I double checked the Vista product page, and it's so easy to understand that a trained monkey could choose the right version of Vista. That speaks volumes about the intelligence of the parent.
Like mine, or those that I typically now work with. I've grown allergic to the big shops and it's the little guys who really need to be informed of what the alternatives really are and what to do with them.
So if you're big enough, you get whatever you want.;)
Which doesn't necessarily mean that what you want makes a lot of sense.
. ..have your company name tattooed on their body somewhere. ..
No, not somewhere, but where people are already going to be inclined to look. This may mean selecting the masseuses for sufficient surface area in those places.
But my argument is that the Calendaring of an OSS Server would diverge from Exchange in the same way as Firefox's DHTML support diverged heavily from IE's DHTML support.
But there is no published third party calandering standard. Firefox drove more rigid adoption of the reference.
Providing a good replacement for Exchange Server is a lot better upgrade path than chasing Microsoft's coattails.
When the Microsoft upgrade path breaks things too badly. I transitioned from an all Microsoft shop to an all Linux one when the upgrade promised to break my existing custom software. At that point it was just as easy to switch as to upgrade. Writing all new software is writing all new software. Especially since I had not fallen into the trap of allowing the quirks of the platform to drive my logic.
But then I was a small brick and mortar, not an international conglomerate with offices spread across continents. I could make that decision myself, was responsible for implimenting it myself, could do the work myself and only had a small number of machines to deal with, but at least one of which had to keep running Windows for a year or so if I didn't wish my whole business to go down at arbitrary times for arbitrary periods.
And only had to schedule my "girl." I found that "talking to her" was the most appropriate tool.
That's right. Maxwell's demon is a demon. A supernatural being not subject to the laws of physics. He can arbitrarily effect the system without being affected by it. Thus there is no widening of the sytem by his introduction and no feedback effects from his actions. That's the whole point of him.
Maxwell's demon could sort a mixed bag of apples and oranges into two bags of apples only and oranges only while preserving an apples and oranges system.
If you sort a bag of apples and oranges the system is one of apples and oranges and you. I presume you are not a demon; despite what I may have heard.
The primary function of Exchange/Outlook is to be an Email Client/Server. Its secondary function is to be a calendaring and internal Usenet server.
In terms of installs what the primary function of a system is is what people use it for. If calandering is what they want, it is calandering that will drive installs. If it weren't for calandering the whole bloody mess would be a nonissue.
Back in the day we had something that was colloquially refered to as a "girl" to take care of this for us, but I guess most people these days would rather have a machine than a girl. Yes, girls have maintenence issues, but so do the machines.
New infrastructures would be the first to adopt. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
No, it isn't. I simply note that new infrastructures aren't going to be "here." Which also isn't necessarily a bad thing, although it may be hard on a few individuals. Also not necessarily a bad thing.
However, the framework of the discussion is someone who was dissatisfied with his transition experience.
Exchange is similarly compatible with a large number of standards (e.g. POP, IMAP, SMTP, etc.)
You left out TCP/IP. Exchange/Outlook is not an email client.
The entire company runs Exchange/Outlook or the entire company runs a competitor like Lotus Notes.
There's a reason for that. There is no room to add competitors into the mix.
If it exceeds the Exchange Server solution, then Microsoft will start losing ground to the new competitor.
Yes, in new installs. Fresh businesses without an established infrastructure. The majority of those new installs will be happening where most of the businesses are new. Vendor lockin works. That's the problem with it.
A cross platform communications tool; where the interoperability framework comes from outside and is published.
I understand what you're saying; and to large extent agree with it, but I think you chose a bad example.
I'll add this, however; in a large scale corporate environment you cannot simply drop in a new solution. There has to be a period where both systems are running and need to cooperate with each other. "Rip out everything you've got and replace it with this" is a non-starter, no matter how much better "this" is.
Firefox is a good example here; it succeeded because it's an interoperability tool, not a standalone solution.
WINE isn't finished. It will never be finished. They don't even have a means of determining whether it's finished. And the target moves.
They've been hacking at it for years. There is still far more software that doesn't work under WINE than does. The project could have been "done" in six months with a published spec to work against. As it is it will always be problematic.
And WINE is one of the "easy" projects, because as you note there is no prohibition of law to prevent at least trying. The same is not true of DVD playback where a solution is well known but cannot be provided by most distros because somebody has to break the law to do so. Since the company cannot; they leave it to the end user to impliment.
Developers are not psychic. If the information they need to do their thing cannot be seen, it cannot be seen. It is not their fault that they can't see it. It is amazing what some of them manage to do at their end with blinders on, but that does not imply that they are not blinded.
Handling it from the Linux end is already done as well as is possible; lists of software/devices that are known to work reasonably well under Linux and those that do not are published.
This is a lousy user experience when the solution to a problem is "buy all new stuff."
I would have written "llan" instead of "cloak" if I had thought anyone would know what that was and/or Google would have been any help to them.
The llan, which is the sort of cloak that would have been worn during the time in question (the Irish called it a brat and the greeks a chlamys. You can can Google successfully on those. It's also the ancestor of the kilt, but that is a looooong story), is not your renfair or "Look at me, I'm a druid. No, really" type of cloak. It is, in fact, an F-cloak.
you're never* going to read a screenplay for enjoyment unless you've already seen the movie it was made into -- because if a screenplay was good enough to sell copies of it to the public, then it was more or less by definition already made into a movie.
Harlen Ellison's adaptation of I,Robot, published in Asimov's Science Fiction because Isaac thought it was so good it needed to be seen, but was never going to be made into a movie.
I've just been playing a fiddle tune. Although it is more than 200 years old I had no problem finding either sheet music or recordings of it, because anyone is free to publish and/or record without a license.
Cream rises to the top without a demon to drive it there.
Oh, the name of the tune? "The Rights of Man." I commemorates a little book of the same name. You might want to read it.
Bear in mind that what "they" have been after for many years isn't even stronger copyright, but watchright. DRM is just a way of approximating that under current law, but once they get people used to the idea . . .
It's not like the kids these days will believe the conditions we lived under back then anyway (both ways), or our strange social customs, or that we really risked prosecution to download that shitty, old fashioned music.
And Jesus we dressed funny. No, that half decade is an era best left bygone alrighty.
I paused and considered writing "the supposed birth of Christ," but it's best to take one myth at a time. I don't want to be known to posterity as the corpse that united the Christians and the Neo-Druids.
Slashdot Mirror
You mean I'm supposed to be hiding my Myth books? Now you tell me. Oh, the shame.
KFG
I'm a romanian, and I don't even consider getting a torrent of vista.
So was great granddad; and he won't be either:
"Windows Vista: So pointless even dead Romanians don't care about it."
KFG
Look, I like reading /. for the tech/science news.
That's why they make sure that ever other story is about a game console.
KFG
I just saw Cypher. Don't mess with me.
KFG
Yes, maybe I did.
KFG
I double checked the Vista product page, and it's so easy to understand that a trained monkey could choose the right version of Vista. That speaks volumes about the intelligence of the parent.
Hello, trained monkey.
KFG
Then you'll get the single-office corporations.
;)
Like mine, or those that I typically now work with. I've grown allergic to the big shops and it's the little guys who really need to be informed of what the alternatives really are and what to do with them.
So if you're big enough, you get whatever you want.
Which doesn't necessarily mean that what you want makes a lot of sense.
KFG
. . .have your company name tattooed on their body somewhere. . .
No, not somewhere, but where people are already going to be inclined to look. This may mean selecting the masseuses for sufficient surface area in those places.
KFG
But my argument is that the Calendaring of an OSS Server would diverge from Exchange in the same way as Firefox's DHTML support diverged heavily from IE's DHTML support.
But there is no published third party calandering standard. Firefox drove more rigid adoption of the reference.
Providing a good replacement for Exchange Server is a lot better upgrade path than chasing Microsoft's coattails.
When the Microsoft upgrade path breaks things too badly. I transitioned from an all Microsoft shop to an all Linux one when the upgrade promised to break my existing custom software. At that point it was just as easy to switch as to upgrade. Writing all new software is writing all new software. Especially since I had not fallen into the trap of allowing the quirks of the platform to drive my logic.
But then I was a small brick and mortar, not an international conglomerate with offices spread across continents. I could make that decision myself, was responsible for implimenting it myself, could do the work myself and only had a small number of machines to deal with, but at least one of which had to keep running Windows for a year or so if I didn't wish my whole business to go down at arbitrary times for arbitrary periods.
And only had to schedule my "girl." I found that "talking to her" was the most appropriate tool.
KFG
That's right. Maxwell's demon is a demon. A supernatural being not subject to the laws of physics. He can arbitrarily effect the system without being affected by it. Thus there is no widening of the sytem by his introduction and no feedback effects from his actions. That's the whole point of him.
Maxwell's demon could sort a mixed bag of apples and oranges into two bags of apples only and oranges only while preserving an apples and oranges system.
If you sort a bag of apples and oranges the system is one of apples and oranges and you. I presume you are not a demon; despite what I may have heard.
KFG
The primary function of Exchange/Outlook is to be an Email Client/Server. Its secondary function is to be a calendaring and internal Usenet server.
In terms of installs what the primary function of a system is is what people use it for. If calandering is what they want, it is calandering that will drive installs. If it weren't for calandering the whole bloody mess would be a nonissue.
Back in the day we had something that was colloquially refered to as a "girl" to take care of this for us, but I guess most people these days would rather have a machine than a girl. Yes, girls have maintenence issues, but so do the machines.
New infrastructures would be the first to adopt. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
No, it isn't. I simply note that new infrastructures aren't going to be "here." Which also isn't necessarily a bad thing, although it may be hard on a few individuals. Also not necessarily a bad thing.
However, the framework of the discussion is someone who was dissatisfied with his transition experience.
KFG
Exchange is similarly compatible with a large number of standards (e.g. POP, IMAP, SMTP, etc.)
You left out TCP/IP. Exchange/Outlook is not an email client.
The entire company runs Exchange/Outlook or the entire company runs a competitor like Lotus Notes.
There's a reason for that. There is no room to add competitors into the mix.
If it exceeds the Exchange Server solution, then Microsoft will start losing ground to the new competitor.
Yes, in new installs. Fresh businesses without an established infrastructure. The majority of those new installs will be happening where most of the businesses are new. Vendor lockin works. That's the problem with it.
KFG
Those graphs are dumb.
So are people. They don't even know that they're dumb.
KFG
. . .they're happy with their DVDs. . .
And what would make them even happier is not a new format, but a DVD "Redbook."
KFG
Witness Firefox as an example.
A cross platform communications tool; where the interoperability framework comes from outside and is published.
I understand what you're saying; and to large extent agree with it, but I think you chose a bad example.
I'll add this, however; in a large scale corporate environment you cannot simply drop in a new solution. There has to be a period where both systems are running and need to cooperate with each other. "Rip out everything you've got and replace it with this" is a non-starter, no matter how much better "this" is.
Firefox is a good example here; it succeeded because it's an interoperability tool, not a standalone solution.
KFG
WINE isn't finished. It will never be finished. They don't even have a means of determining whether it's finished. And the target moves.
They've been hacking at it for years. There is still far more software that doesn't work under WINE than does. The project could have been "done" in six months with a published spec to work against. As it is it will always be problematic.
And WINE is one of the "easy" projects, because as you note there is no prohibition of law to prevent at least trying. The same is not true of DVD playback where a solution is well known but cannot be provided by most distros because somebody has to break the law to do so. Since the company cannot; they leave it to the end user to impliment.
Developers are not psychic. If the information they need to do their thing cannot be seen, it cannot be seen. It is not their fault that they can't see it. It is amazing what some of them manage to do at their end with blinders on, but that does not imply that they are not blinded.
Handling it from the Linux end is already done as well as is possible; lists of software/devices that are known to work reasonably well under Linux and those that do not are published.
This is a lousy user experience when the solution to a problem is "buy all new stuff."
And that is often the only possible solution.
KFG
I am too completely repugnified at the moment to make any other comment under this story. Maybe I'll come back when I recover from retching.
KFG
I would have written "llan" instead of "cloak" if I had thought anyone would know what that was and/or Google would have been any help to them.
The llan, which is the sort of cloak that would have been worn during the time in question (the Irish called it a brat and the greeks a chlamys. You can can Google successfully on those. It's also the ancestor of the kilt, but that is a looooong story), is not your renfair or "Look at me, I'm a druid. No, really" type of cloak. It is, in fact, an F-cloak.
KFG
you're never* going to read a screenplay for enjoyment unless you've already seen the movie it was made into -- because if a screenplay was good enough to sell copies of it to the public, then it was more or less by definition already made into a movie.
Harlen Ellison's adaptation of I,Robot, published in Asimov's Science Fiction because Isaac thought it was so good it needed to be seen, but was never going to be made into a movie.
KFG
Maybe if they plug the hole . . .
They'll make the coolest potato gun ever!
KFG
Save the middle managers!
KFG
I've just been playing a fiddle tune. Although it is more than 200 years old I had no problem finding either sheet music or recordings of it, because anyone is free to publish and/or record without a license.
Cream rises to the top without a demon to drive it there.
Oh, the name of the tune? "The Rights of Man." I commemorates a little book of the same name. You might want to read it.
KFG
Bear in mind that what "they" have been after for many years isn't even stronger copyright, but watchright. DRM is just a way of approximating that under current law, but once they get people used to the idea . . .
KFG
It's not like the kids these days will believe the conditions we lived under back then anyway (both ways), or our strange social customs, or that we really risked prosecution to download that shitty, old fashioned music.
And Jesus we dressed funny. No, that half decade is an era best left bygone alrighty.
KFG
I paused and considered writing "the supposed birth of Christ," but it's best to take one myth at a time. I don't want to be known to posterity as the corpse that united the Christians and the Neo-Druids.
KFG