmer never actually writes applications in assembly language, the knowledge makes the programmer aware of the problems with certain inefficient sequences so they can avoid them in their high-level code.
Fair enough. Like he says, it works with any speed processor to make things faster.
Most of the rest sounds like praise of free software. Free software does not suffer, "unrealistic software development schedules." Free software authors can go read the source code to gcc and gcc and the gnu debugger both have had more attention lavished to them than any proprietary equivalent.
If the economy was free, what you say would make sense. What makes you think that the company that made you sign a NDA and train your replacement is going to let you go back to work for them or, gasp, compete with them? The same companies doing this have also brought you the DMCA. The two are connected. Many companies offshoring have significant government patronage, telcos, Microsoft, GE and other utility companies, aerospace. It is my prediction that the more an industry is regulated or protected, the faster the jobs will go. That giant sucking sound are your tax dollars at work and your life.
How do we know that someone working for a US company in India isn't actually creating jobs in the US through their work?
If you can't see the convergence of DRM and offshoring, there's not much I can say to help you. It's not that the jobs are going overseas, it's that the jobs are being put overseas by people who intend to prevent competition with bogus "IP" laws. IT is only the start as the DMCA is being applied to everything. Non free economies are terribly inefficient but those who run them could care less as they enjoy their relative wealth.
When Linus was creating Linux in Europe, who knew he would be creating tons of IT jobs doing Linux work in the US? Would it have mattered if Linus lived in Bangalore?
Heh, I'll take my free software from anywhere and I don't mind who uses what I write. I don't have much choice where the other kind comes from and there's the rub. The real injury comes from not being able to chose what software I want to run or do it for myself, friends and clients.
I don't like a lie. Private studdies contradict admittedly low numbers and people are ignoring the implications of sending US research and knowhow overseas. That's a real problem for a country that is making fewer real goods.
As I mentioned in my reply, outsourcing on it's own is not a problem that requires action, especially government action except where government purchasing is concerned. Outsourcing is a symptom of government intervention in the economy. It would not exist or be a real problem in an economy that was free. US engineers are competent and competitive, but when the work has all been "consolidated" into one or two government protected companies, everyone is out of luck.
You solve problems of dishonest reporting by asking more than one interested party. Some obvious flaws of the reporting method were listed in the NYT article, the most important one being creation of an overseas job that did not "directly" lead to a lay off. Private companies may have sampled the recently laid of workers and asked their opinion. I don't really know. Given two or three private studies that agree with personal experience and one, admittedly undercounting government study it's easy to pick one over the other.
Congratulations on your academic progress.
It's the combination of anti-competitive IP laws and outsourcing that has me worried. I'm not really scarred of outsourcing on it's own. I can deal with other people being able to do my job and I don't think big dumb companies that offshore are efficient. Laws that would keep me from competing regardless of what know are what gives me nighmares. I'm afraid that laws like that are what's behind the "consolidation" large US companies and is why whole sectors of the US economy, such as automobiles and steel, are not competitive. There are many forms of "protectionism" and they don't just work against foreign companies.
Things are picking up and even I might get a job soon if the price of oil does not shut everything down. It's predicted that the economy will be back to 2001 employment levels by November. I still don't see US manufacturing recovering.
The bureau has always taken companies at their word. Are you going to pay for them to audit American companies for labor statistics? ... It isn't worth it.
With several easily found private studies already done, you could say the BLS should not have done anything. The least you should demand, if they do decide to waste your money, is that they live up to the standards set by those private firms.
How are the basic studdies at the local Community College going? Got your EE or CE yet? I'd recommend CE because state government has not figured out outsourcing yet and it's tough to do that kind of work without visiting the site.
Because a statistically significant number of companies are scared to reveal the truth they will lie to the gov't about how many people they are offshoring?
No, because the issue is a political football punted by Kerry. It's probable that the Bush administration wants to lower the numbers to protect itself from the attack, regardless of situation. You can read my other posts to see what I think of the issue, but I doubt either parties has a clue.
Yes, you will find deep, deep cynicism from a man who's been out of work for more than 18 months.
Yes, that's true. It's also what I meant and I'm sorry what I wrote could be read both ways.
I wish that the Labor Department were trying to inflate the figures instead of ignore them. They are, like you denying that a problem exists.
Lets get the government out of business - yes that means that some companies will outsource some of their labor.
I'm all for getting government out of business. We can start with reforming copyright law, the DMCA and other anti-competitive crap that keeps free men from working and makes it possible for big, inefficient companies to exist and use slave labor in China. "Consolidation" and "Downsizing" are not accidents, they are a direct result of government interference in the economy.
Keep smoking, DRue. People as smart, well mannered and helpful as yourself deserve all the benefits cigarettes bring.
Have you visited an engineering department in a fortune 500 company lately? All you will see is grey hair. The average age of engineers in sectors like aerospace is 55 years old. They have not been hiring people for decades. When these people retire without replacement, they won't be counted as lost to offshoring but the job will be gone.
Offshoring research, development and engineering coupled with strict anti-competitive IP laws is an evil solution the greedheads are contemplating. For decades, these companies have been using graduate level slave labor from foreign countries to get their research done. Been to graduate school lately? You will live off less than 8k a year. Training the same talent abroad is the next step. The DMCA and similar laws and red tape will keep everyone but big dumb companies out of the market.
It's also a dissaster for the US. With all our know how abroad, what will the US have left but a big military? How long do the greedheads think that military will be able to keep it's edge while GE, Lockheed, Boeing and other contractors are getting research done somewhere else? Anti-competitive laws will enslave us, force us to enslave others and ultimately ruin us. It's all very unAmerican and companies that go this way have already destroyed what the US stands for.
Actually, I recommend avoiding NDAs. Got any ideas yourself? I doubt it, seeing as you don't make your living in Engineering and are still wet behind the ears.
For self improvement, I've headed back to graduate school in an area that no one else wants anything to do with, Nuclear. My last job with a fortune 500 company was a real eye opener, however, and I'm afraid that I've wasted my time.
Fortune 500 companies, especially technical ones, have not hired people for decades. The last place I worked was filled with people over 50 in entry level positions who were routinly working 60 hour weeks. I've heard and seen this is true in other areas such as aerospace. I fear that these companies are dumb enough to think they can put their IP into place like India and have everything work out for them.
Current anti-competitive technology laws, such as DMCA, have the ability to reach back into all forms of engineering and design. Jobs lost to consolidation and outsourcing will never come back if people are not allowed to compete.
Someone who graduated with a BS last year should not be so cock sure about the future. That goes double for a Mac programmer who's tools and toys could be sent to Hyperbad tomorrow. Seeing that you are, in real life, an English teacher in France for a living, I wonder what you think you have to offer engineers on this subject. Do you have a real interest in this or do you just have fun trolling Slashdot with flames?
What this overlooks is the power your company has over you when you sign NDAs and other IP rape agreements. What are you left with when you have given GE your all and trained your successors better than anyone else in the world? They own your body of work and will prevent you from competing against it with a gang of lawyers. Just the mention of impending legal action is enough to ruin your business.
Free software takes care of this problem nicely.
Besides cases like shouting "fire" in a crowded bar, I'm surprised by the imminent action bit. If we stubstitute the term "treason" for "terrorism" in these cases, we see that the US has always had very high standard for what it actually forbids.
It's boring trying to talk sense to people like you, but I'm patient even with rude children.
No, actually I'm still sort of waiting for you to address my point.
I'm not sure what your point was. You claimed I called the parent a troll because I did not like them and you demanded to know how much money IBM and HP were making from free software, as if no one could do so and you pointed out that Red Hat makes money off free software.
The parent poster was a troll. They compared Slashdot's parent company to SCO based on a decline in market value of their stock and a proported lack of profit. That's a stupid assertion, designed for insult only. I don't like trolls, that's true.
The rest of your comment is weird and self defeating. I'm not sure how to respond to something stupid like that, besides to tell you what an idiot you are.
Links could create a bogus page like:
you have linked to the URL: http://somesite.wherever.net
That's not very helpful because it would be difficult to test the link that way. The idea is to encourage legitimate users to actually make and edit pages.
It is unfortunate that Wiki site administrators have to do anything at all. Phillip admits that he does not get it:
I still don't understand why something like a newsgroup alt.test could possibly be hurt from anything (spam, backlink-postings, whatever) but I guess I still don't get it.
Phill, baby, it's rude to use other people and expect them to clean up your mess. As many of the posters stated, Wiki administrators did not set up their service for your purposes and you caused them grief. I can't believe you said this after apologizing.
He also insults Wiki software itself:
In any case it seems Wiki software is not up to handle these things.
Bad attitude, Phill. You bragged about how clever you were, how about comming up with a solution instead? Someone might even give you an ipod or something.
Thanks for the Red Hat link, it kind of makes my point about people making money with free software as well as investing in companies that use and sell it. There are others, would you kindly research them too?
You do if you want email with a spell checker for more than one person in your company. The services available on linux desktops blows XP away.
We're talking about the DESKTOP, you know, where Linux has hard a notoriously hard time penetrating?
Sounds like your skull. Linux works fine on my desktop.
Fedora Core two != all modern Linux Distros. The author's dispair over his Fedora is strange.
It's surprising to see what kind of hardware will run the most modern of Linux. Knoppix is a grueling test that runs entirely in RAM using on the fly decompression of binaries on a CD. Yet, I've run full KDE sessions on really ancient hardware. PIIs even P1s with 128MB of RAM will work. I've got Debian Sarge, with all the latest KDE goodies on a 450MHz K6/2 and it works great. Fedora Core 1 runs fine on these kinds of machines too, though it is a bit heavy. I run Mepis on a PII 233 with 128 MB and it works OK.
You don't have to drop all the way down to fluxbox just to use older hardware. It's true that I can use Dillo and Fluxbox and KDE 2 to run my 24 MB 75MHz laptop and have way better performance than the Windoze 95 it came with. It's also true that the same laptop would never run XP. What the author of the article overlooked was older software that's still available. The packages in Debian Woody still work better than XP and do all the things the average user needs. KDE 2, Balsa, Gnome Card, these things still work just fine and are well maintained. It's more fair to compare that generation of software to XP anyway, they are the same age.
Companies have plenty of examples of alternates to the big honking distro. Largo Florida made the switch to free software long ago. Their basic approach of using servers and terminals is still valid today and makes excellent use of old hardware.
Very friendly software works just fine on older hardware. I know that Debian testing, with KDE 3.2 works just fine on 450 MHz and 128MB RAM. I'd even go so far as to call it snappy. I've used Mepis on machines as low as 233 MHz. Sure, OO was slow on that, but any reasonable company can use it's old "server" to provide that via terminal services to machines of this class.
More importantly for business is the that XP is just the beginning of what Microsoft pushes. Not only does a company have to buy new hardware to run it, it also has to purchase "servers", CALs and other eXPensive junk. Free software has and still makes better use of hardware and has a lower TCO, regardless of what Fedora does.
People are making money with free software, get over it. Investors are all doing as well or better than greedheads who have lost half of their money listenting to the greedheads at Microsoft. Anyone who put money into the SCO extortion plan deserves to lose every penny and will.
I'd say it was headed for 0.
I doubt that Linford himself would say something as stupid as "Russia and China 'behind current spam deluge' when Americans advertisers are paying for it and 80% of it originates on computers running a broken US OS. I also doubt that Linford would blame the Russian or Chinese governments for the actions of organized crime in their country.
Graeme Wearden should do some more research and think. There's a real story here and the pieces are being put together. Where is the spam really coming from? Follow them money. Does anyone really buy penis enlargers, diplomas and drugs from spam? What companies have recently announced profitable new email schemes that depend on the death of normal email? Could large ISPs run by unethical companies, that have a proven record of breaking competitor's service, be trying to break competing ISP's email service by deluging their customers with spam and then advertising spam blocking email of their own? Russian and Chinese criminals seem sensational, but the truth is always much more interesting.
Anyone who would call NT "state of the art" is incompetent and not a good judge of hardware.