I'd agree that small-small medium business are another category. But I wouldn't count them as enterprise conversions. I don't count those companies that don't have in house legacy software. When you start talking a few hundred desktops a few talented people can replace the whole infrastructure. Linux works well, Apple works well, Windows works well, dumb terminals work well.... It really doesn't make too much difference.
Arguably that's sort of a best case for Linux. Big costs of doing of things badly and almost everything works well.
I'd go farther and suggest they've been successful at every stage, and if there's any caution involved it's the careful analysis of the cost of "past sins".;-)
I wouldn't go that far. When they walked into this they didn't really understand how deeply integrated they were with the Microsoft stack. That's quite often the case. The question is can they get themselves de-integrated at reasonable cost.
limuxwatch is grossly oversimplifying. The importance of Munich is it is revealing what are the remaining issues for migrated Windows shops over. They are furthest along of any windows shop. It isn't really about success or failure, it is about learning. And for Munich it is about independence, they want a high end IT organization.
At the start of the early 2000s there was essentially a controlled experiment about implementing Linux on the desktop.
In the first category we had companies like AutoZone, Burlington Coat Factory and Pep Boys that never had developed a Windows culture to begin with. These were Unix shops (generally SCO or Solaris) and they transitioned quickly (within a year or 2) and easily (say under 100 man years) to Linux.
In the second category we had technology knowledgeable companies that wanted to transition to all Unix/Linux, and considered it important but not critical. IBM, Oracle, Sun (Sun Java desktop) being leading examples. They failed, believing it was not worth the distraction even though this failure was quite embarrassing. In many people's estimation they gave up much too quickly.
In the third category we had places that wanted to transition to Linux for ideological reasons. Most of them found the processes daunting and gave up. Munich is a great example of the 3rd category. They have some technical depth but not a technical user base. They have financial resources but are somewhat cost constrained. And they had a Windows culture. That is Munich is sort of a good case study for most companies that are not IT focused. When Munich is successful they will provide a wonderful example that it is possible and how to do it. Right now they provide a caution of the complexities.
I'll live with your numbers and for the purpose of argument lets make them worse. Say 99% waste, some girls don't do it even when they miss their period, say it goes bad after 2 years..... So I get girls who miss their period to take folic acid a week earlier on average (its those first 6-8 weeks which are critical) for $200. That a huge savings to the health system. So heck yeah I would totally support that.
What I'm proposing is a single payer system for low end care. Administered at places of work and schools. Provide universal preventative and low end care without concern for billing in the most cost effective ways possible with high participation. So yeah, go right to the work place: hearing exam, eye exam, breast exam for women, testicle exam for men, take some blood, take some urine, ask about any unusual symptoms, look for legions.
Say 5 nurses one 1 doctor can do 100 of those exams per day in a workplace. Total cost:
5 nurse days = 5 x $400 = $2000 1 doctor day = $1500 100 sets of labs = $2500 _____
total cost per patient = $50. Say times 300m people = $15b Total saving to the health system worst case well over $1T a 70:1 ratio.
In the schools, don't just give out free condoms give out free norplant injections , birth control pills and book a bus for girls who want a fitting for a diaphragm or an IUD.
Do a pass through for flu shots. 1 nurse can probably do 500 a day. Lets say 300 per day. Total savings are going to be in the ball park of another trillion.
I'm not trying to reduce people's freedom just the cost of medicine.
Folic acid is for when they might be pregnant. And it is a good example. They could pay the $2, but they don't pay the $2. So what happens if something on the order of another 20-40k birth defects per year.
Same thing with the physicals. The problem is not that they aren't covered but that they don't happen. As for vaccinations they cost a fortune under the current system as contrasted with mass vaccination programs we could administer. The problem with the current system it is horribly inefficient.
Try and stay on topic, "If it is so popular there should be no need to mandate participation, right? ", that's the topic. The issue of whether taxation to support programs that don't distribute their benefits equally is justifiable or not is another entirely different topic. Though the USA has no shortage of laws that primarily benefit the wealthy at the expensive of the poor and middle class so I'm not so torn up about a few examples that run the other way.
That's not at all what we have in America. Things like physicals are not performed particularly on the upper lower - lower middle class because insurance companies don't want diseases found before the person changes jobs. Things like vaccinations and flu shots are a total PIA because of "somebody has to be paid" where under a public system they could be administered en mass quickly and easily. Heck what would it cost to give every high school girl folic acid to keep on her dresser if she misses her period? $2 / per student, maybe?
I get no subsidy for routine care. I get a large subsidy for catastrophic care.
To simplify lets assume there is only 1 disease with a 1/1000 chance of effecting me that costs $1000 to treat if found early and $1,000,000 to treat if found late. Assume finding it costs $100. There are 1000 people in the population (so one person has it).
Scenario A: Everyone gets preventative care. Individual cost $100 for 999 people, $1000 for 1 person Total cost: $101,000
Scenario B: No one gets preventative care Individual cost: $0 for 999 people and the deductible (say $1000 for one person) Total cost: $1,000,000
Under a high deductible system it obviously makes sense for each individual to engage in Scenario B. But collectively it makes sense for the society to engage in scenario A.
Your original claim was about what governments were that government weren't able to do this list of things. You now are arguing that companies might have been able to do the same things. As for the comments about slavery... I'd offer the gothic period as a counter. This was a time when each and every individual was encouraged to self actualize bring their full talents to the craft. Each worker took pride in his individual work and while their were architects the creations represented the community in a way unthinkable to the builders of today. The exact opposite of slavery in every sense.
No... in standard usage "Linux" refers to the operating system and associated apps: the entire GNU/Linux suite, the term "Linux kernel" is used generally for the kernel. Is this what Linus intended, no. Is it how the words are used, yes.
And my statement claims nothing of the kind about Firefox. What it would claim is that on average one would expect Firefox to be less stable in terms of interface than Internet Explorer. And yes I think that's true. Internet Explorer from version 4.0 - 6.0 had very few changes while Netscape -> Mozilla -> Firefox/Thuderbird/NVU/Lightning/Sunbird underwent a fairly large shift in look, feel and means of performing actions. Not least of which is the fact that the whole communicator integration fell apart.
So yes that's a pretty good example of the start of instability I was talking about.
You are missing the point or I was misunderstanding you. I assumed you were proposing a government health care system based on a simple copay formula with no disqualifications. I was giving an example of the problems with such a system. Lots of stuff suddenly becomes "health care".
If the system does have disqualifications then it isn't simple anymore.
I'm talking about the Canadian system with wait insurance. You were giving it as an example of a negative and I was commenting that good health care with rationing + wait insurance seemed like a good way to offer a low end system for free and a high end system for cost.
A society as a whole can't save. It is really meaningless to talk about the Federal Government either "saving" or "borrowing" in a fiat currency system.
It is popular because of mandated participation. It isn't an individual savings system. It redistributes "retirement savings" from people who had long careers to those who got disabled and those who did very well financially to those who did not. The welfare aspects are what makes it popular.
That is a large deductible system. The problem with that system is it discourages preventative care which is much much cheaper. The cost of giving everyone in the USA a routine physical every year (particularly if there were no billing issues) for free is a pittance compared to what it would save.
Without any disqualification you have created a great system for people to charge off all sorts of expenses as medical. I want to go on a trip to China, of course I'll need to fly there, stay in a Hotel and I'm going to be consulting doctors in several cities.
Total cost for the trip alone = $4000 total cost for the medical consultation = $500 amount I pay $900.
other than protecting citizens from force and fraud what else have governments been able to do successfully
1) Build most of the architecture that has lasted through time 2) Build the infrastructure in most countries 3) Manger large services 4) War 5) Maintain records to a standard that private companies haven't come remotely close to 6) Create a 500 track record of a decrease in criminal activity, which while having infrequent bumps is rapidly declining in all respects 7) Create a regulated system of tariffs and tolls which has allowed for free commerce between nearby locals to prosper. 8) Insure the safety of most consumer products 9) Spread information about agriculture to the point that hunger is essentially abolished and food prices are fairly close to transportation costs.
The UK seems to be moving right on all sorts of civil liberties. I don't know enough to have an informed opinion but at least from across the pond it seems like you all have a social liberalism problem in general.
Oh I see. He's basically saying that google has the same kind of strangle hold as ____ (what ever the old services were).
I'd disagree but at least this argument makes sense. IMHO
1) There was nothing comparable prior to Google 2) Google's win over Altavista (and more importantly Lycos) came from radically redefining the advertising industry not the search industry. They had a brilliant brilliant idea and they have followed it up with dozens of truly great ideas since then.
Thank you for explicating what he was talking about.
Your conflating. The issue here was about stability of binary interfaces. Obviously linux has a much smaller problem with malware and had you raised that I wouldn't have commented you are picking a solution that makes the problem you are talking about worse.
As for alternatives for myself: OSX, AIX, SunOS, Solaris, IRIX, OpenVMS, Z-OS, Dec-Unix, Linux, OS/2, Xenis, SCO, QNX, FreeBSD, IOS, Dos, CPM and along with semi-OSes like Cygwin.
I'm still not sure I follow how do transaction fees (minor ones) have much to do with creative freedom? What's a few percent matter one way or another for author freedom?
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I'd agree that small-small medium business are another category. But I wouldn't count them as enterprise conversions. I don't count those companies that don't have in house legacy software. When you start talking a few hundred desktops a few talented people can replace the whole infrastructure. Linux works well, Apple works well, Windows works well, dumb terminals work well.... It really doesn't make too much difference.
Arguably that's sort of a best case for Linux. Big costs of doing of things badly and almost everything works well.
I'd go farther and suggest they've been successful at every stage, and if there's any caution involved it's the careful analysis of the cost of "past sins". ;-)
I wouldn't go that far. When they walked into this they didn't really understand how deeply integrated they were with the Microsoft stack. That's quite often the case. The question is can they get themselves de-integrated at reasonable cost.
limuxwatch is grossly oversimplifying. The importance of Munich is it is revealing what are the remaining issues for migrated Windows shops over. They are furthest along of any windows shop. It isn't really about success or failure, it is about learning. And for Munich it is about independence, they want a high end IT organization.
At the start of the early 2000s there was essentially a controlled experiment about implementing Linux on the desktop.
In the first category we had companies like AutoZone, Burlington Coat Factory and Pep Boys that never had developed a Windows culture to begin with. These were Unix shops (generally SCO or Solaris) and they transitioned quickly (within a year or 2) and easily (say under 100 man years) to Linux.
In the second category we had technology knowledgeable companies that wanted to transition to all Unix/Linux, and considered it important but not critical. IBM, Oracle, Sun (Sun Java desktop) being leading examples. They failed, believing it was not worth the distraction even though this failure was quite embarrassing. In many people's estimation they gave up much too quickly.
In the third category we had places that wanted to transition to Linux for ideological reasons. Most of them found the processes daunting and gave up. Munich is a great example of the 3rd category. They have some technical depth but not a technical user base. They have financial resources but are somewhat cost constrained. And they had a Windows culture. That is Munich is sort of a good case study for most companies that are not IT focused. When Munich is successful they will provide a wonderful example that it is possible and how to do it. Right now they provide a caution of the complexities.
I'll live with your numbers and for the purpose of argument lets make them worse. Say 99% waste, some girls don't do it even when they miss their period, say it goes bad after 2 years..... So I get girls who miss their period to take folic acid a week earlier on average (its those first 6-8 weeks which are critical) for $200. That a huge savings to the health system. So heck yeah I would totally support that.
What I'm proposing is a single payer system for low end care. Administered at places of work and schools. Provide universal preventative and low end care without concern for billing in the most cost effective ways possible with high participation. So yeah, go right to the work place: hearing exam, eye exam, breast exam for women, testicle exam for men, take some blood, take some urine, ask about any unusual symptoms, look for legions.
Say 5 nurses one 1 doctor can do 100 of those exams per day in a workplace. Total cost:
5 nurse days = 5 x $400 = $2000
1 doctor day = $1500
100 sets of labs = $2500
_____
total cost per patient = $50.
Say times 300m people = $15b
Total saving to the health system worst case well over $1T a 70:1 ratio.
In the schools, don't just give out free condoms give out free norplant injections , birth control pills and book a bus for girls who want a fitting for a diaphragm or an IUD.
Do a pass through for flu shots. 1 nurse can probably do 500 a day. Lets say 300 per day. Total savings are going to be in the ball park of another trillion.
I'm not trying to reduce people's freedom just the cost of medicine.
Folic acid is for when they might be pregnant. And it is a good example. They could pay the $2, but they don't pay the $2. So what happens if something on the order of another 20-40k birth defects per year.
Same thing with the physicals. The problem is not that they aren't covered but that they don't happen. As for vaccinations they cost a fortune under the current system as contrasted with mass vaccination programs we could administer. The problem with the current system it is horribly inefficient.
Read the scenario. Under the system you propose individuals acting fully rationally would choose not to get preventative care.
Try and stay on topic, "If it is so popular there should be no need to mandate participation, right? ", that's the topic. The issue of whether taxation to support programs that don't distribute their benefits equally is justifiable or not is another entirely different topic. Though the USA has no shortage of laws that primarily benefit the wealthy at the expensive of the poor and middle class so I'm not so torn up about a few examples that run the other way.
That's not at all what we have in America. Things like physicals are not performed particularly on the upper lower - lower middle class because insurance companies don't want diseases found before the person changes jobs. Things like vaccinations and flu shots are a total PIA because of "somebody has to be paid" where under a public system they could be administered en mass quickly and easily. Heck what would it cost to give every high school girl folic acid to keep on her dresser if she misses her period? $2 / per student, maybe?
No we don't have this system at all.
You are missing the point:
I get no subsidy for routine care.
I get a large subsidy for catastrophic care.
To simplify lets assume there is only 1 disease with a 1/1000 chance of effecting me that costs $1000 to treat if found early and $1,000,000 to treat if found late. Assume finding it costs $100. There are 1000 people in the population (so one person has it).
Scenario A: Everyone gets preventative care.
Individual cost $100 for 999 people, $1000 for 1 person
Total cost: $101,000
Scenario B: No one gets preventative care
Individual cost: $0 for 999 people and the deductible (say $1000 for one person)
Total cost: $1,000,000
Under a high deductible system it obviously makes sense for each individual to engage in Scenario B. But collectively it makes sense for the society to engage in scenario A.
Your original claim was about what governments were that government weren't able to do this list of things. You now are arguing that companies might have been able to do the same things. As for the comments about slavery... I'd offer the gothic period as a counter. This was a time when each and every individual was encouraged to self actualize bring their full talents to the craft. Each worker took pride in his individual work and while their were architects the creations represented the community in a way unthinkable to the builders of today. The exact opposite of slavery in every sense.
No... in standard usage "Linux" refers to the operating system and associated apps: the entire GNU/Linux suite, the term "Linux kernel" is used generally for the kernel. Is this what Linus intended, no. Is it how the words are used, yes.
And my statement claims nothing of the kind about Firefox. What it would claim is that on average one would expect Firefox to be less stable in terms of interface than Internet Explorer. And yes I think that's true. Internet Explorer from version 4.0 - 6.0 had very few changes while Netscape -> Mozilla -> Firefox/Thuderbird/NVU/Lightning/Sunbird underwent a fairly large shift in look, feel and means of performing actions. Not least of which is the fact that the whole communicator integration fell apart.
So yes that's a pretty good example of the start of instability I was talking about.
You are missing the point or I was misunderstanding you. I assumed you were proposing a government health care system based on a simple copay formula with no disqualifications. I was giving an example of the problems with such a system. Lots of stuff suddenly becomes "health care".
If the system does have disqualifications then it isn't simple anymore.
I'm talking about the Canadian system with wait insurance. You were giving it as an example of a negative and I was commenting that good health care with rationing + wait insurance seemed like a good way to offer a low end system for free and a high end system for cost.
No I meant stability of interface. How application interfaces change over time.
Read the context. We are talking about stability of interface.
A society as a whole can't save. It is really meaningless to talk about the Federal Government either "saving" or "borrowing" in a fiat currency system.
It is popular because of mandated participation. It isn't an individual savings system. It redistributes "retirement savings" from people who had long careers to those who got disabled and those who did very well financially to those who did not. The welfare aspects are what makes it popular.
That is a large deductible system. The problem with that system is it discourages preventative care which is much much cheaper. The cost of giving everyone in the USA a routine physical every year (particularly if there were no billing issues) for free is a pittance compared to what it would save.
Without any disqualification you have created a great system for people to charge off all sorts of expenses as medical. I want to go on a trip to China, of course I'll need to fly there, stay in a Hotel and I'm going to be consulting doctors in several cities.
Total cost for the trip alone = $4000
total cost for the medical consultation = $500
amount I pay $900.
This seems like an excellent system. An inexpensive system freely provided to all with an expensive system available for those who can afford it.
What we have in the USA is an expensive system provided to some some of the time.
1) Build most of the architecture that has lasted through time
2) Build the infrastructure in most countries
3) Manger large services
4) War
5) Maintain records to a standard that private companies haven't come remotely close to
6) Create a 500 track record of a decrease in criminal activity, which while having infrequent bumps is rapidly declining in all respects
7) Create a regulated system of tariffs and tolls which has allowed for free commerce between nearby locals to prosper.
8) Insure the safety of most consumer products
9) Spread information about agriculture to the point that hunger is essentially abolished and food prices are fairly close to transportation costs.
etc...
The UK seems to be moving right on all sorts of civil liberties. I don't know enough to have an informed opinion but at least from across the pond it seems like you all have a social liberalism problem in general.
Oh I see. He's basically saying that google has the same kind of strangle hold as ____ (what ever the old services were).
I'd disagree but at least this argument makes sense. IMHO
1) There was nothing comparable prior to Google
2) Google's win over Altavista (and more importantly Lycos) came from radically redefining the advertising industry not the search industry. They had a brilliant brilliant idea and they have followed it up with dozens of truly great ideas since then.
Thank you for explicating what he was talking about.
Your conflating. The issue here was about stability of binary interfaces. Obviously linux has a much smaller problem with malware and had you raised that I wouldn't have commented you are picking a solution that makes the problem you are talking about worse.
As for alternatives for myself: OSX, AIX, SunOS, Solaris, IRIX, OpenVMS, Z-OS, Dec-Unix, Linux, OS/2, Xenis, SCO, QNX, FreeBSD, IOS, Dos, CPM and along with semi-OSes like Cygwin.
I'm still not sure I follow how do transaction fees (minor ones) have much to do with creative freedom? What's a few percent matter one way or another for author freedom?