What do you do when the American product SUCKS in comparison to the foreign made product? I'm talking about cars here. American companies have to offer folks 5 years of free financing in order to get people to even come into the car lots. Asian automakers can simply charge their regular prices. Why? A Ford/GM/Crysler (Crysler is German now btw) will break down before a Toyota, Hyundai, Nissan will.
This is why American cars sell for less when new, and sell for less when used. People tend to want to hold onto their high quality foreign cars. So should we still buy American when it comes to cars? Or should we let the market continue to apply pressure to those companies who make products that suck?
What are those Nordic socialist states going to do when the tax revenue for their social programs runs out because there's less people working and contributing then there are taking out of the system? You know, lower population growth rates and all........
You don't seem to understand basic economic theory. When you introduce trade and capital barriers you actually destroy wealth. You see wealth isn't set at any limit or level. You can create it or destroy it. I don't see how destroying wealth is going to help American laborers. Trading with other nations helps Americans by making sure their products continue to decrease in price due to flexible labor choices around the globe.
And yes the companies would leave no matter what laws you have. They would simply go out of business as the people with the experience in running them leave the country for a nation that isn't gripped with union insanity. Those left behind would of course nationalize the "Commanding Heights" of the economy and you'd just have to wait 70 or 80 years for it to collapse as did the Soviet Union.
3 and a half years off with full pay just for having a baby? What the hell? How can you honestly be happy about that? Can't you see that those types of policies are totally irresponsible economically? How the hell is that German company supposed to compete with an American company or a Japanese company that doesn't have such ridiculous policies? Does she get 3.5 years off for each extra kid she has?
Do you not understand that robbing corporations blind is not a good idea? What happens when that company can no longer afford to stay in businessness? Who's going to pay for the mother then? How is Germany going to keep its social programs funded when the tax revenue goes down the drain because no one can afford to employ anyone anymore?
Its a 6 page Salon story about an out of work dot.commer who is looking for new work. Out of the blue a company in Atlanta contacts him and pays for him to fly down there from MA to interview for a job. Its absolutely hilarious. You've got to read it until the very end:
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/02/12/chi ck en_show/index.html
Those cultures/nations that don't think money is everything usually think that way because they don't have much of it. The materialistic way of life is not limited to the USofA. As globalization spreads economic development around the world the "holistic" ways of life shall fade into nothingness slowly but surely.....replaced by greed and consumerism. Just today I read an article in the WSJ about how obesity is spreading in China due to McDonalds.:)
Lastly, I am not rich. I'm actually very poor. And I don't want to hear anything about how the poor in US/W. Europe are still richer compared to third world nations. Its irrelevant to my personal experience.
"A great benefit of using open source software in a university environment is that it is very likely that the students will fix existing applications and code new ones if they don't like what is available. Even if you are correct that the available applications are not sufficient, I doubt that it would take long for that to change."
How easy do you think programming is? What percentage of students in a university do you think are able to program? What are the vast majority of students who don't know how to program supposed to do when they need an app that isn't yet available on Linux?
Again this is not a computer lab we're talking about but the entire student body. Only a small number of the students are capable of programming and just because one can code it does not mean one can code well. Also just because an open source program exists that does not mean it is up to par with its proprietary counter parts. Look I've used Linux for years but I still cannot shake the personal feeling that the software is all second-rate bargin stuff that is only used because it is free. If the GPL never existed and someone tried to sell this stuff very few people would buy it and the few apps that would be bought are exceptionally rare pieces of Free Software.
"I think that there may be short term inconveniences but that in the long run the students would benefit, the university would benefit and the computing world in general would benefit."
Are you or are you not on planet Earth? When a business student needs to send a presentation and OpenOffice can't handle the job do you think they're going to wait for the program to be fixed and updated or will they install Windows, Office and move on with their lives? Do you think they'll lose any sleep over choosing to go back to Windows? After they graduate and they have deals with clients who haven't even heard of OpenOffice do you think they're going to try to convince the client to start using this weird open source app?
You might hate to have those clients, but others would say they'd hate to have to do without their money.;)
And what do you mean a cultural thing? Some folks make too much out of being dignified and prideful. They'll turn any insignificant issue into a matter of principles.
If you want to be principled then choose a REAL issue to make your stand on. Something like human rights, homelessness activism or education reform. But the use of MS Software? Puhlease.
I don't understand your logic at all. Buying the software is a one time cost. You don't have to buy it each time a client wants to send you something. Its just a one time cost. Once its paid, you can stop being annoying to your clients. I consider that well worth the money. I receive far too many various MS files to be asking each recipient to use "Save As". It disrupts the flow of business for a not good enough reason.
It would be like McDonalds asking all their customers to remove their shoes and socks when they enter the restaraunt and place them in the closet before ordering their food. It might keep the floors clean but its just really inconvienent.
Why? Because its a bullshit attitude to have when dealing with clients.
Your supposed to bend over backwards to help and assist your clients, not make them do that for you. Of course if you do business with a holier-than-thou Free Software ethos then yeah I guess you wouldn't see a problem with acting like that. And I'm not saying it would put you out of business either. You'll simply be regarded as a jerk.
This is an entire student body, not just the CS dept we're talking about here.
The kids are going to need their MS Office with its Word, Powerpoint and Excell apps. No crappy Open/StarOffice need apply.
Not to mention all the apps they won't be able to use since they won't have Windows as their OS.
They are also going to have to use Windows in the workplace after graduation so they would acutually be BEHIND the rest of their generation once school is over. No thanks. No way. No how. Keep the GNU stuff where it belongs, on the server.
All in all, lets keep software politics out of college purchasing decisions. Buy the best practical, not idealogical, tool for the job.
Your job is your job. You don't get to make many personal decisions at your job so why should your OS be one of them? Do you get to pick your own ISP at work? Your own phone company? Do you get to decide who provides your company with furniture....etc?
My mistake, I assumed that tweaking arcane software for hours on end was one of the many appeals of Linux to geeks.:)
There will always be Linux From Scratch if Debian or Slackware ever disapear. And really, everyone has to support themselves. I don't see why certain geek oriented distros should be excluded from this. Perhaps if Debian wants to ensure its survival they could invent an installer that doesn't require a 25 digit IQ.:) Releasing current software more often would be nice too....
A few thousand well paid corporate programmers would beg to differ. You know, the ones who work at IBM, HP, Sun and other corporations of various sizes worldwide who DON'T code for fun or hobby.
It may have started out small and simple, but its big and corporate now.
The ENTIRE point of Linux is that it is infinitely customizable. If 99% of the world's population is using Redhat someday with super simplified GUI's, that still does not eliminate your ability to download Slackware or Debian and use whatever window manager or shell script you want for the rest of your life.
This is why I do not understand why there is such shrieking and moaning whenever someone proposes less duplication of effort and a little more centralization for the masses.
Actually this is true. If you saw the Slashdot story about a week and a half ago about the story of NT 4 Development you would see the development of certain work practices that MS still holds to this day. One of them is that all developers are on call 24/7.
Another is that no matter what Windows it is, it takes 12-14 hours to build.
Choice is good, when limited. When allowed to run free, its actually a prison unto itself.
Too many GUI's, desktop environments, xfree86 shells, WHATEVER you wanna call them (see there's even too much choice on naming the damn things) and userbases get splintered along with their apps making Linux HARDER not EASIER to use.
A united GUI is the best chance Linux has for a respectable marketshare on the desktop.
And for all you "But you will RUIN my LEENUCKS if you make it easy to use, I like being counter-culture and unique!!!!!" and "Dammit. Choice is sacrosanct! I don't care if NO ONE can figure out how to use Linux, if it doesn't have 500,000 different ways of doing the same thing then it isn't worth installing! Can't you see? Linux is ALL about WASTEFUL and POINTLESS duplication of effort! Why go foward when you can spend eternity going nowhere!!?!?!" people relax. I am sure someone will create a new Linux distro, the "Ub3r L33t Linux Extra-Special Hard To Use" distro with a built in AI that will monitor your usage over time and re-arrainge various commands randomly to keep you on your toes and make sure Linux never becomes "too easy" for you. Legions of filthy unwashed nerds and geeks, dissilusioned by the increasingly easier to use mainstream distros will flock to this new permanently hard to use distro. They will form communities to provide each other with moral support. Real Estate firms will notice a skyrocketing in their sales and rentals of basement unit apartments/condos as the geeks settle in for a lifelong pursuit of sunlight shunning and the disdainment of anything easy or social. Although these geeks and nerds will think their intelligence is par none, they will miss all other technological advances and fall further and further behind the rest of society. When their savings finally runs out and they apply for computer jobs interviewers will be amazed that you've all spent the past 5 years using what will appear to the rest of the world as "DOS Linux". Laughed out of the interview the poor geeks will have to settle for flipping burgers at the local fast food restaurant for a short time until they are replaced by burger flipping robots. Finally realizing their worthlessness to society in general they will join an EverQuest cult where they will all live in massive communes cut off from the rest of the world and live peacefully until someone forgets to pay the EverQuest bill and they all jump off a bridge from mass depression.
Your a bit mentally deficient if you expect people to actually choose death over working for a propietary software company. They may SAY they will, but their actions will LOUDLY speak otherwise.
Aren't you one of the guys who hates the OS X Aqua GUI compared to the old Platinum Classic Mac OS GUI? If not then I've mistaken you for someone else.
Cell phones don't destroy communites. They just allow you to hold onto the friends you've made first longer instead of always having to make new ones. Tell that student to get a cell phone and some friends to call of his own and he'll be happy again.
Thats the price you pay for being different. Most people have cell phones and you choose to not have one to be "unique". Can you blame people for looking at you funny?
Its like those Christian Scientists who turn down antibiotics when they've got gangrene.....they get funny looks too!
Slashdot Mirror
What do you do when the American product SUCKS in comparison to the foreign made product? I'm talking about cars here. American companies have to offer folks 5 years of free financing in order to get people to even come into the car lots. Asian automakers can simply charge their regular prices. Why? A Ford/GM/Crysler (Crysler is German now btw) will break down before a Toyota, Hyundai, Nissan will.
This is why American cars sell for less when new, and sell for less when used. People tend to want to hold onto their high quality foreign cars. So should we still buy American when it comes to cars? Or should we let the market continue to apply pressure to those companies who make products that suck?
What are those Nordic socialist states going to do when the tax revenue for their social programs runs out because there's less people working and contributing then there are taking out of the system? You know, lower population growth rates and all........
You don't seem to understand basic economic theory. When you introduce trade and capital barriers you actually destroy wealth. You see wealth isn't set at any limit or level. You can create it or destroy it. I don't see how destroying wealth is going to help American laborers. Trading with other nations helps Americans by making sure their products continue to decrease in price due to flexible labor choices around the globe.
And yes the companies would leave no matter what laws you have. They would simply go out of business as the people with the experience in running them leave the country for a nation that isn't gripped with union insanity. Those left behind would of course nationalize the "Commanding Heights" of the economy and you'd just have to wait 70 or 80 years for it to collapse as did the Soviet Union.
3 and a half years off with full pay just for having a baby? What the hell? How can you honestly be happy about that? Can't you see that those types of policies are totally irresponsible economically? How the hell is that German company supposed to compete with an American company or a Japanese company that doesn't have such ridiculous policies? Does she get 3.5 years off for each extra kid she has?
Do you not understand that robbing corporations blind is not a good idea? What happens when that company can no longer afford to stay in businessness? Who's going to pay for the mother then? How is Germany going to keep its social programs funded when the tax revenue goes down the drain because no one can afford to employ anyone anymore?
Its a 6 page Salon story about an out of work dot.commer who is looking for new work. Out of the blue a company in Atlanta contacts him and pays for him to fly down there from MA to interview for a job. Its absolutely hilarious. You've got to read it until the very end:
i ck en_show/index.html
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/02/12/ch
You just need Faith of the Heart
Do you think that every company/organization that uses Linux is going to have in house programmers ready to fix any coding issue? Ugh.
And usenet? WTF? For a REAL business?
Dude, its 2003 not 1998.
Those cultures/nations that don't think money is everything usually think that way because they don't have much of it. The materialistic way of life is not limited to the USofA. As globalization spreads economic development around the world the "holistic" ways of life shall fade into nothingness slowly but surely.....replaced by greed and consumerism. Just today I read an article in the WSJ about how obesity is spreading in China due to McDonalds. :)
Lastly, I am not rich. I'm actually very poor. And I don't want to hear anything about how the poor in US/W. Europe are still richer compared to third world nations. Its irrelevant to my personal experience.
"A great benefit of using open source software in a university environment is that it is very likely that the students will fix existing applications and code new ones if they don't like what is available. Even if you are correct that the available applications are not sufficient, I doubt that it would take long for that to change."
How easy do you think programming is? What percentage of students in a university do you think are able to program? What are the vast majority of students who don't know how to program supposed to do when they need an app that isn't yet available on Linux?
Again this is not a computer lab we're talking about but the entire student body. Only a small number of the students are capable of programming and just because one can code it does not mean one can code well. Also just because an open source program exists that does not mean it is up to par with its proprietary counter parts. Look I've used Linux for years but I still cannot shake the personal feeling that the software is all second-rate bargin stuff that is only used because it is free. If the GPL never existed and someone tried to sell this stuff very few people would buy it and the few apps that would be bought are exceptionally rare pieces of Free Software.
"I think that there may be short term inconveniences but that in the long run the students would benefit, the university would benefit and the computing world in general would benefit."
Are you or are you not on planet Earth? When a business student needs to send a presentation and OpenOffice can't handle the job do you think they're going to wait for the program to be fixed and updated or will they install Windows, Office and move on with their lives? Do you think they'll lose any sleep over choosing to go back to Windows? After they graduate and they have deals with clients who haven't even heard of OpenOffice do you think they're going to try to convince the client to start using this weird open source app?
You might hate to have those clients, but others would say they'd hate to have to do without their money. ;)
And what do you mean a cultural thing? Some folks make too much out of being dignified and prideful. They'll turn any insignificant issue into a matter of principles.
If you want to be principled then choose a REAL issue to make your stand on. Something like human rights, homelessness activism or education reform. But the use of MS Software? Puhlease.
I don't understand your logic at all. Buying the software is a one time cost. You don't have to buy it each time a client wants to send you something. Its just a one time cost. Once its paid, you can stop being annoying to your clients. I consider that well worth the money. I receive far too many various MS files to be asking each recipient to use "Save As". It disrupts the flow of business for a not good enough reason.
It would be like McDonalds asking all their customers to remove their shoes and socks when they enter the restaraunt and place them in the closet before ordering their food. It might keep the floors clean but its just really inconvienent.
Why? Because its a bullshit attitude to have when dealing with clients.
Your supposed to bend over backwards to help and assist your clients, not make them do that for you. Of course if you do business with a holier-than-thou Free Software ethos then yeah I guess you wouldn't see a problem with acting like that. And I'm not saying it would put you out of business either. You'll simply be regarded as a jerk.
Linux simply IS NOT READY FOR THE DESKTOP YET.
This is an entire student body, not just the CS dept we're talking about here.
The kids are going to need their MS Office with its Word, Powerpoint and Excell apps. No crappy Open/StarOffice need apply.
Not to mention all the apps they won't be able to use since they won't have Windows as their OS.
They are also going to have to use Windows in the workplace after graduation so they would acutually be BEHIND the rest of their generation once school is over. No thanks. No way. No how. Keep the GNU stuff where it belongs, on the server.
All in all, lets keep software politics out of college purchasing decisions. Buy the best practical, not idealogical, tool for the job.
Perhaps you could explain to us, the world, and the Slashdot audience in general the friggin point of the entire Greek fraternity system.
:-)
I mean what sets a Fraternity or Sorority apart from a regular college/university Club or Organization?
Keep in mind that I DO watch Sorority Life on MTV so I am basing much of Greek life on that.
Your job is your job. You don't get to make many personal decisions at your job so why should your OS be one of them? Do you get to pick your own ISP at work? Your own phone company? Do you get to decide who provides your company with furniture....etc?
:)
:) Releasing current software more often would be nice too....
My mistake, I assumed that tweaking arcane software for hours on end was one of the many appeals of Linux to geeks.
There will always be Linux From Scratch if Debian or Slackware ever disapear. And really, everyone has to support themselves. I don't see why certain geek oriented distros should be excluded from this. Perhaps if Debian wants to ensure its survival they could invent an installer that doesn't require a 25 digit IQ.
A few thousand well paid corporate programmers would beg to differ. You know, the ones who work at IBM, HP, Sun and other corporations of various sizes worldwide who DON'T code for fun or hobby.
It may have started out small and simple, but its big and corporate now.
The ENTIRE point of Linux is that it is infinitely customizable. If 99% of the world's population is using Redhat someday with super simplified GUI's, that still does not eliminate your ability to download Slackware or Debian and use whatever window manager or shell script you want for the rest of your life.
This is why I do not understand why there is such shrieking and moaning whenever someone proposes less duplication of effort and a little more centralization for the masses.
Actually this is true. If you saw the Slashdot story about a week and a half ago about the story of NT 4 Development you would see the development of certain work practices that MS still holds to this day. One of them is that all developers are on call 24/7.
Another is that no matter what Windows it is, it takes 12-14 hours to build.
...REASON joins the open source movement!!!
Choice is good, when limited. When allowed to run free, its actually a prison unto itself.
Too many GUI's, desktop environments, xfree86 shells, WHATEVER you wanna call them (see there's even too much choice on naming the damn things) and userbases get splintered along with their apps making Linux HARDER not EASIER to use.
A united GUI is the best chance Linux has for a respectable marketshare on the desktop.
And for all you "But you will RUIN my LEENUCKS if you make it easy to use, I like being counter-culture and unique!!!!!" and "Dammit. Choice is sacrosanct! I don't care if NO ONE can figure out how to use Linux, if it doesn't have 500,000 different ways of doing the same thing then it isn't worth installing! Can't you see? Linux is ALL about WASTEFUL and POINTLESS duplication of effort! Why go foward when you can spend eternity going nowhere!!?!?!" people relax. I am sure someone will create a new Linux distro, the "Ub3r L33t Linux Extra-Special Hard To Use" distro with a built in AI that will monitor your usage over time and re-arrainge various commands randomly to keep you on your toes and make sure Linux never becomes "too easy" for you. Legions of filthy unwashed nerds and geeks, dissilusioned by the increasingly easier to use mainstream distros will flock to this new permanently hard to use distro. They will form communities to provide each other with moral support. Real Estate firms will notice a skyrocketing in their sales and rentals of basement unit apartments/condos as the geeks settle in for a lifelong pursuit of sunlight shunning and the disdainment of anything easy or social. Although these geeks and nerds will think their intelligence is par none, they will miss all other technological advances and fall further and further behind the rest of society. When their savings finally runs out and they apply for computer jobs interviewers will be amazed that you've all spent the past 5 years using what will appear to the rest of the world as "DOS Linux". Laughed out of the interview the poor geeks will have to settle for flipping burgers at the local fast food restaurant for a short time until they are replaced by burger flipping robots. Finally realizing their worthlessness to society in general they will join an EverQuest cult where they will all live in massive communes cut off from the rest of the world and live peacefully until someone forgets to pay the EverQuest bill and they all jump off a bridge from mass depression.
Your a bit mentally deficient if you expect people to actually choose death over working for a propietary software company. They may SAY they will, but their actions will LOUDLY speak otherwise.
You don't think someone can balance a great career AND a great social/family life at the same time?
lol I'm just messing with you.
Aren't you one of the guys who hates the OS X Aqua GUI compared to the old Platinum Classic Mac OS GUI? If not then I've mistaken you for someone else.
So basically you're autistic?
No wonder you don't like OS X's GUI
Cell phones don't destroy communites. They just allow you to hold onto the friends you've made first longer instead of always having to make new ones. Tell that student to get a cell phone and some friends to call of his own and he'll be happy again.
....now lie in it.
Thats the price you pay for being different. Most people have cell phones and you choose to not have one to be "unique". Can you blame people for looking at you funny?
Its like those Christian Scientists who turn down antibiotics when they've got gangrene.....they get funny looks too!