"I don't think they had Wookiees in mind when they built this Chewie" - Han Solo
or
"I don't think they had Linux in mind when they built Surface" - Me.
So by that definition Linux is not ready for the desktop, but it's great on PCs and a lot of other gadgets. It's all about what you mean by "desktop". When I see Debian running on Surface THEN Linux will be ready for the desktop, who knows maybe it'll be beaten to the finish line by the BSDs.
I have no problems if people want to surf that way but please Mozilla DON'T do what you did with the Awesome Bar, make it an OPTION for users, don't force their hand. I love tabs in Firefox, I don't want to be forced away from them. If need be, we can have an addon to reverse the process but it'd be nice if Mozilla let it be an option from the start.
You're needs must be very specific, your methods in problem solving need a rethink or you must be very unlucky.
The installation / post installation setup comparisons between Windows and Linux I split into two parts:
1 - From either blank HD or already installed OS to wipe / dual boot with, to first log in screen 2 - Post installation configuration of hardware, installation of updates, restored documents etc
Part 1 there's little difference between them, Linux tends to be quicker, has no hassle with product keys but otherwise much the same. Peoples hardware mileage may vary but on the same PC I can install XP in about 50 minutes and Linux Mint in about 30 minutes.
Part 2 is a world of difference, with Windows you're then faced with multiple reboots, having to have all your driver CDs handy to feed them one at a time for the hardware not picked up by Windows itself. Not forgetting the fact that your first installed programs should be your anti-virus & firewall, so you can actually get online to get updates from Microsoft in reasonable safety.
I once installed a fresh XP where the first thing I did was a Windows update only to be hit with the MSBlaster worm.....the one and only time I've met that little bugger. After a couple of hours fighting it I decided to just reinstall Windows, so about 50mins later I was back to the same spot....ready to install drivers etc.
There will always be people with hardware which Linux does not pick up on installation and there is no Linux driver on the CD that came with it. This is getting less and less frequent by the month but it can still happen. In many cases Googling for it will get you a solution pretty quick, in some cases you're going to have to adapt a little if the solution is for Mandriva and you;re using Ubuntu but it may be a generic enough solution that it will apply anyway. In many cases you can talk to the developers directly and see if they can help. Not buying crippled (as in locked to Windows) hardware in the first place is the best solution but unless it's clearly marked as crippled you can't know. It also does not affect stuff you already have.
One thing about drivers which does impress me in Linux is that they tend to be minimal to just getting the hardware working. Sometimes they won't have a separate GUI at all, they'll use the same dialog boxes from inside other applications. To me, this is real integration as it should be. In Windows when you shove the CD in you tend to get several applications installing with their own GUI's, the quality may vary as well as the necessity. Often vendors will use this to install lots of trialware shit on your PC in the hopes that you'll try it, become hooked and decide to fork out cash for it.
As far as localization to areas with language options are concerned, Both Apple & Microsoft will bother with you if they see enough money to be made by investing in that option. They only spend money to make money, not to please their users. Large FOSS projects tend to be more well equipped for that because people are allowed to modify it for themselves and not rely on the sufferance of a large US corporation. Try something like Debian or Ubuntu.
Three or four hours to get Windows all the way through to being ready to work sounds about right for me too. Linux is about half of that, and most of the Linux time is transferring my documents back from me external USB 2 HD. When I can add a few repos to my Synaptic then run a simple command like:
Followed by the removal of the stuff the distro has by default that I don't want, followed by a reboot if there's a kernel or video driver update. I find that so much easier as I can issue a few commands and sit back as it does it's stuff without prompting me. It's so much more hands off than having to keep swapping CDs, rebooting and following GUI wizards for each new program one at a time. Call me lazy if you want but I like simplicity when it's there.
On the subject of the 264 codec, is that the same one used in Flash? I know the one in Flash is patented but free to use for now. That changes in (I think) April 2010. The patent holders plan to start charging for it's use. They haven't disclosed details of how yet. It may mean that any website streaming Flash content will have to pay for the privilege, so YouTube have a bit of a headache to face. If Apple use the same codec for QuickTime etc their users will face the same legal future. Is there an alternate codec the iPhone can use instead of 264?
The Software Freedom Law Center podcast have a great episode which explains it in a lot of detail, and gets it legally correct instead of my vague recollections. I can't see the episode in the show notes, sorry. I've found a wiki page about licensing which appears to state that payments may be unenforcible. If they can enforce it, it may be under a "free for non-profit" style terms.
They are indoctrinated to a world of malware, reboots and crashes. They are convinced that's just the way PC's are, so they stick with the devil they know rather than attempt to learn anything new. They refuse to open their minds to anything else. These people will cling onto Windows well after Microsoft go bankrupt and no longer provide updates. These people will sit securely in their own bubble and assume they are safe and secure. If it wasn't for the fact that EVERY user gets the fallout from Microsoft botnets regardless of their OS, I'd say leave them be.
This is the same excuse used to promote CCTV expansion, that the cameras "make the place safer because criminals are deterred from acting". It's bullshit, all the cameras do is provide video evidence of a crime which can later be used in court, assuming it happens within the viewing area of the camera, the perpetrators are caught and the case actually gets to court. The deterrent angle is bogus. You only have to look on YouTube for CCTV idiocy to see that people will do what they want regardless of the cameras.
I don't have any problem with the idea of a central secure database where different agencies can access the parts of it they need to know to carry out their jobs. I think this is a great idea for efficiency.
What I do have a problem with is that the government have a long history of expensive insecure failed IT systems which don't deliver and inevitably breach to the public via some idiot leaving a laptop on a train etc. Usually it's the same IT firms who get the contracts over and over again to profit from the taxpayer for their failures. These "solutions" are never designed for the public good, they're designed to gain political points for the party who (at least looks like providing) solutions to the Daily Mail's "won't someone think of the children!!!!" ravings.
Given how close Microsoft are to every government this solution (like every other IT solution) will no doubt be running on Windows, so I hope part of the "training" will include "don't click on pedo.exe". Sarcasm aside, I wouldn't trust ANYTHING to Windows, let alone something which needs to be ultra secure.
There are plenty of ways to set up databases to show / hide certain fields depending on what group permissions the user has, a lot of software has this functionality built in. Operating systems have this built in with user accounts. With the right aims, this CAN be done, I just don't trust the government or the contractors who get the job to do it right.
Sorry to reply to my own post but/. does not have an edit feature so I had to add a new post for further points.
The other side to this approach is that whatever one the press go for, the other gets a reasonably free ride. If the press stick with the expense abuse / fraud stories, the database / invasion of privacy story goes undetected, and most likely without any opposition; meaning the government can then claim "hey, we did our part legally and announced it, nobody complained." If they go for the database story MPs who have had their feet to the fire over allegations of fraud get breathing time to destroy evidence, practice their excuses and call in favors which may keep them in a job....or at least keep their pensions and be allowed to resign with no charges to face and their reputations intact.
Either way it's a lose / lose for the people. Let's hope the people remember these games at election day.
Announced to the media when the government are being hammered in the news over some other scandal. They do this all the time, the Torries before them did it too. Often they announce shit they KNOW is controversial and have no intention of actually doing just to make the press write about something else and forget the scandal they were writing about. It's the equivalent of waving a new flashy toy at a toddler to distract him so you can grab her blanky to get it washed as she won't knowingly let it go.
As far as the cost is concerned, the government just got an influx of unexpected cash from ministers in the form of repayments, so they can afford to splurge a little on some untendered, no doubt proprietary solution provided by an IT company who spend more on lobbying than their solutions, no doubt running on Windows. They will also keep the details hidden behind a commercial confidentiality NDA excuse too.
Labour do seem hell bent on kicked out at the next election with the added bonus of becoming unelectable, good luck to the bastards.
You're right in the fact that short term employees who could be unemployed next week will always be motivated to make sure their next paycheck comes. This is not an ideal situation and I totally understand the quick fix solution of minimal upheaval, rather than long term "what's best for the company".
Often when the pressures on, the mindset will be to be very conservative rather than take a risk. Sadly, this will see many more fails. There are plenty more Windows trained "experts" who can be employed mucho cheap. How "expert" they are is open to question but they do have a piece of paper telling the employers insurance company they are experts, which is all that really matters to some. The bottom line is that you get what you pay for. You pay peanuts; you employ monkeys.
Any migration is going to need hefty planning before a single bit is changed. All of the re-training etc is going to have to be sorted in advance, along with support options. The big difference is that in a lot of cases the proprietary option will likely offer their own support, where you may be looking at a different company supporting a FOSS application.
I see a difference here in "open standards" and FOSS as much as I advocate both. Storing data in open standards allows you to choose between application vendors which clients to use. At least your data is not held hostage by a third party company who don't give a shit about you.
Large scale organizations with IT departments who are stuck on IE6 intranets know they're gonna be in for one-helluva-time upgrading what they have to fit with a modern browser. They know they're in for a lot of upheaval and cost to re-engineer stuff. They know it's not gonna be an overnight change. Cutting corners may well be out of the question when alternate options are discussed. If it's gonna cost a fortune in money and re-training anyway, let's do it right. By using FOSS applications for fill some gaps they can mark those off as "done" and concentrate resources on the stuff the off-the-shelf FOSS applications don't do, but they still need.
Migrating to FOSS may be harder in the short term, but if you have to migrate anyway, why not move to an open standard so that the next move you have to make will be painless. Jumping from one box to another because it's easier seems irresponsible to me.
In the days where normal people couldn't have their opinions read / heard / seen by the masses, the position of those in organizations like newspapers had some perceived value to them. With the widespread adoption of the internet allowing more people than ever to have their opinions widely spread we are starting to see that many so called "professional" writers are not that much better than amateurs with blogs. We can do what they do for free. There are "proper journalists" who do stand out, but those are the minority, not the majority.
We have also long seen that "news" organizations are nothing more than agenda machines who will seek to feed every story through their political / moral / religious agenda to try and influence their audience......again I ask, what is so different about bloggers? The concept that being part of an organization brings a level of trusted journalism is mostly bullshit. It does carry the guarantee that the story put out will be part of that agenda, regardless of how much they have to twist it out of all context to make it fit.
Any source of "news" is reliant on it's credibility. That credibility is earned, not paid for by sponsors. Traditional news organizations have long held the upper hand and abused the truth for their own ends with nobody else as an alternative. They now face the facts that many bloggers have more credibility than the so called "professionals". They now face the fact that bloggers content is just a click away.
Poor journalists will fall in the face of this, no doubt whining to their unions and anyone who will listen that they're being hard done by and that "the public good" will be harmed by their unemployment while journalists who have stood firm and tried their hardest to "report" the news rather than try to "set" the news to a particular agenda will prosper. Reputation is everything.
Fox News is an perfect example of an agenda network with the name "news" in the title to try and pretend otherwise. Given their collusion with the Bush regime and detachment from reality they deserve all the karma they have coming.
The advantages to you are that you have too much money and Microsoft don't have enough, it's about equilibrium and all that bullshit. By donating to a multi-billion-dollar bonus fund you can feel good about yourself that you have helped a poor board member while also ensuring that you couldn't spend that money on anything wasteful......like food for example. By cutting back on food you can lose some weight which has all sorts of benefits. A fitness regime which consists in part of vigorous forum posting demanding that XP be allowed to live beyond it's execution date will help too. Don't helping your fellow man feel good?
Some of their online music departments have embraced Drupal in a big way for artists sites. Some people do "get it", just not those who see their profit / control bottleneck being burst wide open. Granted they have a long history of doing crazy proprietary shit instead of embracing standards but who knows, perhaps over the years the Drupal people can be influential to other departments to embrace the internet rather than fear it. How many technologies can one company create their own failed versions of before the ROI is seen as an epic fail? I'm guessing that ROI has a higher standard to meet in the current climate too.
So now we're onto suits? Not the usual two or three piece ones either, it has to be some fancy criminal or civil suits. Why can't we just wear jeans and a t-shirt?
Or is a criminal suit just another term for prison issue jump suit? Come to think of it, are jump suits allowed to be given to those on suicide watch? Seems like an encouragement of their intentions to me. Will there be law suits if that happens, and if so, where do we buy these law suits? Can we rent them?
Or is this like some WWE match with two blokes in suits trash talking each other before poking each other with pens and smacking each other with filofaxes? Spivmatch.....maybe I should sell the concept of that reality show to some TV network, where the audience are comprised of people the spivs have robbed with ponzi schemes over the years. The winner gets a quick death, the loser gets ripped apart by the audience......slowly.
Is that along the hall from the place reserved for the hate mongers who picket funerals with placards telling them "AIDS is God's punishment for allowing gays to live" etc? We seem to have a special place reserved in hell for a lot of classes of people so I'm curious who I'm gonna be roomies with when the time comes.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those assholes, I just growl at people who watch their dogs shit on the path then walk away and leave it. OK so it's not in the same league but it's not pious thoughts going through my head at that time either.....I'm leaning more towards the dark side in those moments, so I'm guessing that by someone's book I'm going to hell. I wanna make sure my coffin is packed with marshmallows instead of those polystyrene snowy bits so I'll have something to spear and enjoy while I'm being spit roasted myself...call it transference, call it a way to pass the time, I don't care.
The way I see it is that if we crowd source our wisdom we can work out a seating arrangement for Hell so we can be better prepared when we get there. Until there's internet access in the afterlife, asking people to cite sources may be a tad difficult, but we're an honest bunch of sinners, we can trust each other.....right?
The world is littered with creative people who believe they are good enough in their chosen art form to deserve a handsome lifestyle from their efforts and spend their days working a normal job like everyone else to pay the bills. Do they stop doing their art because the world won't co-operate and pay them for their art? Anyone who believes they will stop is deluding themselves. Art is created because people have something they want to say, in the form they want to express it, regardless of whether or not anyone else "gets it", or even sees it.
It's a nice dream to make your living from your art but only a small fraction of creative people ever achieve that. It's been like that from the start and will continue that way. It's the golden carrot offered to the contestants on shows like Pop Idol "it CAN be you but in all likelihood, it won't be you.....or it may be you for a short while so make the best of it before you're dumped back to reality."
Trying to fight against the internet is futile too, unless you want to waste your time and money following the RIAA / MPAA model of suing your customers. The internet has steamrolled many business models which were previously very lucrative, your best option would be to look for ways to adapt to it and use it.
Offer something of added value like signed copies of your dead tree versions and cheap (or even free) ebook versions. Go for the Creative Commons approach and allow your customers to adapt your characters and stories with their own fan fiction. Stories, regardless of their medium are about connecting with the audience, some of that audience are creative too, in fact most of them are probably more creative than they realize but would never act on any impulses. By allowing your customers the freedom to live with the characters they've connected with, it will win you more loyalty, with more of them likely to want to reward you by buying a signed dead tree copy even if they never open it, just to support you. Let them build a community around the world you've created, or set a website / forum up yourself and encourage participation of art work etc.
In short...engage your audience, allow them to get involved in the world they've connected with. You will reap what you sow; if that's DRM and lawsuits your rewards will be that many of your audience who would like you, will have no compunction NOT to pirate your stuff feeling that you deserve to be ripped off. Engage them, encourage them and reward them and they will reward you in return.
The choice is yours, all it needs is some thought, attention and enthusiasm. For a creative person this should be second nature.
Would this be the same netcraft that gives the results corporations like Apple and Microsoft pay for? You may as well be quoting IDG or Gartner figures, it all amounts to the same.
I wonder where the choice of rendering engine enters this discussion. I love Firefox but it is a tad heavy with the addons I use. Even before I start to install addons a bare Firefox profile does not feel as snappy as I believe it should. As much as I can't really adapt to Opera as my full-time browser it does feel snappier even when loading adverts etc than Firefox when blocking them. I have heard WebKit is a snappy rendering engine, Konquerer and Safari both seem to match that appraisal, so I wonder what Firefox would perform like if it were using WebKit instead of Gecko. I heard ages ago of a project that was aimed at doing just that, but ain't heard anything since; anyone know if it stalled?
We know that a lot of large scale organizations have IE6 ONLY intranets so they struggle to even move their users up to IE7 or 8, let alone switch to another browser. When these sites were built, the IT departments and upper management were no doubt promised the earth in advantages to their organizations to make it locked in to IE6. Any responsible board will have been plagued by reports from any responsible IT department for years now that IE6 is redundant and that they need to find a way to move users to a modern secure browser (even if they still think it's the latest Microsoft offering). They will be well aware that they are locked in, and will have to spend a LOT of time and money to reinvent the wheel to make that happen, not to mention the upheaval involved in switching the organization over with as little disruption as possible.
Given that they are in this situation because they willingly built themselves into a box, what are the chances that they will escape that box by building themselves into a new box? Especially a new box owned by the same company who supplied that one they're spending a lot of money escaping from? Only a dipshit would jump from one box to another, regardless of the threats or slick words from a Microsoft rep. This would be a no-brainer decision at board room level to say "we can't afford to be locked in, we need to be flexible, so we build to proper standards." Having said that, looking at many large scale organizations you'd be hard pushed not to class many of the elite as "greedy corrupted dipshits in suits" so you never know.
Many intranets were built using proprietary programming built for that company alone and bosses know that rewriting that for a new system will be expensive. Luckily this is where plenty of FOSS software options come in, like Drupal or Joomla. There is plenty of free options with plenty flexibility to do a LOT of stuff already available. That can save a fortune that would have been paid to write another round of proprietary solutions which would fit the new box. Many FOSS solutions are getting very mature and very stable for large deployments now, with the development / updates / features being submitted from people all over the world.
The sooner this ripples through more and more organizations, IE's user share falls even faster.
Firefox 2 got that reputation although since I only used it on GTK Linux I didn't really notice it. It did not theme with my other GTK stuff but didn't look out of place either. Having said that I did use the GNOME theme on it. I know Firefox 3 was built to look more native to each platform but again, I've not really noticed. Firefox 3 does follow GTK theme changes and adopts the icons etc like other GTK applications. It certainly feels more native than a QT application on my system.
There's a major difference between looking a bit odd but being (reasonably) feature equivalent and not being available at all. I've yet to try Safari but from what I hear it's great on OSX but less so on Windows, and through WINE on Linux. Given that last contempt for the platform I suspect it will be a long time before I try it. IE? The browser invented to break standards and lock people into Windows?
Microsoft have long relied on consumer ignorance to keep their market share. They do everything possible to ensure that consumer never sees any credible alternatives. They like the fact that people think of a Windows PC simply as a "PC". They rely on the fact that people think IE IS the internet. They like the fact that people don't think of a word processor, they think of Microsoft Word. When more people start to see a break in the Microsoft storm cloud blotting the land to see there are other versions of programs made by Microsoft and start to play with them Microsoft's hold over them gradually weakens. IE's market share falling to better browsers is only one part if this.
The fact that many are free (in cost as well as freedom) compared to Microsoft's expensive licensing puts them on an uphill battle to show consumers why their product is $100 better than a rival. They may be able to skew results, quote partial figures from bought analysts like IDG. They will likely actually be better in some areas, but are they $100 better than free?
It will be slowed in workplaces with software / intranet sites etc built for Microsoft's platforms but just because people can't use a good browser / OS etc at work does not mean they will be under the same restraints at home.
Many of the management in large organizations had left school way before the PC age really took off, they've had to learn new skills to be where they are so their IT knowledge is often limited to what the large mainstream media outlets tell them. As time passes we have more IT savy people leaving schools who will gradually move into the decision making positions, which is why Microsoft are desperate to get people addicted young with EDGI.
How long will it be before Microsoft's shills appeal to the EU to allow them to bundle IE with Windows again because they are the minority browser and therefor at a disadvantage with the browsers they tried (and failed) to crush? If they are forced to stop bundling IE in the EU, or have to offer rivals like Firefox that spot, their market share will slip faster.
Microsoft are great at making themselves out to be the victim....."(online advertising and search) monopolies are bad for the consumer (but not office and OS ones......basically monopolies are bad unless we control them)".
The difference is that Firefox is standards (mostly) compliant, and seeks to keep it that way. So if web developers build "only for Firefox" the sites will work in ALL standards compliant browsers. The same can't be said for IE, brought to you by a company who use vendor lock-in as a weapon.
Slashdot Mirror
"I don't think they had Wookiees in mind when they built this Chewie" - Han Solo
or
"I don't think they had Linux in mind when they built Surface" - Me.
So by that definition Linux is not ready for the desktop, but it's great on PCs and a lot of other gadgets. It's all about what you mean by "desktop". When I see Debian running on Surface THEN Linux will be ready for the desktop, who knows maybe it'll be beaten to the finish line by the BSDs.
I have no problems if people want to surf that way but please Mozilla DON'T do what you did with the Awesome Bar, make it an OPTION for users, don't force their hand. I love tabs in Firefox, I don't want to be forced away from them. If need be, we can have an addon to reverse the process but it'd be nice if Mozilla let it be an option from the start.
You're needs must be very specific, your methods in problem solving need a rethink or you must be very unlucky.
The installation / post installation setup comparisons between Windows and Linux I split into two parts:
1 - From either blank HD or already installed OS to wipe / dual boot with, to first log in screen
2 - Post installation configuration of hardware, installation of updates, restored documents etc
Part 1 there's little difference between them, Linux tends to be quicker, has no hassle with product keys but otherwise much the same. Peoples hardware mileage may vary but on the same PC I can install XP in about 50 minutes and Linux Mint in about 30 minutes.
Part 2 is a world of difference, with Windows you're then faced with multiple reboots, having to have all your driver CDs handy to feed them one at a time for the hardware not picked up by Windows itself. Not forgetting the fact that your first installed programs should be your anti-virus & firewall, so you can actually get online to get updates from Microsoft in reasonable safety.
I once installed a fresh XP where the first thing I did was a Windows update only to be hit with the MSBlaster worm.....the one and only time I've met that little bugger. After a couple of hours fighting it I decided to just reinstall Windows, so about 50mins later I was back to the same spot....ready to install drivers etc.
There will always be people with hardware which Linux does not pick up on installation and there is no Linux driver on the CD that came with it. This is getting less and less frequent by the month but it can still happen. In many cases Googling for it will get you a solution pretty quick, in some cases you're going to have to adapt a little if the solution is for Mandriva and you;re using Ubuntu but it may be a generic enough solution that it will apply anyway. In many cases you can talk to the developers directly and see if they can help. Not buying crippled (as in locked to Windows) hardware in the first place is the best solution but unless it's clearly marked as crippled you can't know. It also does not affect stuff you already have.
One thing about drivers which does impress me in Linux is that they tend to be minimal to just getting the hardware working. Sometimes they won't have a separate GUI at all, they'll use the same dialog boxes from inside other applications. To me, this is real integration as it should be. In Windows when you shove the CD in you tend to get several applications installing with their own GUI's, the quality may vary as well as the necessity. Often vendors will use this to install lots of trialware shit on your PC in the hopes that you'll try it, become hooked and decide to fork out cash for it.
As far as localization to areas with language options are concerned, Both Apple & Microsoft will bother with you if they see enough money to be made by investing in that option. They only spend money to make money, not to please their users. Large FOSS projects tend to be more well equipped for that because people are allowed to modify it for themselves and not rely on the sufferance of a large US corporation. Try something like Debian or Ubuntu.
Three or four hours to get Windows all the way through to being ready to work sounds about right for me too. Linux is about half of that, and most of the Linux time is transferring my documents back from me external USB 2 HD. When I can add a few repos to my Synaptic then run a simple command like:
sudo apt-get install smplayer gedit vlc inkscape thunderbird
Followed by the removal of the stuff the distro has by default that I don't want, followed by a reboot if there's a kernel or video driver update. I find that so much easier as I can issue a few commands and sit back as it does it's stuff without prompting me. It's so much more hands off than having to keep swapping CDs, rebooting and following GUI wizards for each new program one at a time. Call me lazy if you want but I like simplicity when it's there.
This is probably off-topic, if so, sorry.
On the subject of the 264 codec, is that the same one used in Flash? I know the one in Flash is patented but free to use for now. That changes in (I think) April 2010. The patent holders plan to start charging for it's use. They haven't disclosed details of how yet. It may mean that any website streaming Flash content will have to pay for the privilege, so YouTube have a bit of a headache to face. If Apple use the same codec for QuickTime etc their users will face the same legal future. Is there an alternate codec the iPhone can use instead of 264?
The Software Freedom Law Center podcast have a great episode which explains it in a lot of detail, and gets it legally correct instead of my vague recollections. I can't see the episode in the show notes, sorry. I've found a wiki page about licensing which appears to state that payments may be unenforcible. If they can enforce it, it may be under a "free for non-profit" style terms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing
I could also be getting the codecs mixed up, if so.....please feel free to ignore this post.
They are indoctrinated to a world of malware, reboots and crashes. They are convinced that's just the way PC's are, so they stick with the devil they know rather than attempt to learn anything new. They refuse to open their minds to anything else. These people will cling onto Windows well after Microsoft go bankrupt and no longer provide updates. These people will sit securely in their own bubble and assume they are safe and secure. If it wasn't for the fact that EVERY user gets the fallout from Microsoft botnets regardless of their OS, I'd say leave them be.
This is the same excuse used to promote CCTV expansion, that the cameras "make the place safer because criminals are deterred from acting". It's bullshit, all the cameras do is provide video evidence of a crime which can later be used in court, assuming it happens within the viewing area of the camera, the perpetrators are caught and the case actually gets to court. The deterrent angle is bogus. You only have to look on YouTube for CCTV idiocy to see that people will do what they want regardless of the cameras.
I don't have any problem with the idea of a central secure database where different agencies can access the parts of it they need to know to carry out their jobs. I think this is a great idea for efficiency.
What I do have a problem with is that the government have a long history of expensive insecure failed IT systems which don't deliver and inevitably breach to the public via some idiot leaving a laptop on a train etc. Usually it's the same IT firms who get the contracts over and over again to profit from the taxpayer for their failures. These "solutions" are never designed for the public good, they're designed to gain political points for the party who (at least looks like providing) solutions to the Daily Mail's "won't someone think of the children!!!!" ravings.
Given how close Microsoft are to every government this solution (like every other IT solution) will no doubt be running on Windows, so I hope part of the "training" will include "don't click on pedo.exe". Sarcasm aside, I wouldn't trust ANYTHING to Windows, let alone something which needs to be ultra secure.
There are plenty of ways to set up databases to show / hide certain fields depending on what group permissions the user has, a lot of software has this functionality built in. Operating systems have this built in with user accounts. With the right aims, this CAN be done, I just don't trust the government or the contractors who get the job to do it right.
Sorry to reply to my own post but /. does not have an edit feature so I had to add a new post for further points.
The other side to this approach is that whatever one the press go for, the other gets a reasonably free ride. If the press stick with the expense abuse / fraud stories, the database / invasion of privacy story goes undetected, and most likely without any opposition; meaning the government can then claim "hey, we did our part legally and announced it, nobody complained." If they go for the database story MPs who have had their feet to the fire over allegations of fraud get breathing time to destroy evidence, practice their excuses and call in favors which may keep them in a job....or at least keep their pensions and be allowed to resign with no charges to face and their reputations intact.
Either way it's a lose / lose for the people. Let's hope the people remember these games at election day.
Announced to the media when the government are being hammered in the news over some other scandal. They do this all the time, the Torries before them did it too. Often they announce shit they KNOW is controversial and have no intention of actually doing just to make the press write about something else and forget the scandal they were writing about. It's the equivalent of waving a new flashy toy at a toddler to distract him so you can grab her blanky to get it washed as she won't knowingly let it go.
As far as the cost is concerned, the government just got an influx of unexpected cash from ministers in the form of repayments, so they can afford to splurge a little on some untendered, no doubt proprietary solution provided by an IT company who spend more on lobbying than their solutions, no doubt running on Windows. They will also keep the details hidden behind a commercial confidentiality NDA excuse too.
Labour do seem hell bent on kicked out at the next election with the added bonus of becoming unelectable, good luck to the bastards.
You're right in the fact that short term employees who could be unemployed next week will always be motivated to make sure their next paycheck comes. This is not an ideal situation and I totally understand the quick fix solution of minimal upheaval, rather than long term "what's best for the company".
Often when the pressures on, the mindset will be to be very conservative rather than take a risk. Sadly, this will see many more fails. There are plenty more Windows trained "experts" who can be employed mucho cheap. How "expert" they are is open to question but they do have a piece of paper telling the employers insurance company they are experts, which is all that really matters to some. The bottom line is that you get what you pay for. You pay peanuts; you employ monkeys.
Any migration is going to need hefty planning before a single bit is changed. All of the re-training etc is going to have to be sorted in advance, along with support options. The big difference is that in a lot of cases the proprietary option will likely offer their own support, where you may be looking at a different company supporting a FOSS application.
I see a difference here in "open standards" and FOSS as much as I advocate both. Storing data in open standards allows you to choose between application vendors which clients to use. At least your data is not held hostage by a third party company who don't give a shit about you.
Large scale organizations with IT departments who are stuck on IE6 intranets know they're gonna be in for one-helluva-time upgrading what they have to fit with a modern browser. They know they're in for a lot of upheaval and cost to re-engineer stuff. They know it's not gonna be an overnight change. Cutting corners may well be out of the question when alternate options are discussed. If it's gonna cost a fortune in money and re-training anyway, let's do it right. By using FOSS applications for fill some gaps they can mark those off as "done" and concentrate resources on the stuff the off-the-shelf FOSS applications don't do, but they still need.
Migrating to FOSS may be harder in the short term, but if you have to migrate anyway, why not move to an open standard so that the next move you have to make will be painless. Jumping from one box to another because it's easier seems irresponsible to me.
In the days where normal people couldn't have their opinions read / heard / seen by the masses, the position of those in organizations like newspapers had some perceived value to them. With the widespread adoption of the internet allowing more people than ever to have their opinions widely spread we are starting to see that many so called "professional" writers are not that much better than amateurs with blogs. We can do what they do for free. There are "proper journalists" who do stand out, but those are the minority, not the majority.
We have also long seen that "news" organizations are nothing more than agenda machines who will seek to feed every story through their political / moral / religious agenda to try and influence their audience......again I ask, what is so different about bloggers? The concept that being part of an organization brings a level of trusted journalism is mostly bullshit. It does carry the guarantee that the story put out will be part of that agenda, regardless of how much they have to twist it out of all context to make it fit.
Any source of "news" is reliant on it's credibility. That credibility is earned, not paid for by sponsors. Traditional news organizations have long held the upper hand and abused the truth for their own ends with nobody else as an alternative. They now face the facts that many bloggers have more credibility than the so called "professionals". They now face the fact that bloggers content is just a click away.
Poor journalists will fall in the face of this, no doubt whining to their unions and anyone who will listen that they're being hard done by and that "the public good" will be harmed by their unemployment while journalists who have stood firm and tried their hardest to "report" the news rather than try to "set" the news to a particular agenda will prosper. Reputation is everything.
Fox News is an perfect example of an agenda network with the name "news" in the title to try and pretend otherwise. Given their collusion with the Bush regime and detachment from reality they deserve all the karma they have coming.
The advantages to you are that you have too much money and Microsoft don't have enough, it's about equilibrium and all that bullshit. By donating to a multi-billion-dollar bonus fund you can feel good about yourself that you have helped a poor board member while also ensuring that you couldn't spend that money on anything wasteful......like food for example. By cutting back on food you can lose some weight which has all sorts of benefits. A fitness regime which consists in part of vigorous forum posting demanding that XP be allowed to live beyond it's execution date will help too. Don't helping your fellow man feel good?
Some of their online music departments have embraced Drupal in a big way for artists sites. Some people do "get it", just not those who see their profit / control bottleneck being burst wide open. Granted they have a long history of doing crazy proprietary shit instead of embracing standards but who knows, perhaps over the years the Drupal people can be influential to other departments to embrace the internet rather than fear it. How many technologies can one company create their own failed versions of before the ROI is seen as an epic fail? I'm guessing that ROI has a higher standard to meet in the current climate too.
So now we're onto suits? Not the usual two or three piece ones either, it has to be some fancy criminal or civil suits. Why can't we just wear jeans and a t-shirt?
Or is a criminal suit just another term for prison issue jump suit? Come to think of it, are jump suits allowed to be given to those on suicide watch? Seems like an encouragement of their intentions to me. Will there be law suits if that happens, and if so, where do we buy these law suits? Can we rent them?
Or is this like some WWE match with two blokes in suits trash talking each other before poking each other with pens and smacking each other with filofaxes? Spivmatch.....maybe I should sell the concept of that reality show to some TV network, where the audience are comprised of people the spivs have robbed with ponzi schemes over the years. The winner gets a quick death, the loser gets ripped apart by the audience......slowly.
Is that along the hall from the place reserved for the hate mongers who picket funerals with placards telling them "AIDS is God's punishment for allowing gays to live" etc? We seem to have a special place reserved in hell for a lot of classes of people so I'm curious who I'm gonna be roomies with when the time comes.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those assholes, I just growl at people who watch their dogs shit on the path then walk away and leave it. OK so it's not in the same league but it's not pious thoughts going through my head at that time either.....I'm leaning more towards the dark side in those moments, so I'm guessing that by someone's book I'm going to hell. I wanna make sure my coffin is packed with marshmallows instead of those polystyrene snowy bits so I'll have something to spear and enjoy while I'm being spit roasted myself...call it transference, call it a way to pass the time, I don't care.
The way I see it is that if we crowd source our wisdom we can work out a seating arrangement for Hell so we can be better prepared when we get there. Until there's internet access in the afterlife, asking people to cite sources may be a tad difficult, but we're an honest bunch of sinners, we can trust each other.....right?
The world is littered with creative people who believe they are good enough in their chosen art form to deserve a handsome lifestyle from their efforts and spend their days working a normal job like everyone else to pay the bills. Do they stop doing their art because the world won't co-operate and pay them for their art? Anyone who believes they will stop is deluding themselves. Art is created because people have something they want to say, in the form they want to express it, regardless of whether or not anyone else "gets it", or even sees it.
It's a nice dream to make your living from your art but only a small fraction of creative people ever achieve that. It's been like that from the start and will continue that way. It's the golden carrot offered to the contestants on shows like Pop Idol "it CAN be you but in all likelihood, it won't be you.....or it may be you for a short while so make the best of it before you're dumped back to reality."
Trying to fight against the internet is futile too, unless you want to waste your time and money following the RIAA / MPAA model of suing your customers. The internet has steamrolled many business models which were previously very lucrative, your best option would be to look for ways to adapt to it and use it.
Offer something of added value like signed copies of your dead tree versions and cheap (or even free) ebook versions. Go for the Creative Commons approach and allow your customers to adapt your characters and stories with their own fan fiction. Stories, regardless of their medium are about connecting with the audience, some of that audience are creative too, in fact most of them are probably more creative than they realize but would never act on any impulses. By allowing your customers the freedom to live with the characters they've connected with, it will win you more loyalty, with more of them likely to want to reward you by buying a signed dead tree copy even if they never open it, just to support you. Let them build a community around the world you've created, or set a website / forum up yourself and encourage participation of art work etc.
In short...engage your audience, allow them to get involved in the world they've connected with. You will reap what you sow; if that's DRM and lawsuits your rewards will be that many of your audience who would like you, will have no compunction NOT to pirate your stuff feeling that you deserve to be ripped off. Engage them, encourage them and reward them and they will reward you in return.
The choice is yours, all it needs is some thought, attention and enthusiasm. For a creative person this should be second nature.
Would this be the same netcraft that gives the results corporations like Apple and Microsoft pay for? You may as well be quoting IDG or Gartner figures, it all amounts to the same.
I wonder where the choice of rendering engine enters this discussion. I love Firefox but it is a tad heavy with the addons I use. Even before I start to install addons a bare Firefox profile does not feel as snappy as I believe it should. As much as I can't really adapt to Opera as my full-time browser it does feel snappier even when loading adverts etc than Firefox when blocking them. I have heard WebKit is a snappy rendering engine, Konquerer and Safari both seem to match that appraisal, so I wonder what Firefox would perform like if it were using WebKit instead of Gecko. I heard ages ago of a project that was aimed at doing just that, but ain't heard anything since; anyone know if it stalled?
We know that a lot of large scale organizations have IE6 ONLY intranets so they struggle to even move their users up to IE7 or 8, let alone switch to another browser. When these sites were built, the IT departments and upper management were no doubt promised the earth in advantages to their organizations to make it locked in to IE6. Any responsible board will have been plagued by reports from any responsible IT department for years now that IE6 is redundant and that they need to find a way to move users to a modern secure browser (even if they still think it's the latest Microsoft offering). They will be well aware that they are locked in, and will have to spend a LOT of time and money to reinvent the wheel to make that happen, not to mention the upheaval involved in switching the organization over with as little disruption as possible.
Given that they are in this situation because they willingly built themselves into a box, what are the chances that they will escape that box by building themselves into a new box? Especially a new box owned by the same company who supplied that one they're spending a lot of money escaping from? Only a dipshit would jump from one box to another, regardless of the threats or slick words from a Microsoft rep. This would be a no-brainer decision at board room level to say "we can't afford to be locked in, we need to be flexible, so we build to proper standards." Having said that, looking at many large scale organizations you'd be hard pushed not to class many of the elite as "greedy corrupted dipshits in suits" so you never know.
Many intranets were built using proprietary programming built for that company alone and bosses know that rewriting that for a new system will be expensive. Luckily this is where plenty of FOSS software options come in, like Drupal or Joomla. There is plenty of free options with plenty flexibility to do a LOT of stuff already available. That can save a fortune that would have been paid to write another round of proprietary solutions which would fit the new box. Many FOSS solutions are getting very mature and very stable for large deployments now, with the development / updates / features being submitted from people all over the world.
The sooner this ripples through more and more organizations, IE's user share falls even faster.
Firefox 2 got that reputation although since I only used it on GTK Linux I didn't really notice it. It did not theme with my other GTK stuff but didn't look out of place either. Having said that I did use the GNOME theme on it. I know Firefox 3 was built to look more native to each platform but again, I've not really noticed. Firefox 3 does follow GTK theme changes and adopts the icons etc like other GTK applications. It certainly feels more native than a QT application on my system.
There's a major difference between looking a bit odd but being (reasonably) feature equivalent and not being available at all. I've yet to try Safari but from what I hear it's great on OSX but less so on Windows, and through WINE on Linux. Given that last contempt for the platform I suspect it will be a long time before I try it. IE? The browser invented to break standards and lock people into Windows?
Firefox, like Opera and others are OS agnostic too, in addition to being developed in an open manor.
Mod +1 Insightful
Microsoft have long relied on consumer ignorance to keep their market share. They do everything possible to ensure that consumer never sees any credible alternatives. They like the fact that people think of a Windows PC simply as a "PC". They rely on the fact that people think IE IS the internet. They like the fact that people don't think of a word processor, they think of Microsoft Word. When more people start to see a break in the Microsoft storm cloud blotting the land to see there are other versions of programs made by Microsoft and start to play with them Microsoft's hold over them gradually weakens. IE's market share falling to better browsers is only one part if this.
The fact that many are free (in cost as well as freedom) compared to Microsoft's expensive licensing puts them on an uphill battle to show consumers why their product is $100 better than a rival. They may be able to skew results, quote partial figures from bought analysts like IDG. They will likely actually be better in some areas, but are they $100 better than free?
It will be slowed in workplaces with software / intranet sites etc built for Microsoft's platforms but just because people can't use a good browser / OS etc at work does not mean they will be under the same restraints at home.
Many of the management in large organizations had left school way before the PC age really took off, they've had to learn new skills to be where they are so their IT knowledge is often limited to what the large mainstream media outlets tell them. As time passes we have more IT savy people leaving schools who will gradually move into the decision making positions, which is why Microsoft are desperate to get people addicted young with EDGI.
How long will it be before Microsoft's shills appeal to the EU to allow them to bundle IE with Windows again because they are the minority browser and therefor at a disadvantage with the browsers they tried (and failed) to crush? If they are forced to stop bundling IE in the EU, or have to offer rivals like Firefox that spot, their market share will slip faster.
Microsoft are great at making themselves out to be the victim....."(online advertising and search) monopolies are bad for the consumer (but not office and OS ones......basically monopolies are bad unless we control them)".
The difference is that Firefox is standards (mostly) compliant, and seeks to keep it that way. So if web developers build "only for Firefox" the sites will work in ALL standards compliant browsers. The same can't be said for IE, brought to you by a company who use vendor lock-in as a weapon.