I do enough support without having to be the ONLY linux person they know to go to.
I'm facing this issue with upgrading my Mom's computer, whose Win2000 machine has become a cesspool that I don't even like to touch. There's nothing about Linux (and, say, Gnome or KDE) that she can't handle with a little reorientation, but then I'd be the main support guy. My brother-in-law does Windows, and lives a lot closer by...
You saying you don't watch TV isn't going to change their mind, and it's certainly not making you sound like a better person for it-- in fact, it makes you sound like a snob.
But I didn't say that I didn't watch TV. Actually, I said quite the opposite. In fact, I'm typing this during a commercial on The Daily Show! Sounds like you have a big chip on your shoulder for some reason...
Nobody is claiming to be "morally superior" that I can see. Maybe the problem is that many people fully realize how much time they are wasting with their TVs, are unable to stop or cut back, and simply don't want to be reminded of it. It's much like the "evangelism" of reformed smokers. They may boast about having successfully quit, but hey - life really is better without tobacco.
Firefox is one of the very few user-centered pieces of FOSS within a huge pile of geek-centric applications.
That may be true, but geeks are users, too, and a lot of the software used by geeks simply isn't going to be of interest to the general public and therefore doesn't require the same "training wheels". Besides, I'd easily take a good, versatile command-line driven app that gets the job done over a prettier proprietary one bursting with baby talk, spyware, adware, and God-Knows-What-Else along with the eye candy. Being free (as in beer) is just icing on the cake!
This isn't just good for Microsoft, but it's good for Firefox and good for us too.
It doesn't really address the trust issue, however, even though some of the more abusive "features" of IE may be toned down due to competition and heightened user awareness. Microsoft still largely sees its end-user base as property that it owns, and to which it can sell access for commercial or marketing purposes. Firefox, on the other hand, being FOSS, is naturally more user-centric. IE users can thank Firefox for making the Beast a little kinder and gentler, at least for the time being...
The world is flattening. With diminished barriers to the movement of capital across national boundaries, and virtually no barriers to the movement of information, we can expect wage rates for IT workers to equilibrate globally. As we all know, there's a lot of IT talent coming online from India, China, Russia, and a lot of other countries, and it will get increasingly difficult to justify the stiff premiums that are still demanded by western workers. This will continue until the standards of living of IT workers are roughly equal everywhere.
Prospective CS majors can see this writing on the wall, and those that are motivated mainly by the field's income potential are having second thoughts. Look for a rush to Business and Law for these folks...
It doesn't matter how much of a genius you are if you struggle to communicate with the people around you
I don't think it has as much to do with "communication" skills as it does with empathy, or the ability to appreciate the feelings of others and to respond appropriately. If you can't do that, you'll have a hard time in the dating game no matter how articulate you might be...
You're right, and the somewhat elitist side of me would actually prefer that it doesn't. Being Open Source and eminently flexible, Linux will continue to draw a user base that is both more technically adventurous and more resentful (and aware) of the restrictions and concealments that accompany closed-source licensing (to say nothing of the cost). Assuming that's true, a 10-15% desktop share might be about right; much more than that and I start to worry that we'll sink into the same cesspool that we've just managed to escape.
That said though, it's critically important that Linux be accessible to anyone who wants to take the plunge, whether they actually do so or not. Fans of Microsoft et.al. should stop to consider how much worse life with the monster would be in the absence of such an alternative. You could even say that Linux and FOSS is their best friend.
Funny, I had the opposite experience, and I was more than merely "comfortable" with both sides of the fence. I used to dual-boot my desktop with Linux and WinNT, and my laptop with Linux and WinME. Then one day a couple of years ago I realized that my utilization of Windows on both platforms had dwindled to nothing; I hadn't booted it at all in 5 or 6 months. So, I reclaimed the disk space and have never regretted it one bit. And I do a lot with both machines.
What possible advantage does Adobe receive by keeping their free reader program proprietary?
Maybe (a) it allows them to hide certain functionality that some users might find objectionable or annoying, and which would quickly be stripped out of a forked FOSS codebase, or (b) the quality of the code itself might be an embarassment to Adobe if it wasn't written with the expectation of bearing public scrutiny.
I'm not being facetious with possibility (b), by the way. Contrary to what many assume, proprietary code can be pretty ugly, most often because it's written under tight deadlines and code quality usually isn't a high priority for management. You take a little more care when you put your work out there for all to see. It can be pretty scary for many of us.
Why are the supposedly free and democratic nations bending over backwards to strike deals with a dictatorship which not only oppresses its own people but also holds its neighbouring peoples under brutal occupation?
If you think less in terms of "nations" and more in terms of the worldwide economic interests that they all serve, things will start to make a little more sense. And watch out for trigger words like "terrorism" and "freedom"; it's as likely as not that they're being used to manipulate you...
we in the West are going to have to accept a reduction in our standards of living
Maybe all it will take is to redefine our standard of living. Especially in the U.S., we've been brainwashed by our consumer-compulsive society to believe that the answer to unhappiness or dissatisfaction with life is always more stuff. Much of the value we percieve in this "stuff", however, is pure illusion, created and maintained by an incessant barrage of marketing propaganda and psychosocial engineering. We don't buy material things so much as we buy brands, logos, image, and prestige. Add to that the burdens imposed by our accumulated things (your stuff owns you as much as you own it), and it's hard to see what we're really striving for.
Now, will someone please help me get this junk out of my basement?
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I'm facing this issue with upgrading my Mom's computer, whose Win2000 machine has become a cesspool that I don't even like to touch. There's nothing about Linux (and, say, Gnome or KDE) that she can't handle with a little reorientation, but then I'd be the main support guy. My brother-in-law does Windows, and lives a lot closer by...
Lawdy, lawdy. And this article follows one asking why people advocate Open Source...
He would be OK in my book if he did all of those things. I still wouldn't buy his software, though...
Tell that to Comcast. With their basic digital phone service, "long distance" is 7 cents a minute extra!
FOSS starts looking a lot more attractive after you've been through a couple of license audits, doesn't it?
So we've come full-circle, back to the equivalent of just calling someone on a telephone? Revolutionary!
But I didn't say that I didn't watch TV. Actually, I said quite the opposite. In fact, I'm typing this during a commercial on The Daily Show! Sounds like you have a big chip on your shoulder for some reason...
Everybody knows you can't rely on exit polls. They only measure how people think they voted, not how their votes were actually counted...
Nobody is claiming to be "morally superior" that I can see. Maybe the problem is that many people fully realize how much time they are wasting with their TVs, are unable to stop or cut back, and simply don't want to be reminded of it. It's much like the "evangelism" of reformed smokers. They may boast about having successfully quit, but hey - life really is better without tobacco.
It does touch a nerve, though, doesn't it? Blasphemy!
But if only I could have all of the time back that I've wasted watching mine...
That may be true, but geeks are users, too, and a lot of the software used by geeks simply isn't going to be of interest to the general public and therefore doesn't require the same "training wheels". Besides, I'd easily take a good, versatile command-line driven app that gets the job done over a prettier proprietary one bursting with baby talk, spyware, adware, and God-Knows-What-Else along with the eye candy. Being free (as in beer) is just icing on the cake!
It doesn't really address the trust issue, however, even though some of the more abusive "features" of IE may be toned down due to competition and heightened user awareness. Microsoft still largely sees its end-user base as property that it owns, and to which it can sell access for commercial or marketing purposes. Firefox, on the other hand, being FOSS, is naturally more user-centric. IE users can thank Firefox for making the Beast a little kinder and gentler, at least for the time being...
Those guys are sociopaths. They have the ability to fake empathy, and use it for manipulative purposes. They often become politicians.
Prospective CS majors can see this writing on the wall, and those that are motivated mainly by the field's income potential are having second thoughts. Look for a rush to Business and Law for these folks...
I don't think it has as much to do with "communication" skills as it does with empathy, or the ability to appreciate the feelings of others and to respond appropriately. If you can't do that, you'll have a hard time in the dating game no matter how articulate you might be...
You're right, and the somewhat elitist side of me would actually prefer that it doesn't. Being Open Source and eminently flexible, Linux will continue to draw a user base that is both more technically adventurous and more resentful (and aware) of the restrictions and concealments that accompany closed-source licensing (to say nothing of the cost). Assuming that's true, a 10-15% desktop share might be about right; much more than that and I start to worry that we'll sink into the same cesspool that we've just managed to escape.
That said though, it's critically important that Linux be accessible to anyone who wants to take the plunge, whether they actually do so or not. Fans of Microsoft et.al. should stop to consider how much worse life with the monster would be in the absence of such an alternative. You could even say that Linux and FOSS is their best friend.
Oh! Oh! I know this one. Is it because with Windows you have to run out and buy upgrades for all of your software every time you update the OS?
Funny, I had the opposite experience, and I was more than merely "comfortable" with both sides of the fence. I used to dual-boot my desktop with Linux and WinNT, and my laptop with Linux and WinME. Then one day a couple of years ago I realized that my utilization of Windows on both platforms had dwindled to nothing; I hadn't booted it at all in 5 or 6 months. So, I reclaimed the disk space and have never regretted it one bit. And I do a lot with both machines.
Maybe (a) it allows them to hide certain functionality that some users might find objectionable or annoying, and which would quickly be stripped out of a forked FOSS codebase, or (b) the quality of the code itself might be an embarassment to Adobe if it wasn't written with the expectation of bearing public scrutiny.
I'm not being facetious with possibility (b), by the way. Contrary to what many assume, proprietary code can be pretty ugly, most often because it's written under tight deadlines and code quality usually isn't a high priority for management. You take a little more care when you put your work out there for all to see. It can be pretty scary for many of us.
There's a scratch for every itch...
Best to avoid this if you'll mainly be watching porn, then...
I'm not sure that's the principal reason we invented religion, but it is one of the main reasons for its broad appeal...
Maybe this will help...
If you think less in terms of "nations" and more in terms of the worldwide economic interests that they all serve, things will start to make a little more sense. And watch out for trigger words like "terrorism" and "freedom"; it's as likely as not that they're being used to manipulate you...
Maybe all it will take is to redefine our standard of living. Especially in the U.S., we've been brainwashed by our consumer-compulsive society to believe that the answer to unhappiness or dissatisfaction with life is always more stuff. Much of the value we percieve in this "stuff", however, is pure illusion, created and maintained by an incessant barrage of marketing propaganda and psychosocial engineering. We don't buy material things so much as we buy brands, logos, image, and prestige. Add to that the burdens imposed by our accumulated things (your stuff owns you as much as you own it), and it's hard to see what we're really striving for.
Now, will someone please help me get this junk out of my basement?