This isn't even closing the door after the horse has bolted (data that's been sold, is sold, any it ain't coming back), this is shouting at somebody for walking out with the horse while still leaving the door wide open.
The only virus I ever got was on my wife's laptop and it appeared to come in through Java. She was sick of being constantly nagged to update Java anyway, so I removed Java completely. I had to nuke her account to completely clean it.
Fair enough, you're right of course that most (probably all) EULA include some boiler plate about how you're screwed if it trashes your system, but maybe people get some degree of comfort by knowing who created the software and the potential of getting bad PR from it probably helps motivate commercial software manufacturers to try and avoid too many embarrassments (Microsoft not withstanding). I don't know how much the reputation of open source developers transfers from one project to another in the minds of the end users.
As for your praxis, I think it's fairly sensible (we could argue about the values used in point 2, but who cares?) and I would probably do something similar if we're talking about my own money, but I'm fairly confident that I can work out any kinks myself. Somebody else's money, perhaps I'd be less concerned about FOSS and more concerned that they be comfortable and can get good support (not to imply that isn't possible with FOSS).
Keep dreaming. Nobody will care about a FSF endorsement, most people have never even heard of them and I'm sure they don't have any kind of budget to really push this.
I disagree, it's not that FOSS can't be superior to closed source, but it's not enough to be FOSS.
Disadvatages of FOSS (off the top of my head):
Large projects may attract top talent, but there is no guarantee they'll stick around when the next hot project arrives. Some projects may be totally abandoned
Constant updates make it hard to know which version is which
Nobody to hold accountable if something horrible happens because of some piece of FOSS
Teams tend to be disorganized and don't always have the right mix of talents (too many hard core programmers, not enough GUI or usability designers)
Support is hit-or-miss, often community based which may be fine for large projects, not so much for smaller, less popular projects.
I'm not trying to knock FOSS, and some of the same problems can exist in closed source projects. I'm not saying either approach is better in and of itself. That is why you need to weight each potential solution on it's own merits instead of just going OMG! It's FOSS, take that one!
Apparently your brain is closed source. FOSS is nice, but it doesn't automatically make something better than anything else. It's ironic that the OP said his managers are "interested in pragmatism rather than idealism", when he is clearly the exact opposite.
Yeah, really. How can anything outside the few square miles I live possibly have any effect on me? Ideally, I want a newspaper that only covers the events in my house. I'm going to have my dog be my crack investigative reporter looking into my wife's cutting corners when it comes to making my dinner. My cat covers sports.
Actually, it's tiresome, but it does work (in Firefox at least). Turn on porn mode, go to NY Times site (example, link in this submission. Leave the page, come back - paywall. Quit porn mode, turn it back on again, go back to the same NY Times page - no paywall. So it'll work for your first visit to NY times, but then you have to turn it off and back on again for the next visit.
I'm not saying don't do research. I'm saying demonstrate the technology before you go running off with how it's going to solve every problem (or at least a whole bunch of problems). Before the invention of the steam engine people weren't running around talking about how revolutionary it would be if somebody would just invent it first.
vistapwn isn't coming up with potential solutions, (s)he's doing the equivalent of suggesting if only we had magic pixie dust.
they will just solve many pressing problems and are definitely worth funding/building.
No. They don't solve any problems because they DON'T FUCKING EXIST. You seem to miss that rather important point in your zeal to espouse the amazing properties of something that is purely fictitious and hasn't even been demonstrated in principle. Funding it doesn't help if it's actually impossible.
It does not follow that just because something can be imagined that it can be built.
Not as much of a disappointment as getting back to Earth 360,000 years after you left and finding out that in the meantime they've developed technology to get from one star system to another in the blink of an eye and have since colonized most of the know galaxy. It just nobody remembered the ship they sent out several hundred thousand years ago, so nobody thought to catch up with you and let you know. Bastards!
Do you have a real argument, or do you just have blind faith in magic pixie dust and unicorns? All your nanorobot nonsense amounts to nothing when nobody has yet managed to build such a thing. You'll get your nanorobots when I'm commuting to work on my jet pack.
Pretending that there aren't major engineering obstacles in the way and thinking that just throwing money at it is the answer is not productive.
Nanorobots are some magical panacea that will solve all our problems.
Slashdot Mirror
This isn't even closing the door after the horse has bolted (data that's been sold, is sold, any it ain't coming back), this is shouting at somebody for walking out with the horse while still leaving the door wide open.
And, oddly, he's used at least 6 different faces and different accents, while keeping the same name.
Who dreams of fire sheep?
That put out a PSP commercial with a kid making fun of a guy for playing games on the same phone he calls his grandma on?
The only virus I ever got was on my wife's laptop and it appeared to come in through Java. She was sick of being constantly nagged to update Java anyway, so I removed Java completely. I had to nuke her account to completely clean it.
Fair enough, you're right of course that most (probably all) EULA include some boiler plate about how you're screwed if it trashes your system, but maybe people get some degree of comfort by knowing who created the software and the potential of getting bad PR from it probably helps motivate commercial software manufacturers to try and avoid too many embarrassments (Microsoft not withstanding). I don't know how much the reputation of open source developers transfers from one project to another in the minds of the end users.
As for your praxis, I think it's fairly sensible (we could argue about the values used in point 2, but who cares?) and I would probably do something similar if we're talking about my own money, but I'm fairly confident that I can work out any kinks myself. Somebody else's money, perhaps I'd be less concerned about FOSS and more concerned that they be comfortable and can get good support (not to imply that isn't possible with FOSS).
Nope. Consumers don't care.
Keep dreaming. Nobody will care about a FSF endorsement, most people have never even heard of them and I'm sure they don't have any kind of budget to really push this.
Everything else being equal, something which is FOSS is inherently superior to an equivalent product which is closed source.
Please provide an example of "everything else being equal".
I disagree, it's not that FOSS can't be superior to closed source, but it's not enough to be FOSS.
Disadvatages of FOSS (off the top of my head):
I'm not trying to knock FOSS, and some of the same problems can exist in closed source projects. I'm not saying either approach is better in and of itself. That is why you need to weight each potential solution on it's own merits instead of just going OMG! It's FOSS, take that one!
Apparently your brain is closed source. FOSS is nice, but it doesn't automatically make something better than anything else. It's ironic that the OP said his managers are "interested in pragmatism rather than idealism", when he is clearly the exact opposite.
Yeah, really. How can anything outside the few square miles I live possibly have any effect on me? Ideally, I want a newspaper that only covers the events in my house. I'm going to have my dog be my crack investigative reporter looking into my wife's cutting corners when it comes to making my dinner. My cat covers sports.
Actually, it's tiresome, but it does work (in Firefox at least). Turn on porn mode, go to NY Times site (example, link in this submission. Leave the page, come back - paywall. Quit porn mode, turn it back on again, go back to the same NY Times page - no paywall. So it'll work for your first visit to NY times, but then you have to turn it off and back on again for the next visit.
I actually downgraded from 7 last year after determining that 7 did absolutely nothing I needed that XP didn't,
Except, not having this bug....for one.
You also need a multi-directional moving floor too. Otherwise you'll keep walking in to the TV screens.
Damn no good whinny lefties.
Yeah, that was the same BS excuse they tried to give me. They're still Bastards.
I'm not saying don't do research. I'm saying demonstrate the technology before you go running off with how it's going to solve every problem (or at least a whole bunch of problems). Before the invention of the steam engine people weren't running around talking about how revolutionary it would be if somebody would just invent it first.
vistapwn isn't coming up with potential solutions, (s)he's doing the equivalent of suggesting if only we had magic pixie dust.
they will just solve many pressing problems and are definitely worth funding/building.
No. They don't solve any problems because they DON'T FUCKING EXIST. You seem to miss that rather important point in your zeal to espouse the amazing properties of something that is purely fictitious and hasn't even been demonstrated in principle. Funding it doesn't help if it's actually impossible.
It does not follow that just because something can be imagined that it can be built.
Not as much of a disappointment as getting back to Earth 360,000 years after you left and finding out that in the meantime they've developed technology to get from one star system to another in the blink of an eye and have since colonized most of the know galaxy. It just nobody remembered the ship they sent out several hundred thousand years ago, so nobody thought to catch up with you and let you know. Bastards!
Do you have a real argument, or do you just have blind faith in magic pixie dust and unicorns? All your nanorobot nonsense amounts to nothing when nobody has yet managed to build such a thing. You'll get your nanorobots when I'm commuting to work on my jet pack.
Pretending that there aren't major engineering obstacles in the way and thinking that just throwing money at it is the answer is not productive.
Nanorobots are some magical panacea that will solve all our problems.
There goes next years vacation plans.
Well, you can always just turn around and come back if it turns out that the atmosphere isn't any good when you arrive.
Sorry, but babbling a bunch of science fiction fantasies doesn't make it so.
Why don't you have a sense of humor so you can tell a fucking joke when you see one.
Look up metaphor in a dictionary some time.