You have to spend time overseas in some place such as Ukraine or Israel before you really begin to understand how much more, even most of the 80% who share the 20% have than is needed. In 1996 a well-off Ukrainian Masters level scientist might be paid the equivalent of $50 a month. Much of the stuff we cram into our living space they do without quite comfortably. At the same time they also had far more leisure than we would be comfortable with. A working class Jewish Israeli had a similar situation (somewhat better pay) while an Arab Israeli generally had less and still would take time to be hospitable and serve a mean cup of coffee or even arak.
The virus writers might try, but the trick with viruses is that they have to be executed somehow. Linux doesn't execute just anything that wanders in off the net. The commonest problems are social engineering, and the damage that this can cause on a typical desktop linux install is really limited. Neither Linux nor Unix nor most non-MS OS's offer the "convenience" features that are the real problem with Windows.
The main reason that MS has these "features" is that they are "marketer friendly" aspects of the OS that permit marketers to add "oh wow!" bits like animated gifs and Macromedia flash code to the junk they spew. It's pointless, stupid, and time wasting, but marketers find that this stuff works. Linux is run by marketing, so it is not going to be automatically more friendly.
The short form is that Linux is, and will continue to be inherently safer than Windows. It has a 10-year head start on security, a superior and better trained development staff, and believe it or not, in terms of real value, a bigger budget than MS can deploy. With the adherence of IBM and Novell, Linux even has some serious financial backing and, potentially, access to important patents. My main concern with IBM and Novell is that they are, and have to be, profit driven, which means that they also have a potential marketer-friendly bias.
There are quite a number of "safe" clients for Windows. The main thing is that you have to be certain they aren't just a new "skin" for the basic MS code that has the problems to begin with (of course that pretty well eliminates Windows, BWTH). If the software requires IE or.net, I would look for something else.
slips and provides accurate results and unbiased comments. The reporting on Mi2 seems to be that they did their best to compare Windows and Linux by comparing the best numbers they could find for Windows with anything at all that could be dredged up "against" Linux. The fact is there are only something like two Linux viruses. These aren't serious as long as you are running as root all the time. There are quite a few root kits and worms though, which is what chkrootkit is for.
The site where the story broke indicates that SCO has verified that the email is genuine. That may of course be an artful ruse, but then, maybe you work at SCO, but in Keith Lamuer's terms, would not be considered a "usually reliable source" (i.e. - the guys at the top and the janitor who has access to the waste baskets.
You might for instance be trying to do real work, and as an honest employee, you would be left out of those meetings where deniability was crucial. I have worked for companies where there was no one between me and the owners and they could still "secretly" do some really stupid things, that I would not hear of until it was too late. It's tough on the ego, but well, perhaps you are too honest to trust worthy.
Why would anyone NEED to send HTML for everyday e-mail? The "scriptable" nature of Outlook simply caters to email marketing. All it does is make it possible to fill your email in-basket with same kind of day-glo tripe that cascades through the s-mail box every day.
You better read it again. One of the main points was that the study concluded that the damage is cumulative. Taking a break from the blow drier and using a towel won't help. It'll just delay things. Still, what's a few brain cells among friends, eh?
when over consecutive editorial, functional and algorithmic changes a "contributor's" contributions are edited away? In an OSS situation it is feasible for practically all the original code to be removed or modified beyond recognition. Are the original and interim authors whose code helped but is no longer present STILL contributors?
Actually, I don't think he was suggesting that SCO enemies were at fault. Quite the contrary, he simply pointed out that there are many more with the interests I suggested than who have an anti-SCO agenda. So really, we all agreed.
Another thing I didn't mention before. Remember this bug evidently came out of Russia. While this might be stereotyping, remember that chess is the national pass-time there. One key tactic in chess is to have your oponent looking where you WANT them to look, rather than where you intend to really direct your force.
RTA. The object is a white dwarf. It is luminous; so yes, they are seeing light from 50 light years. The conclusion that the object has a crystalline core though has nothing directly to do with spectral data. So again, RTA.
Secondly, who has any real motive besides the Linux users that stand to lose the most? BBC did nothing wrong by pointing the spotlight at the people most likely to have done it.
That opinion is so thick the author undoubtedly lives under a bridge. People with motives - hmm, let's see. How about spammers and computer extortionist and anyone else with a strong economic interest in seeing that the insecurities inherent in Windows remain available to them. Heck, you could even suggest that Symantec has a motive, since there is little economic viability in antivirus software for linux or unix. When you consider that 75% of the MyDoom infections DID NOT carry a payload addressing SCO, then it is quite easily as reasonable to suspect that the SCO thing was just misdirection.
... probably think its just you. If they have to move in with their mother in law on higher ground, they probably consider the situation worse than frightening. Also anyone who wonders whether the mass and energy transfers involved might affect the seismic stability around the Pacific rim might also suspect its just you. If you depend on an accurate geoid for your work and the darn thing keeps changing, well it might not be frightening, but it could be irritating.
Re:He doesn't have to be a right winger ...
on
Spirit Rolls on Mars
·
· Score: 1
That would be the case if he were arguing "correctly" instead of clouding the issue with irrelevancies like blasting through the earth's crust. That is very much a tactic of the Limbaugh Right and similar to your efforts to go further off-topic by bringing up drain cleaners and BGH.
I have been present when a cleaning agent was accidentally reacted yielding chlorine gas. Since we were just kids doing assigned household chores, and no one warned us not to use this cleaner on that surface the supposition that this is not a unique event is easy to make and easier to verify. It was luck that no one was seriously hurt. Since similar accidents are fairly common place for firefighters, I conclude household chemicals are far more of a risk than nukes. On the other hand, I suspect based upon other peoples evidence that BSE is way, way less scary than it is made out to be. BGH was hurried into use without properly completing even FDA mandated tests. Risks, perceived, real, and poorly defined and understood, are what I addressed, which seemed to be relevant to the topic. Rush never did under stand relevancy.
to argue correctly that the percieved risks of nuclear power are far greater than any known actual risk from them. Hyperbole looks good in a paper for a course in English or Journalism, but it doesn't communicate risk, it communicates fear. When the fear is largely unfounded or based or other hyperbole, it is of little use to reiterate it. The typical automobile is more dangerous than a normal nuclear reactor.
If you want to worry about something with a significant risk, start thinking about some of the cleaning agents that typically lurk under a household sink and bathroom medicine cabinet. THEY typically contain all the necessaries to produce some really lethal, and viciously explosive stuff that makes the toxicity of plutonium look tame. What you might find is really bothersome is hos the small the number of our fellow citizens is that know enough about this not to accidentally kill themselves, their families and their neighbors. Or perhaps you could dig into whether BGH or BSE is more dangerous to you and your family - which is scarier, mad cow disease or milk from growth-hormone-dosed cows?
"discovered" so far. To judge from SCO's notice of [non]compliance, they apparently failed extravagantly to meet the court's order. They should be thinking about how to convinve the court that their suit isn't frivolous, and about convincing IBM to settle (e.g. by 'em out). Evidently, they aren't anxious, or else have neurological checksum problems in the board room. You would think that if they DID have actual evidence, that they would have shown IBM convincing evidence and asked for an offer from IBM that would make it right. As it is, SCO's name may go down in history right next to George Armstrong Custer under famous massacres due to arrogance and over confidence.
Come on, think about GPL requirements for using and redistributing GPL'd code, then remember that these guys are offering the design and software for a device, then compare. They release the design and software (and any device based on the design) for public or private use (I wish I could be certain about the translation of the German - there's an odd passage about a view of the circuit board "with eagle"). If you improve the system, they want you to return the original favour. I don't think that proposal comes close to any form of theft, let alone "outright theft," and it does compare with the GPL more or less.
...Second, the community didn't just flock to Slashdot and bitch about how SCO sux,...
The operative word there is "just." The implication is that the community did MORE than just complain. Concerning "communism" the effects we see in/. and Groklaw have little to do with either Marx's ideas of collectivism or his ideas about economics. These effects reach far beyond anything Marx could have imagined. We see the barest outline of an unanticipated property made possible through the ability of people to communicate and organize through the internet.
SCO attempted to use the "big lie" approach to achieve its intents. What the present owners of the TSG and their backers (represented by commentators such as Yankee Groups DiDio) did not anticipate was that interested parties could counter their "big lies" so effectively and quickly with "big facts." The internet makes available historical information about the development of unix, Linux, and the legal histories of SCO, Caldera, TSG, IBM, Novel and other movers and shakers that would be impossible to fully access, let alone properly employ in any vision of the future Marx had, or for that matter, the owners of SCO and the Canopy Group.
Groklaw reflects the crystalization of a group of interested researchers, users and legally knowledgeable individuals around an issue that really falls within the realm of law rather than software. It reflects serious effort to collect, analyze and interpret relevant information and advocate a legal position. It redefines the idea of amicus curia(e??). PJ provides that critical property around which the effort could crystallize.
If you are interested in social phenomena, the potential of Groklaw is, to put it mildly, fascinating. While the immediate point of interest is the SCO-IBM lawsuit, there is absolutely no reason to think that such legal effects will be limited to opensource vs. proprietary software legal issues, regardless of the success or failure of the various parties in the present suit. The relevant fact is that Groklaw is about law not software. You are watching a potential change in legal affairs that could easily be more important in the years to come than any particular computer system, or even the internet it self. We have always argued that "many eyes" makes for better software. Could "many eyes" lead to better law?
Real competition drives innovation and makes good for customers.
"Competition," in the software development sense, is NOT necessarily good for customers. In fact, in business the word simply means mining the customer's pocket book for cash at the expense, hopefully, of competitors. Competition in the world of DOS and Windows lead to bloated software like MS Office (and OpenOffice) and the demise of great software and utilities as vendor/publishers attempted to compete with the over-production of MS. It killed many of them without improving the customer's lot at all.
Competition IS better for customers than a monopoly. A monopoly mines the same pocket books for cash without more justification than the wish to do so. MS arbitrarily creates its own "standards," and then attempts to for their acceptance by customers. The current forms of WinXP and MS Office offer no important useability features and lots of inconvenience including security holes, massive patching required and on-going, intrusive license agreements and the use and operation of private systems for MS's purposes without true permission from the owner. When the user sees MS as the only game in town, the click through agreement is NOT voluntary. It is out of desperation and the hopre that a new Windows will work better than the old did. None of this is intended to improve the user's experience.
Microsoft is between the proverbial rock and hard spot. If you consider historical trends and rates of development, Linux is profoundly faster in the rate at which it has been developed than any proprietary OS. Linux once was notorious for its problems with device drivers. These days that problem is long gone. It has been argued that Windows was more convenient and once that was true, but these days, the convenience of not having to reboot Linux after and installation alone reflects poorly on windows, especially when comparatively trivial progams require a reboot to work after installation. The historical evidence suggests that within a comparatively short time Linux user interfaces will be far better than anything MS has. You can argue that linux already has this, but not everyone will agree.
Presently, the only sound reason for using Windows is for the applications and with Open Office and Star Office as well as many others, even this is becoming a weak argument.
Microsoft cannot afford to ignore the manner in which Linux develops. The irony of course is that they can't afford to emulate it as a proprietary company either. The fact is, MS cannot afford to hire a work force of the size and qualifications that marks the group that developes Linux.
Not as juvenile as the movie, this book will challenge a young adult and their beliefs about citizenship, the military, and life. I think it had a profound influence on my decision to join the Marine Corps and to stick it out.
The movie was a disaster wrapped in a catastrophe. How many who watched it will know that Rico character was actually from the Phillipines and spoke Tagalog as his first language? I am still not certain which part I disliked the most after that, the Nazi-looking eath guys or the fire-farting beetles from Orion. That was one really bad movie.
Personally, I prefer Heinlein's work. For Asimov his mystery I Robot is a great story. Personally the Foundation series bored me neyond tears. Heinlein in contrast always told craftsman like stories, though you might like or dislike his take on things. The problem of course was assuming you knew what that might be. The best test of understanding is to try and imagine the mind that could write BOTH Stranger in a Strange Land and Starship Troopers simultaneously, which HeinLein did. I have always thought his best story was The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. Job is also a pretty sharp commentary, though you may begin to think it repeats views of earlier books.
Now, considering Starship Troopers, you really, really need a better pair of reading glasses, since you seem to have confused it with some other work. The "problem" in Starship Troopers is political. How does a society decide who is sufficiently responsible to particpate in the political process. The answer Heinlein offered was not one he necessarily advocated. Heinlein appears to say that only those willing to serve society in some capacity, e.g. soldier, mailman, government scientist, experiment-test subject should be allowed to vote. Corporate big-wigs like Rico's father sneer at wasting time in politics and prefer to ignore the process until the bombs start falling.
When I say "appears" that is precisely the slight of hand Heinlein uses. He is not exposing you to his own opinion. During one of the courses Rico has to take, the question is raised as to how the characters in the story know this "present" state is politically right. The answer Heinlein's instructor advances is that they don't know it's right, just that it works well enough for society to function. The implication is that societies work as long as a majority of its citizens are satisfied with the status quo, and if the individual members find it intolerable then they need to work change it. It is actually a fair insight into how any society works and why it's members are often reluctant to change. About the only unequivocal assertion Heinlein makes in the book is that war is always founded in economics, even putative religious wars. Job or Stranger may have been closer to Heinlein's ideals than Starship Troopers was.
The sciences that Heinlein really tackles in his fiction are anthropology and sociology and [grimace] political "science." A good and explicit example of this is his novel "Citizen of the Galaxy," which has been trivialized by critics fairly often. Heinlein uses technological fiction as a backbone to expose the central character to different societies and values. Among other things one of the central character's discoveries is that you shouldn't mistake the fact that any society can contain worthwhile people with the idea that the society itself is worthwhile. This is both implicit and explicitly dealt with in the book through the experience and characters the central character is exposed to.
Probably one of his most chilling and creepily accurate predictions is in the novel Between Planets. If you doubt that he predicted someting like this, reread it and then consider the course the present administration is taking regarding Homeland "Security" and particularly the so-called Patriot Act. The weakening of civil and individual rights is there. The excuse of security is there. The implication that the "need" for stronger security may be due to the arrogance and intolerance of the "Federal" government is lurking there as well. Even the suggestion that far from learning from our own history, we are engaged in repeating it is there. These ideas also lurk in Stranger in a Strange Land as well.
Heinlein is writer on a par with Kipling. Both have been accused of an enormous amount of political incorrectness. Yet their work contradicts every attempt at some simple minded generalization about them, and even contains examples where they examine issues and even show clear sympathy for views and ideas their critics accuse t
Slashdot Mirror
It's always good to remember that there just might be something you don't fully understand left in the world.
I second that, otherwise why not go into the priesthood somewhere?
You have to spend time overseas in some place such as Ukraine or Israel before you really begin to understand how much more, even most of the 80% who share the 20% have than is needed. In 1996 a well-off Ukrainian Masters level scientist might be paid the equivalent of $50 a month. Much of the stuff we cram into our living space they do without quite comfortably. At the same time they also had far more leisure than we would be comfortable with. A working class Jewish Israeli had a similar situation (somewhat better pay) while an Arab Israeli generally had less and still would take time to be hospitable and serve a mean cup of coffee or even arak.
...okay spelling is important but that's about it...
Actually, you should remember Thos. Jefferson's words, "I have nothing but contempt for a man you can spell a word in but one way."
The virus writers might try, but the trick with viruses is that they have to be executed somehow. Linux doesn't execute just anything that wanders in off the net. The commonest problems are social engineering, and the damage that this can cause on a typical desktop linux install is really limited. Neither Linux nor Unix nor most non-MS OS's offer the "convenience" features that are the real problem with Windows.
The main reason that MS has these "features" is that they are "marketer friendly" aspects of the OS that permit marketers to add "oh wow!" bits like animated gifs and Macromedia flash code to the junk they spew. It's pointless, stupid, and time wasting, but marketers find that this stuff works. Linux is run by marketing, so it is not going to be automatically more friendly.
The short form is that Linux is, and will continue to be inherently safer than Windows. It has a 10-year head start on security, a superior and better trained development staff, and believe it or not, in terms of real value, a bigger budget than MS can deploy. With the adherence of IBM and Novell, Linux even has some serious financial backing and, potentially, access to important patents. My main concern with IBM and Novell is that they are, and have to be, profit driven, which means that they also have a potential marketer-friendly bias.
There are quite a number of "safe" clients for Windows. The main thing is that you have to be certain they aren't just a new "skin" for the basic MS code that has the problems to begin with (of course that pretty well eliminates Windows, BWTH). If the software requires IE or .net, I would look for something else.
slips and provides accurate results and unbiased comments. The reporting on Mi2 seems to be that they did their best to compare Windows and Linux by comparing the best numbers they could find for Windows with anything at all that could be dredged up "against" Linux. The fact is there are only something like two Linux viruses. These aren't serious as long as you are running as root all the time. There are quite a few root kits and worms though, which is what chkrootkit is for.
The site where the story broke indicates that SCO has verified that the email is genuine. That may of course be an artful ruse, but then, maybe you work at SCO, but in Keith Lamuer's terms, would not be considered a "usually reliable source" (i.e. - the guys at the top and the janitor who has access to the waste baskets.
You might for instance be trying to do real work, and as an honest employee, you would be left out of those meetings where deniability was crucial. I have worked for companies where there was no one between me and the owners and they could still "secretly" do some really stupid things, that I would not hear of until it was too late. It's tough on the ego, but well, perhaps you are too honest to trust worthy.
Why would anyone NEED to send HTML for everyday e-mail? The "scriptable" nature of Outlook simply caters to email marketing. All it does is make it possible to fill your email in-basket with same kind of day-glo tripe that cascades through the s-mail box every day.
I don't believe triboluminescence results from nuclear fusion.
That's what my other head said before I gagged it. I have also taken away Mom's Life Savers.
You better read it again. One of the main points was that the study concluded that the damage is cumulative. Taking a break from the blow drier and using a towel won't help. It'll just delay things. Still, what's a few brain cells among friends, eh?
when over consecutive editorial, functional and algorithmic changes a "contributor's" contributions are edited away? In an OSS situation it is feasible for practically all the original code to be removed or modified beyond recognition. Are the original and interim authors whose code helped but is no longer present STILL contributors?
Actually, I don't think he was suggesting that SCO enemies were at fault. Quite the contrary, he simply pointed out that there are many more with the interests I suggested than who have an anti-SCO agenda. So really, we all agreed.
Another thing I didn't mention before. Remember this bug evidently came out of Russia. While this might be stereotyping, remember that chess is the national pass-time there. One key tactic in chess is to have your oponent looking where you WANT them to look, rather than where you intend to really direct your force.
RTA. The object is a white dwarf. It is luminous; so yes, they are seeing light from 50 light years. The conclusion that the object has a crystalline core though has nothing directly to do with spectral data. So again, RTA.
Secondly, who has any real motive besides the Linux users that stand to lose the most? BBC did nothing wrong by pointing the spotlight at the people most likely to have done it.
That opinion is so thick the author undoubtedly lives under a bridge. People with motives - hmm, let's see. How about spammers and computer extortionist and anyone else with a strong economic interest in seeing that the insecurities inherent in Windows remain available to them. Heck, you could even suggest that Symantec has a motive, since there is little economic viability in antivirus software for linux or unix. When you consider that 75% of the MyDoom infections DID NOT carry a payload addressing SCO, then it is quite easily as reasonable to suspect that the SCO thing was just misdirection.
... probably think its just you. If they have to move in with their mother in law on higher ground, they probably consider the situation worse than frightening. Also anyone who wonders whether the mass and energy transfers involved might affect the seismic stability around the Pacific rim might also suspect its just you. If you depend on an accurate geoid for your work and the darn thing keeps changing, well it might not be frightening, but it could be irritating.
That would be the case if he were arguing "correctly" instead of clouding the issue with irrelevancies like blasting through the earth's crust. That is very much a tactic of the Limbaugh Right and similar to your efforts to go further off-topic by bringing up drain cleaners and BGH.
I have been present when a cleaning agent was accidentally reacted yielding chlorine gas. Since we were just kids doing assigned household chores, and no one warned us not to use this cleaner on that surface the supposition that this is not a unique event is easy to make and easier to verify. It was luck that no one was seriously hurt. Since similar accidents are fairly common place for firefighters, I conclude household chemicals are far more of a risk than nukes. On the other hand, I suspect based upon other peoples evidence that BSE is way, way less scary than it is made out to be. BGH was hurried into use without properly completing even FDA mandated tests. Risks, perceived, real, and poorly defined and understood, are what I addressed, which seemed to be relevant to the topic. Rush never did under stand relevancy.
to argue correctly that the percieved risks of nuclear power are far greater than any known actual risk from them. Hyperbole looks good in a paper for a course in English or Journalism, but it doesn't communicate risk, it communicates fear. When the fear is largely unfounded or based or other hyperbole, it is of little use to reiterate it. The typical automobile is more dangerous than a normal nuclear reactor.
If you want to worry about something with a significant risk, start thinking about some of the cleaning agents that typically lurk under a household sink and bathroom medicine cabinet. THEY typically contain all the necessaries to produce some really lethal, and viciously explosive stuff that makes the toxicity of plutonium look tame. What you might find is really bothersome is hos the small the number of our fellow citizens is that know enough about this not to accidentally kill themselves, their families and their neighbors. Or perhaps you could dig into whether BGH or BSE is more dangerous to you and your family - which is scarier, mad cow disease or milk from growth-hormone-dosed cows?
"discovered" so far. To judge from SCO's notice of [non]compliance, they apparently failed extravagantly to meet the court's order. They should be thinking about how to convinve the court that their suit isn't frivolous, and about convincing IBM to settle (e.g. by 'em out). Evidently, they aren't anxious, or else have neurological checksum problems in the board room. You would think that if they DID have actual evidence, that they would have shown IBM convincing evidence and asked for an offer from IBM that would make it right. As it is, SCO's name may go down in history right next to George Armstrong Custer under famous massacres due to arrogance and over confidence.
Come on, think about GPL requirements for using and redistributing GPL'd code, then remember that these guys are offering the design and software for a device, then compare. They release the design and software (and any device based on the design) for public or private use (I wish I could be certain about the translation of the German - there's an odd passage about a view of the circuit board "with eagle"). If you improve the system, they want you to return the original favour. I don't think that proposal comes close to any form of theft, let alone "outright theft," and it does compare with the GPL more or less.
...Second, the community didn't just flock to Slashdot and bitch about how SCO sux, ...
/. and Groklaw have little to do with either Marx's ideas of collectivism or his ideas about economics. These effects reach far beyond anything Marx could have imagined. We see the barest outline of an unanticipated property made possible through the ability of people to communicate and organize through the internet.
The operative word there is "just." The implication is that the community did MORE than just complain. Concerning "communism" the effects we see in
SCO attempted to use the "big lie" approach to achieve its intents. What the present owners of the TSG and their backers (represented by commentators such as Yankee Groups DiDio) did not anticipate was that interested parties could counter their "big lies" so effectively and quickly with "big facts." The internet makes available historical information about the development of unix, Linux, and the legal histories of SCO, Caldera, TSG, IBM, Novel and other movers and shakers that would be impossible to fully access, let alone properly employ in any vision of the future Marx had, or for that matter, the owners of SCO and the Canopy Group.
Groklaw reflects the crystalization of a group of interested researchers, users and legally knowledgeable individuals around an issue that really falls within the realm of law rather than software. It reflects serious effort to collect, analyze and interpret relevant information and advocate a legal position. It redefines the idea of amicus curia(e??). PJ provides that critical property around which the effort could crystallize.
If you are interested in social phenomena, the potential of Groklaw is, to put it mildly, fascinating. While the immediate point of interest is the SCO-IBM lawsuit, there is absolutely no reason to think that such legal effects will be limited to opensource vs. proprietary software legal issues, regardless of the success or failure of the various parties in the present suit. The relevant fact is that Groklaw is about law not software. You are watching a potential change in legal affairs that could easily be more important in the years to come than any particular computer system, or even the internet it self. We have always argued that "many eyes" makes for better software. Could "many eyes" lead to better law?
Mod the parent "funny."
Real competition drives innovation and makes good for customers.
"Competition," in the software development sense, is NOT necessarily good for customers. In fact, in business the word simply means mining the customer's pocket book for cash at the expense, hopefully, of competitors. Competition in the world of DOS and Windows lead to bloated software like MS Office (and OpenOffice) and the demise of great software and utilities as vendor/publishers attempted to compete with the over-production of MS. It killed many of them without improving the customer's lot at all.
Competition IS better for customers than a monopoly. A monopoly mines the same pocket books for cash without more justification than the wish to do so. MS arbitrarily creates its own "standards," and then attempts to for their acceptance by customers. The current forms of WinXP and MS Office offer no important useability features and lots of inconvenience including security holes, massive patching required and on-going, intrusive license agreements and the use and operation of private systems for MS's purposes without true permission from the owner. When the user sees MS as the only game in town, the click through agreement is NOT voluntary. It is out of desperation and the hopre that a new Windows will work better than the old did. None of this is intended to improve the user's experience.
Microsoft is between the proverbial rock and hard spot. If you consider historical trends and rates of development, Linux is profoundly faster in the rate at which it has been developed than any proprietary OS. Linux once was notorious for its problems with device drivers. These days that problem is long gone. It has been argued that Windows was more convenient and once that was true, but these days, the convenience of not having to reboot Linux after and installation alone reflects poorly on windows, especially when comparatively trivial progams require a reboot to work after installation. The historical evidence suggests that within a comparatively short time Linux user interfaces will be far better than anything MS has. You can argue that linux already has this, but not everyone will agree.
Presently, the only sound reason for using Windows is for the applications and with Open Office and Star Office as well as many others, even this is becoming a weak argument.
Microsoft cannot afford to ignore the manner in which Linux develops. The irony of course is that they can't afford to emulate it as a proprietary company either. The fact is, MS cannot afford to hire a work force of the size and qualifications that marks the group that developes Linux.
Starship Troopers
Not as juvenile as the movie, this book will challenge a young adult and their beliefs about citizenship, the military, and life. I think it had a profound influence on my decision to join the Marine Corps and to stick it out.
The movie was a disaster wrapped in a catastrophe. How many who watched it will know that Rico character was actually from the Phillipines and spoke Tagalog as his first language? I am still not certain which part I disliked the most after that, the Nazi-looking eath guys or the fire-farting beetles from Orion. That was one really bad movie.
Personally, I prefer Heinlein's work. For Asimov his mystery I Robot is a great story. Personally the Foundation series bored me neyond tears. Heinlein in contrast always told craftsman like stories, though you might like or dislike his take on things. The problem of course was assuming you knew what that might be. The best test of understanding is to try and imagine the mind that could write BOTH Stranger in a Strange Land and Starship Troopers simultaneously, which HeinLein did. I have always thought his best story was The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. Job is also a pretty sharp commentary, though you may begin to think it repeats views of earlier books.
Now, considering Starship Troopers, you really, really need a better pair of reading glasses, since you seem to have confused it with some other work. The "problem" in Starship Troopers is political. How does a society decide who is sufficiently responsible to particpate in the political process. The answer Heinlein offered was not one he necessarily advocated. Heinlein appears to say that only those willing to serve society in some capacity, e.g. soldier, mailman, government scientist, experiment-test subject should be allowed to vote. Corporate big-wigs like Rico's father sneer at wasting time in politics and prefer to ignore the process until the bombs start falling.
When I say "appears" that is precisely the slight of hand Heinlein uses. He is not exposing you to his own opinion. During one of the courses Rico has to take, the question is raised as to how the characters in the story know this "present" state is politically right. The answer Heinlein's instructor advances is that they don't know it's right, just that it works well enough for society to function. The implication is that societies work as long as a majority of its citizens are satisfied with the status quo, and if the individual members find it intolerable then they need to work change it. It is actually a fair insight into how any society works and why it's members are often reluctant to change. About the only unequivocal assertion Heinlein makes in the book is that war is always founded in economics, even putative religious wars. Job or Stranger may have been closer to Heinlein's ideals than Starship Troopers was.
The sciences that Heinlein really tackles in his fiction are anthropology and sociology and [grimace] political "science." A good and explicit example of this is his novel "Citizen of the Galaxy," which has been trivialized by critics fairly often. Heinlein uses technological fiction as a backbone to expose the central character to different societies and values. Among other things one of the central character's discoveries is that you shouldn't mistake the fact that any society can contain worthwhile people with the idea that the society itself is worthwhile. This is both implicit and explicitly dealt with in the book through the experience and characters the central character is exposed to.
Probably one of his most chilling and creepily accurate predictions is in the novel Between Planets. If you doubt that he predicted someting like this, reread it and then consider the course the present administration is taking regarding Homeland "Security" and particularly the so-called Patriot Act. The weakening of civil and individual rights is there. The excuse of security is there. The implication that the "need" for stronger security may be due to the arrogance and intolerance of the "Federal" government is lurking there as well. Even the suggestion that far from learning from our own history, we are engaged in repeating it is there. These ideas also lurk in Stranger in a Strange Land as well.
Heinlein is writer on a par with Kipling. Both have been accused of an enormous amount of political incorrectness. Yet their work contradicts every attempt at some simple minded generalization about them, and even contains examples where they examine issues and even show clear sympathy for views and ideas their critics accuse t