What, you think those bobble head things cost $500 a pop? If you were passed up on a $500 bonus in favor of a bobble head CEO I'd see your point. As it stands, I suspect you think you got shafted when in fact a $11 check would have been equally (if not more) insulting to you. Just a guess.
Here's some advice: take the damn doll and shut up. There are talented people out there with children who can't see doctors anymore or even eat well because their talented parents were laid off and unemployment benefits are running out. Facing being homeless, I'd venture a guess that they'd spit in your friggin' eye if they heard you say in person what you're saying now.
You people are jaw jackin' about how rotten your companies are based on things like bonuses. Bosses get more than you do. Deal with it. You don't like it, you think you can do better, start your own company. Now's actually an ideal time to do it.
But quit being a spoiled brat. Look around you, read the news about the economy, and accept that you may not be given free $$ this year. I couldn't care less. I have a job, a roof over my head, and I have enough left over to sock some away for my retirement and still be able to pay for my new car and a few sushi runs a couple times a month. And I feel BLESSED to have this. I don't know what your problem is...
I want to know who took his PRESENTS. I mean, every time the show returned from a commercial break, the "Steven Spielberg Presents Taken" newsflash would pop up.
Poor guy, it being Hannukah and all (okay, YOU try to spell it...).
I read through about half of the patent before getting bored. The portion that I managed to read kept refering to client workstations doing all this "hypermedia" stuff through "a browser".
I may not be up to speed on the official definition of "browser", but web apps don't necessarily need IE, Netscape, Mozilla, etc. to run. Just about any application that is capable of parsing XML and speaking HTTP can handle web applications. So the processing of content distributed over HTTP may not be completely covered by this patent. I seriously doubt that a C++ application that speaks SOAP could be considered a browser. Just a guess.
Also, it sounds like the patent is limited to inter-process communications between a "browser", an embedded application running in the "first window", and a "hypermedia server" running somewhere out there on a network. It seems to me if web browsers spawn an app like plugger that does NOT communicate with a hypermedia server and does NOT run embedded processes that communicate with the browser (plugger is all the browser speaks to; the application running inside of plugger, whether an applet, ActiveX thingy, document viewer, whatever, has nothing to do with the web browser that spawned plugger, right?) you should be fine.
Punk this, punk that... There seem to be lots of "experts" here posting what punk was all about.
Me, I prefer the viewpoints presented in the movie "SLC Punk". As much as I like Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys, etc., I do believe that the majority of the punk movement was over hyped and most of the folks who lived the "punk life" were actually living a romantic dream of what they wanted punk to be.
How you can compare freedom of speech with free software is beyond me. Last time I checked, nobody lost his/her life or the lives of family members and friends over a free/proprietary software issue.
Just because somebody is pro-open source does not mean that he/she/they should promote everything that has been open sourced. It actually is possible to say negative things about an open sourced piece of software without being anti-open source, you know.
Without seeing UL, without seeing the NDA, without having any evidence whatsoever other than the dent in your chin from your knee jerking upward unexpectedly, most of you already seem to have tried and convicted the UL folks for GPL violations.
Tell me, what are you going to do if the UL closed beta NDA stated that only the proprietary components of UL are not distributable but the open sourced and GPL'd components are? Pull the usual trick: sit back and pretend you never said anything, then wait a month and start bashing UL as Satan's distro again?
That's just plain creepy... You let your senseless rage get in the way of reason. You probably don't even know why you hate UL so much other than the fact that you simply WANT to hate it.
If the UL team violated the GPL, fry 'em. Until I see damning evidence, though, they're innocent until proven guilty.
Reading some of the posts here you'd think that making a graphic desktop look a certain way cripples power users. Unless the Linux power user community has gone completely wuss, power users should still be able to do whatever they damn well please with whatever software they install on their systems.
If you don't like what Red Hat's doing, swap out their desktop for the one you want. If you don't like the theme, put in another one. Or simply don't use Red Hat. It seems simple to me.
All of this makes me think back to when Caldera decided to make KDE its default desktop environment to the point of removing pretty much all the WMs they used to ship. Lots of folks cried "You're dumbing down Linux! How dare you force people to use KDE!". How making KDE the default desktop affected peoples' ability to pull up an xterm, I haven't a clue.
And to the KDE developers who pissed and moaned over Red Hat changing their precious code, try reading the license under which KDE is distributed. Last time I checked, people were allowed to alter GPL'd code in whatever way they wanted and re-distribute their version provided they made their patches available. I don't recall the GPL saying "you can change the code all you want as long as you don't change anything from the way we distributed it". You chose the license, sunshine. If you don't like what Red Hat did, cry me a river but don't expect me to sympathise with you. I'm not a huge fan of Red Hat (truth be told, I don't like their products at all), but what they're doing is something you and the GNOME folks have been allowed WAY too much time to take care of but did not. Both teams dropped the ball (or at least dragged your asses), so don't whine when someone else steps in and does the right thing. If you want it done your way, stop complaining and do it.
I could say the same thing about detective and sci-fi books... There's more of a story in Harry Potter books than I've ever read in any dectective or sci-fi book, bar none.
Perhaps you should try reading a few HP books before making any more comments?
I didn't mean to imply that deploying open sourced software would be more expensive. All I was trying to do was debunk the argument that because the stuff can be freely obtained and support (as unpredictable as Internet support can be) can be obtained freely that it somehow will be significantly cheaper to deploy.
Your case may or may not be unique in that you ended up supporting yourself. I have no market research stating one way or another. I can only speak from my own observations, and those observations say that there aren't too many companies out there that want to gamble that there will always be someone hanging out in IRC or on newsgroups at whatever wee hour of the morning to help get a mission critical system (losing hundreds of thousands of dollars per minute) back online. Internet support for people like that is not even an option: a 24/7 support contract is necessary, and cost is rarely an issue (what's a few hundred thou for a yearly support contract if a down system loses a hundred thou a minute?).
As I've mentioned previously when this subject has come up, the cost of purchasing software is a pittance compared to the cost of deploying, maintaining, and supporting the software (I'll include training in the support category). What he says in the Oracle example is right on the money: there are aspects of buying/installing/deploying/USING the software that supercede any cost benefit of paying less (or nothing) for a CD of open source software. I still am amazed that so many people on/. don't get this (those are YOUR tax dollars that are paying for all that work). I can only assume that most of these folks have not worked for a company that has to deal with new software deployments across thousands of machines.
You clearly have little understanding of how the VAR business works. Many little VARs set up many little businesses that have limited potential without either venture capital or some big, magnanimous organization to either partner with them or outright purchase them. Over the past few years the market for buying up VARs has dropped into the gutter, and venture capital is hard to come by (and when you do find it, the amount is typically more like $2 million instead of the $20 you would have gotten back in the late 90's). The buyback program is another way of motivating VARs to make their businesses as valuable as possible so they can unload the business to a company that has the means to push it to the market (and in the process, the VAR gets to retire early).
This is how business works, with the possible exception of little mom and pop shops that have been running for generations in the same small town with no aspirations for growth. They can continue to pass the same $5 bill back and forth all they want if it makes them happy and keeps them in the black. Most people with aspirations grow their businesses with the intention of being bought for a hefty sum.
It sounds like all that the SCO Group is doing is giving their own partners, resellers, ISVs, etc. first priority when acquisitions are being sought. This makes them more favorable to work with, as opposed to other companies who will partner with anyone but will step outside their own circles to hunt for acquisitions.
How are you relating Turbolinux to Caldera? All Caldera did was change their name, add a few new marketing/support programs for resellers, and re-state their commitment to sell OpenServer. Turbo sold its Linux business outright to someone else.
The comparison doesn't make sense.
Re:Someone finally makes Linux apps look consisten
on
KDE Gets The Hat
·
· Score: 2
Sounds to me like you're the zealot, friend.
People such as yourself are no longer in the cross-hairs of the folks making commercial-ready desktops. You talk about architecture as if an end user gives a rat's patootie about it. All they want is functionality and the ability to move from one app to the next without feeling like they have to re-learn everything first.
It looks to me like someone's actually thinking out of the techie/programmer box by starting to build/configure apps for end users. This is long overdue and should be applauded.
Luckilly, the people who still pointlessly try to keep the GNOME/KDE "war" alive are decreasing in number. It's over, buddy. Nobody won, so now there's cooperation. Deal with it.
(Why am I replying to an AC? Someone should slap me...)
My biggest complaint about this ViM book...
on
Vi IMproved -- Vim
·
· Score: 2
...is that it has the worst index of any book I've bought in recent years. With this index, quickly searching for information is almost impossible unless you're searching for info that's fairly obvious to any vi user. Because of this, the book is probably a decent tutorial but it sucks as a reference.
Much better references can be found in the ViM help documents. In fact, the documentation is better from the included help IMHO; the problem is navigating the help files is about as intuitive as using info (which I think is about the least intuitive document navigation system ever produced).
I have learned a lot about ViM from browsing the book, though, so I can't totally trash the book. I just think there's lots of room for improvement.
Others have mentioned Asian language support and clustering. To that list I'll add this: the first functional (albeit ugly) IA64 Linux distro. As much as other Linux companies would deny it, I'm going to guess that every one of them that has an IA64 implementation has "borrowed" a few things from Turbo's IA64 offering. At least the early versions of the distros had LOTS of RPMs with "[Tt]urbo[Ll]inux" somewhere in the headers (for all I know, many still do).
As others have mentioned, Mandrake didn't drop out of UL. They never joined in the first place.
As for UL, the selling of Turbo's Linux business shouldn't mean anything. UL isn't TurboLinux; it's the combined effort of multiple different companies to produce a shared Linux base. I don't see any reason TurboLinux couldn't still participate in the UL effort. Just because a company does not sell a Linux distribution engineered in-house doesn't mean they can't participate in UL.
Didn't you get the memo? Salaries are only allowed for the people who USE Linux. The people who produce Linux distributions are all supposed to do it full time, free of charge, without salaries. Ditto for the tech support they offer. [sarcasm mode off]
Thank you for pointing out what so many folks seem to have missed: the thing is dying because it isn't popular.
Of course, I'm still waiting for someone here to pull a Loki and insist that we all must dig into our pockets and make donations to keep it going even if we don't care about the stuff. It'll happen...
There's a world of difference between saying you want your representatives to use open source software and shoving it down their throats. If you want to lobby that folks use open source stuff, no problem. Trying to get a law passed saying they have no choice but to use it is nuts, especially using co$t as the basis of the argument. Add up the cost of switching proprietary software to open source software, getting folks to re-learn how to get their day to day tasks done, training the IT folks to support the software (or paying some company like IBM a fat chunk of change for support contracts), etc. and you've pretty much killed any savings you made by the switch.
Too many open source software users think the only cost of using the software is the price of the CD. People in the know realize that the cost of software is a pittance compared to the deployment, training, and support costs that surround the software.
Re:Sad news, Stephen King dead at 54
on
LWCE Wrapup
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· Score: 1, Troll
Some of us don't read every comment posted on/. If I didn't work for a living perhaps I'd be able to read every single comment ever posted here. Fortunately, I have better things to do.
Re:Sad news, Stephen King dead at 54
on
LWCE Wrapup
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
Nobody, not even local Bangor TV/news sites, has anything about him dying (and they'd be the first to know).
1) Have two complete clueless newbies do the installs. One for Window2K and one for Redhat. They both have empty harddrives to work with. Which one will win? Frankly, I don't know. I would give it even odds.
I'd actually give Windows the edge here. In Windows, you get terms like "hard drive", whereas in Red Hat you get things like "/dev/????". Of course, Red Hat has some kind of default partitioning scheme, but I seem to recall you have to verify its correctness before moving forward. I could be wrong about this as it's been a while since I installed Red Hat.
2) Same test, but with gurus. Pit a Windows expert against a Redhat expert. Which one will win? No question about it, Redhat will win.
Why?
3 and 4) Now for the acid test of reality. Same two tests, with the same people, but this time they must install their respective systems on the second partition of the harddrive, without blowing away the preexisting OS on the first partition! I'm pretty sure who will win.
Considering that I've never been able to run any Windows OS on the second partition of any drive, I'd say that this is more of a functionality issue than an ease of installation issue. However, I will admit that Linux installations are by far the most cooperative when it comes to setting up booting other OSes at install time.
What? They don't have DHCP on Windows? I'm shocked! "Hello, Microsoft? Could you put my ISP on the line, 'cuz I have to ask him if I use DHCP or not. And while you're there, could you explain this NT Boot Manager thing to me?"
In Windows, the terminology is something like "Get IP address automatically", not "Use DHCP". Of the two, which do you think is more clear to a newbie? I'll pick the former. And I'm not familiar with the configuration of "NT Boot Manager", but I would imagine the terminology used in setting it up (assuming it's part of the wizard-driven installations Windows typically use) is not all that cryptic. Keep in mind that most folks who are Windows users probably don't dual boot anything. In fact, I'd be surprised if they have any idea you CAN dual boot a computer. Of course, I could be giving them less credit than they deserve...
Again, I'm not pro MS. I do think they've done some things right, though, when it comes to installation. It may take longer to do, but installing Windows requires a lot less prior knowledge of the OS than most Linux installations do.
In the end, who really cares? If all goes well you install once, and from that point forward you have to deal with the OS you installed. I won't judge an OS based on its installation. If I did, Debian would be at the bottom of the barrel (we all know Debian is great, so it's a good thing installation isn't the benchmark that determines the quality of an OS).
I dislike MS as much as anyone else, but come on! This installation competition thing is like comparing apples to BMWs...
First off, a Linux newbie would have absolutely NO clue about half of the stuff Mr. Barr did for the Red Hat installation. Clearly Mr. Barr is a seasoned Linux guy and can breeze through partitioning, network configuration, boot manager selection, package selection, etc. Try any of that on a Linux newbie ("...What's DHCP? And what the hell is this GRUB thing it's asking me about? I'm calling tech support...").
I agree that the Windows installation is slow, has too many reboots, and is not fool-proof as far as hardware detection goes. However, the installation of all Windows products except for the so called "enterprise" editions is set up for people who don't know all that much about hardware. The old 80-20 rule kicks in here: if 80% of the folks are covered by the installation, that can justify the remaining 20% who need hand holding. I still have not encountered a Linux installation that does not assume prior knowledge of technical acronyms, Linux-isms, and common package names (how many new Linux users do you think have any clue that Samba offers Windows network connectivity? How many Linux installations present Samba as a "Windows networking" option and not as "Samba"? None that I know of, that's how many).
As a pro-Linux, pro-BSD, pro-open-source guy, I'm giving this comparison two thumbs down. Sorry, Joe...
Slashdot Mirror
What, you think those bobble head things cost $500 a pop? If you were passed up on a $500 bonus in favor of a bobble head CEO I'd see your point. As it stands, I suspect you think you got shafted when in fact a $11 check would have been equally (if not more) insulting to you. Just a guess.
Here's some advice: take the damn doll and shut up. There are talented people out there with children who can't see doctors anymore or even eat well because their talented parents were laid off and unemployment benefits are running out. Facing being homeless, I'd venture a guess that they'd spit in your friggin' eye if they heard you say in person what you're saying now.
You people are jaw jackin' about how rotten your companies are based on things like bonuses. Bosses get more than you do. Deal with it. You don't like it, you think you can do better, start your own company. Now's actually an ideal time to do it.
But quit being a spoiled brat. Look around you, read the news about the economy, and accept that you may not be given free $$ this year. I couldn't care less. I have a job, a roof over my head, and I have enough left over to sock some away for my retirement and still be able to pay for my new car and a few sushi runs a couple times a month. And I feel BLESSED to have this. I don't know what your problem is...
Who cares who took HIM?
I want to know who took his PRESENTS. I mean, every time the show returned from a commercial break, the "Steven Spielberg Presents Taken" newsflash would pop up.
Poor guy, it being Hannukah and all (okay, YOU try to spell it...).
I read through about half of the patent before getting bored. The portion that I managed to read kept refering to client workstations doing all this "hypermedia" stuff through "a browser".
I may not be up to speed on the official definition of "browser", but web apps don't necessarily need IE, Netscape, Mozilla, etc. to run. Just about any application that is capable of parsing XML and speaking HTTP can handle web applications. So the processing of content distributed over HTTP may not be completely covered by this patent. I seriously doubt that a C++ application that speaks SOAP could be considered a browser. Just a guess.
Also, it sounds like the patent is limited to inter-process communications between a "browser", an embedded application running in the "first window", and a "hypermedia server" running somewhere out there on a network. It seems to me if web browsers spawn an app like plugger that does NOT communicate with a hypermedia server and does NOT run embedded processes that communicate with the browser (plugger is all the browser speaks to; the application running inside of plugger, whether an applet, ActiveX thingy, document viewer, whatever, has nothing to do with the web browser that spawned plugger, right?) you should be fine.
I'm sure I'm missing something here. Friendly, informative clarifications are welcome.
Punk this, punk that... There seem to be lots of "experts" here posting what punk was all about.
:)
Me, I prefer the viewpoints presented in the movie "SLC Punk". As much as I like Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys, etc., I do believe that the majority of the punk movement was over hyped and most of the folks who lived the "punk life" were actually living a romantic dream of what they wanted punk to be.
Jello Biafra may be the one true exception.
Flame away.
How you can compare freedom of speech with free software is beyond me. Last time I checked, nobody lost his/her life or the lives of family members and friends over a free/proprietary software issue.
Just because somebody is pro-open source does not mean that he/she/they should promote everything that has been open sourced. It actually is possible to say negative things about an open sourced piece of software without being anti-open source, you know.
Without seeing UL, without seeing the NDA, without having any evidence whatsoever other than the dent in your chin from your knee jerking upward unexpectedly, most of you already seem to have tried and convicted the UL folks for GPL violations.
Tell me, what are you going to do if the UL closed beta NDA stated that only the proprietary components of UL are not distributable but the open sourced and GPL'd components are? Pull the usual trick: sit back and pretend you never said anything, then wait a month and start bashing UL as Satan's distro again?
That's just plain creepy... You let your senseless rage get in the way of reason. You probably don't even know why you hate UL so much other than the fact that you simply WANT to hate it.
If the UL team violated the GPL, fry 'em. Until I see damning evidence, though, they're innocent until proven guilty.
Reading some of the posts here you'd think that making a graphic desktop look a certain way cripples power users. Unless the Linux power user community has gone completely wuss, power users should still be able to do whatever they damn well please with whatever software they install on their systems.
If you don't like what Red Hat's doing, swap out their desktop for the one you want. If you don't like the theme, put in another one. Or simply don't use Red Hat. It seems simple to me.
All of this makes me think back to when Caldera decided to make KDE its default desktop environment to the point of removing pretty much all the WMs they used to ship. Lots of folks cried "You're dumbing down Linux! How dare you force people to use KDE!". How making KDE the default desktop affected peoples' ability to pull up an xterm, I haven't a clue.
And to the KDE developers who pissed and moaned over Red Hat changing their precious code, try reading the license under which KDE is distributed. Last time I checked, people were allowed to alter GPL'd code in whatever way they wanted and re-distribute their version provided they made their patches available. I don't recall the GPL saying "you can change the code all you want as long as you don't change anything from the way we distributed it". You chose the license, sunshine. If you don't like what Red Hat did, cry me a river but don't expect me to sympathise with you. I'm not a huge fan of Red Hat (truth be told, I don't like their products at all), but what they're doing is something you and the GNOME folks have been allowed WAY too much time to take care of but did not. Both teams dropped the ball (or at least dragged your asses), so don't whine when someone else steps in and does the right thing. If you want it done your way, stop complaining and do it.
'Nuff said.
I could say the same thing about detective and sci-fi books... There's more of a story in Harry Potter books than I've ever read in any dectective or sci-fi book, bar none.
Perhaps you should try reading a few HP books before making any more comments?
I didn't mean to imply that deploying open sourced software would be more expensive. All I was trying to do was debunk the argument that because the stuff can be freely obtained and support (as unpredictable as Internet support can be) can be obtained freely that it somehow will be significantly cheaper to deploy.
Your case may or may not be unique in that you ended up supporting yourself. I have no market research stating one way or another. I can only speak from my own observations, and those observations say that there aren't too many companies out there that want to gamble that there will always be someone hanging out in IRC or on newsgroups at whatever wee hour of the morning to help get a mission critical system (losing hundreds of thousands of dollars per minute) back online. Internet support for people like that is not even an option: a 24/7 support contract is necessary, and cost is rarely an issue (what's a few hundred thou for a yearly support contract if a down system loses a hundred thou a minute?).
As I've mentioned previously when this subject has come up, the cost of purchasing software is a pittance compared to the cost of deploying, maintaining, and supporting the software (I'll include training in the support category). What he says in the Oracle example is right on the money: there are aspects of buying/installing/deploying/USING the software that supercede any cost benefit of paying less (or nothing) for a CD of open source software. I still am amazed that so many people on /. don't get this (those are YOUR tax dollars that are paying for all that work). I can only assume that most of these folks have not worked for a company that has to deal with new software deployments across thousands of machines.
Are you saying you actually use this "vintage" code?
You clearly have little understanding of how the VAR business works. Many little VARs set up many little businesses that have limited potential without either venture capital or some big, magnanimous organization to either partner with them or outright purchase them. Over the past few years the market for buying up VARs has dropped into the gutter, and venture capital is hard to come by (and when you do find it, the amount is typically more like $2 million instead of the $20 you would have gotten back in the late 90's). The buyback program is another way of motivating VARs to make their businesses as valuable as possible so they can unload the business to a company that has the means to push it to the market (and in the process, the VAR gets to retire early).
This is how business works, with the possible exception of little mom and pop shops that have been running for generations in the same small town with no aspirations for growth. They can continue to pass the same $5 bill back and forth all they want if it makes them happy and keeps them in the black. Most people with aspirations grow their businesses with the intention of being bought for a hefty sum.
It sounds like all that the SCO Group is doing is giving their own partners, resellers, ISVs, etc. first priority when acquisitions are being sought. This makes them more favorable to work with, as opposed to other companies who will partner with anyone but will step outside their own circles to hunt for acquisitions.
Exactly why is this a bad thing??
How are you relating Turbolinux to Caldera? All Caldera did was change their name, add a few new marketing/support programs for resellers, and re-state their commitment to sell OpenServer. Turbo sold its Linux business outright to someone else.
The comparison doesn't make sense.
Sounds to me like you're the zealot, friend.
People such as yourself are no longer in the cross-hairs of the folks making commercial-ready desktops. You talk about architecture as if an end user gives a rat's patootie about it. All they want is functionality and the ability to move from one app to the next without feeling like they have to re-learn everything first.
It looks to me like someone's actually thinking out of the techie/programmer box by starting to build/configure apps for end users. This is long overdue and should be applauded.
Luckilly, the people who still pointlessly try to keep the GNOME/KDE "war" alive are decreasing in number. It's over, buddy. Nobody won, so now there's cooperation. Deal with it.
(Why am I replying to an AC? Someone should slap me...)
...is that it has the worst index of any book I've bought in recent years. With this index, quickly searching for information is almost impossible unless you're searching for info that's fairly obvious to any vi user. Because of this, the book is probably a decent tutorial but it sucks as a reference.
Much better references can be found in the ViM help documents. In fact, the documentation is better from the included help IMHO; the problem is navigating the help files is about as intuitive as using info (which I think is about the least intuitive document navigation system ever produced).
I have learned a lot about ViM from browsing the book, though, so I can't totally trash the book. I just think there's lots of room for improvement.
Others have mentioned Asian language support and clustering. To that list I'll add this: the first functional (albeit ugly) IA64 Linux distro. As much as other Linux companies would deny it, I'm going to guess that every one of them that has an IA64 implementation has "borrowed" a few things from Turbo's IA64 offering. At least the early versions of the distros had LOTS of RPMs with "[Tt]urbo[Ll]inux" somewhere in the headers (for all I know, many still do).
As others have mentioned, Mandrake didn't drop out of UL. They never joined in the first place.
As for UL, the selling of Turbo's Linux business shouldn't mean anything. UL isn't TurboLinux; it's the combined effort of multiple different companies to produce a shared Linux base. I don't see any reason TurboLinux couldn't still participate in the UL effort. Just because a company does not sell a Linux distribution engineered in-house doesn't mean they can't participate in UL.
Didn't you get the memo? Salaries are only allowed for the people who USE Linux. The people who produce Linux distributions are all supposed to do it full time, free of charge, without salaries. Ditto for the tech support they offer.
[sarcasm mode off]
Thank you for pointing out what so many folks seem to have missed: the thing is dying because it isn't popular.
Of course, I'm still waiting for someone here to pull a Loki and insist that we all must dig into our pockets and make donations to keep it going even if we don't care about the stuff. It'll happen...
There's a world of difference between saying you want your representatives to use open source software and shoving it down their throats. If you want to lobby that folks use open source stuff, no problem. Trying to get a law passed saying they have no choice but to use it is nuts, especially using co$t as the basis of the argument. Add up the cost of switching proprietary software to open source software, getting folks to re-learn how to get their day to day tasks done, training the IT folks to support the software (or paying some company like IBM a fat chunk of change for support contracts), etc. and you've pretty much killed any savings you made by the switch.
Too many open source software users think the only cost of using the software is the price of the CD. People in the know realize that the cost of software is a pittance compared to the deployment, training, and support costs that surround the software.
Some of us don't read every comment posted on /. If I didn't work for a living perhaps I'd be able to read every single comment ever posted here. Fortunately, I have better things to do.
Nobody, not even local Bangor TV/news sites, has anything about him dying (and they'd be the first to know).
Nice try.
I'd actually give Windows the edge here. In Windows, you get terms like "hard drive", whereas in Red Hat you get things like "/dev/????". Of course, Red Hat has some kind of default partitioning scheme, but I seem to recall you have to verify its correctness before moving forward. I could be wrong about this as it's been a while since I installed Red Hat.
2) Same test, but with gurus. Pit a Windows expert against a Redhat expert. Which one will win? No question about it, Redhat will win.
Why?
3 and 4) Now for the acid test of reality. Same two tests, with the same people, but this time they must install their respective systems on the second partition of the harddrive, without blowing away the preexisting OS on the first partition! I'm pretty sure who will win.
Considering that I've never been able to run any Windows OS on the second partition of any drive, I'd say that this is more of a functionality issue than an ease of installation issue. However, I will admit that Linux installations are by far the most cooperative when it comes to setting up booting other OSes at install time.
What? They don't have DHCP on Windows? I'm shocked! "Hello, Microsoft? Could you put my ISP on the line, 'cuz I have to ask him if I use DHCP or not. And while you're there, could you explain this NT Boot Manager thing to me?"
In Windows, the terminology is something like "Get IP address automatically", not "Use DHCP". Of the two, which do you think is more clear to a newbie? I'll pick the former. And I'm not familiar with the configuration of "NT Boot Manager", but I would imagine the terminology used in setting it up (assuming it's part of the wizard-driven installations Windows typically use) is not all that cryptic. Keep in mind that most folks who are Windows users probably don't dual boot anything. In fact, I'd be surprised if they have any idea you CAN dual boot a computer. Of course, I could be giving them less credit than they deserve...
Again, I'm not pro MS. I do think they've done some things right, though, when it comes to installation. It may take longer to do, but installing Windows requires a lot less prior knowledge of the OS than most Linux installations do.
In the end, who really cares? If all goes well you install once, and from that point forward you have to deal with the OS you installed. I won't judge an OS based on its installation. If I did, Debian would be at the bottom of the barrel (we all know Debian is great, so it's a good thing installation isn't the benchmark that determines the quality of an OS).
I dislike MS as much as anyone else, but come on! This installation competition thing is like comparing apples to BMWs...
First off, a Linux newbie would have absolutely NO clue about half of the stuff Mr. Barr did for the Red Hat installation. Clearly Mr. Barr is a seasoned Linux guy and can breeze through partitioning, network configuration, boot manager selection, package selection, etc. Try any of that on a Linux newbie ("...What's DHCP? And what the hell is this GRUB thing it's asking me about? I'm calling tech support...").
I agree that the Windows installation is slow, has too many reboots, and is not fool-proof as far as hardware detection goes. However, the installation of all Windows products except for the so called "enterprise" editions is set up for people who don't know all that much about hardware. The old 80-20 rule kicks in here: if 80% of the folks are covered by the installation, that can justify the remaining 20% who need hand holding. I still have not encountered a Linux installation that does not assume prior knowledge of technical acronyms, Linux-isms, and common package names (how many new Linux users do you think have any clue that Samba offers Windows network connectivity? How many Linux installations present Samba as a "Windows networking" option and not as "Samba"? None that I know of, that's how many).
As a pro-Linux, pro-BSD, pro-open-source guy, I'm giving this comparison two thumbs down. Sorry, Joe...