I work professionally in the field, WIndows machines are aberrations of nature.
They are so easy to own by crackers it is not even funny.
People say don't blame the OS, blame the baddies.
Heck, no. The OS is not designed to stand the baddies. That is the fault squarely of the designers that do not have the balls to throw away everything and do a proper job, from scratch or copying others if needed (MSLinux has a good ring to it).
That is pretty much the average experience of the windows user: viruses, unexplainable crashes, lack of performance and general inflexibility.
I am sick and tired of friends and family asking me to fix their Windows computers while I am expiriencing an almost trouble free computing experience with Linux.
If you speak of the corporate world that is a different matter, companies spend gazillions of money to have poor sods patching, rebooting and patching again the Windows machines to keep them in a state of sanity.
Even then our Intranet has been brought to its kness several times by Windows nasties. Never so with any other OS (and lets spare the bullshit about popularity=vulnerability, by now Linux and Solaris are as well known as Windows, and I am pretty sure Black Hats our there would love to boast about 0wning a vast swathe of thes machines).
It is like asking that a 100m sprinter breaks a world record... while wearing two left foot running shoes.
You are not understanding the real requirement (providing calendaring and messaging services in an enterprise) by equating it with "working seamleassly with Exchange".
Both things are not the same, which is why you are arriving to the wrong conclussion.
The overwhelming advantage for FOSS is that the clock is not ticking at all. If people are not screwed enough in order to scratch a given itch, the itch does not get scratched.
It seems to me like the Exchange itch will start to bleed soon, but as long as people are happy (and masochist enough) to live with what they have, a FOSS solution will not be forthcoming. WHich is a good thing, because then people concentrate in other projects.
The beauty of FOSS is that you have to get things right only once. From there all is just incremental improvements.
We will see in 3, 5 or 10 years, I am pretty certain solutions equivalent to Exchange will be available. Hech, there are solutions available, but they have shortcomings. For many small companies and organizations those solutions are good enough right now.
How long is that period. Once every month? Once a year?
Let me put it tersely: you are not a fucking Linux expert.
I have many years working on IT and can confidently tell you that most things in Windows take me ages to do because I am not familiar enough with MS wares anymore (thank goodness).
But I will not surely abscribe to WIndows what is my own lack of practice, although I can investigate the problems other people have and see my Windows colleagues struggling to administer those horrible machines, and can make quite well informed judgments.
You sir, can't because clearly are not investing the time to become familiar enough with a tool that is clearly capable of what you are asking and more.
If you want to embrace FOSS you find an equivalent solution to your closed, locked in one, and ditch it whole.
That means in your corporate network you don't need frigging.doc format and where you have the wherewithal to impose your wish (mostly providers, but if you are clever, even with clients) you ensure that other companies talk to you using the formats that suit you, not MS, not other companies.
If your starting point is "I want Free Software but it has to do everything MS software does" well, kind of you are setting in stone your own requirements and, guess what, you have the "solution" you deserve.
As you may have realized now, this decision has made you hostage to a provider (when it should be the provider that follows your wishes) and you are so deep on it that as long as you are not beaten too much, you are willing to take as much punishment as your captor demands.
The solutions are out there, they are no 100% what you need, they weill not be an exact replacement of what you have, but you have to pay a price for allowing your computing infrastructure to be kidnapped by a provider against your own best interests.
Any company worth its salt has ethical codes that all employees should adhere to.
I have never seen a shareholder bat an eyelid for a company losing bussines for foolowing such policies.
This is not out of goodness, it has been probed beyond any doubt that engaging in bussines in a manner that is unethical (or appears to be unethical) can have detrimental impact in your reputation, and thus, in your capacity to make bussiness.
Serious shareholders have understood this for ages, the alternative universe where you live seems to be filled with stupid ones without any sense of self preservation.
Who has to answer for breaking a NDA is the person that did so, not the person reporting the disclosure, they did not sign anithing with Apple.
I know that your clearly unbiased point of view is making your blood boil, but frankly we can afford that in the interest of allowing free dissemination of important information by whistle blowers.
Any company intending to produce for the BBC should release any content in the terms requested by the BBC, which is after all who is paying those people to do the work.
The BBC is far too acomodating when it should be it the on in the driving seat.
.... the whitewash of immorality with dubious repentance.
Sorry, but all the good deeds in the world (which others have documented are not fully unblemished) should not blind us about the nature of the dishonest and even ilegal practices of MS.
And as it has clearly been stated elsewhere, we have a real problem when people do not have the intellectual capacity to distinguish between the deeds of a company and the deeds of an individual in a private capacity.
We contributed with our taxes to the financing and facilitation of the killing of between 30000 and 600000 human beings (depending who you believe), based in completely bogus evidence by a few illuminati and their PR gurus.
To think that Mr Blair and Brown go to bussiness meetings, schools and general parochial political tumbfolery and that people receive them like the celebrities they are, is frankly shocking.
Then I would assign a port to each developper to start their own web server, and request more computing resources, since obviously you don't have enough CPU power.
Slashdot Mirror
.... would like to thank you for calling her smart.
She had never used a computer before until I put a Linux desktop on her bedroom.
She finds it easy to use, lloves to see pictures there and to rip the odd CD since she prefers her old CD player to the computer.
When confronted with a Windows machines she says they are horribly difficult to use.
Draw your own concolussions of my little, true to life, anecdote.
I work professionally in the field, WIndows machines are aberrations of nature.
They are so easy to own by crackers it is not even funny.
People say don't blame the OS, blame the baddies.
Heck, no. The OS is not designed to stand the baddies. That is the fault squarely of the designers that do not have the balls to throw away everything and do a proper job, from scratch or copying others if needed (MSLinux has a good ring to it).
That is pretty much the average experience of the windows user: viruses, unexplainable crashes, lack of performance and general inflexibility.
I am sick and tired of friends and family asking me to fix their Windows computers while I am expiriencing an almost trouble free computing experience with Linux.
If you speak of the corporate world that is a different matter, companies spend gazillions of money to have poor sods patching, rebooting and patching again the Windows machines to keep them in a state of sanity.
Even then our Intranet has been brought to its kness several times by Windows nasties. Never so with any other OS (and lets spare the bullshit about popularity=vulnerability, by now Linux and Solaris are as well known as Windows, and I am pretty sure Black Hats our there would love to boast about 0wning a vast swathe of thes machines).
It is like asking that a 100m sprinter breaks a world record... while wearing two left foot running shoes.
You are not understanding the real requirement (providing calendaring and messaging services in an enterprise) by equating it with "working seamleassly with Exchange".
Both things are not the same, which is why you are arriving to the wrong conclussion.
Desktop software.
Data Bases
Office Suite
Etc.
The overwhelming advantage for FOSS is that the clock is not ticking at all. If people are not screwed enough in order to scratch a given itch, the itch does not get scratched.
It seems to me like the Exchange itch will start to bleed soon, but as long as people are happy (and masochist enough) to live with what they have, a FOSS solution will not be forthcoming. WHich is a good thing, because then people concentrate in other projects.
The beauty of FOSS is that you have to get things right only once. From there all is just incremental improvements.
We will see in 3, 5 or 10 years, I am pretty certain solutions equivalent to Exchange will be available. Hech, there are solutions available, but they have shortcomings. For many small companies and organizations those solutions are good enough right now.
YOu just change what training is given to each employee according to the bussiness needs.
And frankly using most of the features in Outlook (or a replacement) is not black magic.
How long is that period. Once every month? Once a year?
Let me put it tersely: you are not a fucking Linux expert.
I have many years working on IT and can confidently tell you that most things in Windows take me ages to do because I am not familiar enough with MS wares anymore (thank goodness).
But I will not surely abscribe to WIndows what is my own lack of practice, although I can investigate the problems other people have and see my Windows colleagues struggling to administer those horrible machines, and can make quite well informed judgments.
You sir, can't because clearly are not investing the time to become familiar enough with a tool that is clearly capable of what you are asking and more.
If you want to embrace FOSS you find an equivalent solution to your closed, locked in one, and ditch it whole.
.doc format and where you have the wherewithal to impose your wish (mostly providers, but if you are clever, even with clients) you ensure that other companies talk to you using the formats that suit you, not MS, not other companies.
That means in your corporate network you don't need frigging
If your starting point is "I want Free Software but it has to do everything MS software does" well, kind of you are setting in stone your own requirements and, guess what, you have the "solution" you deserve.
As you may have realized now, this decision has made you hostage to a provider (when it should be the provider that follows your wishes) and you are so deep on it that as long as you are not beaten too much, you are willing to take as much punishment as your captor demands.
The solutions are out there, they are no 100% what you need, they weill not be an exact replacement of what you have, but you have to pay a price for allowing your computing infrastructure to be kidnapped by a provider against your own best interests.
Er...
... when you are relatively certain you will not cross the same river. And perhaps when you want to teach a lesson to somebody obnoxious.
I just can not fucking believe it.
.... to all the families of people dead in Iraq in the lst years.
I am sure they will be thrilled to bits....
There are tons of examples of companies screwing up big time in one place different to the one where they are incorporated and being punished for it.
Companies have to comply at the same time with all laws were they operate (and here incorporation is just on more aspect of operating) .
The law of the country where the company is incorporated will never have precedence in a country where the company is killing babies lets say.
Any company worth its salt has ethical codes that all employees should adhere to.
I have never seen a shareholder bat an eyelid for a company losing bussines for foolowing such policies.
This is not out of goodness, it has been probed beyond any doubt that engaging in bussines in a manner that is unethical (or appears to be unethical) can have detrimental impact in your reputation, and thus, in your capacity to make bussiness.
Serious shareholders have understood this for ages, the alternative universe where you live seems to be filled with stupid ones without any sense of self preservation.
Who has to answer for breaking a NDA is the person that did so, not the person reporting the disclosure, they did not sign anithing with Apple.
I know that your clearly unbiased point of view is making your blood boil, but frankly we can afford that in the interest of allowing free dissemination of important information by whistle blowers.
This kind of histories make it worth it to endure the very few and diminishing inconveniences of running Linux on my computers.
Any company intending to produce for the BBC should release any content in the terms requested by the BBC, which is after all who is paying those people to do the work.
The BBC is far too acomodating when it should be it the on in the driving seat.
And they should be judged by the yardstick of freely available BBC stuff.
.... the whitewash of immorality with dubious repentance.
Sorry, but all the good deeds in the world (which others have documented are not fully unblemished) should not blind us about the nature of the dishonest and even ilegal practices of MS.
And as it has clearly been stated elsewhere, we have a real problem when people do not have the intellectual capacity to distinguish between the deeds of a company and the deeds of an individual in a private capacity.
The music labels are so miopic that they will spare no resource to kill a profitable bussiness that force them to deliver a quality product.
Like influencing people in positions of power to stop the spread of high culture.
What a blody shame.
maybe you should consult with the US's Department of Homeland Security about Old Europe culture.
We contributed with our taxes to the financing and facilitation of the killing of between 30000 and 600000 human beings (depending who you believe), based in completely bogus evidence by a few illuminati and their PR gurus.
To think that Mr Blair and Brown go to bussiness meetings, schools and general parochial political tumbfolery and that people receive them like the celebrities they are, is frankly shocking.
You still don't need a desktop and priviledged access.
This is 2007, not 1980.
Then I would assign a port to each developper to start their own web server, and request more computing resources, since obviously you don't have enough CPU power.
... they will gladly make any changes you order, I mean, request, from them.