Upgrading is a time consuming, very often frustrating process for one reason or another.
If I have to replace on machine with another then there is a lot of work installing a new version of the OS, applications, etc. Even minor upgrades like memory or a new interface card can be quite a hassle. USB is changing that, but it can still be quite frustrating.
If I was a Windows user it would imply trashing a perfectly capable machine just because the latest incarnation of Windows is crap for the hardware and getting used to a completely different user interface (because the user interface "experts" in Redmond dismiss familiarity as part of the user friendliness equation).
After having to deal with underperforming Access "databases" by dudes that thought they knew better, my company (and another one I worked for) barred the damn thing from desktops and put DB development where it belongs: with dedicated teams.
These teams, knowing their stuff, would not touch Access with a 10 metre pole.
As for small companies, they are carving their own obsolescence: I used to porvide support for dentists. While the Access solutions they had normally gave uncountable headhaches, Linus or UNIX solutions kept working silently, the trusty powerhorses that ensured the dentist could do his work and not wait in frustration thanks to the latest virus or BSOD.
You are locking yourself in when there are wonderful open formats out there.
The lock in mentality is so entrenched that peopleforget what is the objective (training videos, conferences, etc as you said) and defend the too impossed on them by the manufacturer as an end on itself.
You have to hanlde it to MS, their biggest success has been to make people forget what the priorities are equiating legitimate busineess needs with MS solutions whihc are expensive and force a company into sclerosis since they stop looking for the best alternatives.
- Training is a continous process. People keep being trained no matter what their desktop is, because applications keep changing (otherwise people would be happily stuck with the oldest version of a given software). So if you are investing in training anyway, it does not stop you to do so in Linux based applications.
-Deployment: please make my day, tell me that it did not cost you anything to migrate from W98 to W2K or WXP. Well, that cost would be in the same ball park if you do a Linux migration (knowing what you are doing of course). The big difference would be that you may have more power in your hands to decide when to migrate once you move to Linux. If your Linux provider begins to pester you with upgrading it very well would be cheaper to move to another Linux provider (since you are keeping your data and applications properly segragated and in standard formats, which are much easier to port in Linux thatn in Windows).
-Support: dude, it takes 2 to 3 weeks to train a competent system administrator to RHCT or even RHCE (or any other accolade you may want to obtain for your SAs). If your Windows guys can't grasp a different computer system then I would bring into question the health of your IT support anyway. A professional SA can easily and confidently translate the skills learned in one platform to another. And since your company surely is providing regular, timely training anyway, you replace the WXP update with a RHCE and you are set. If you really need to you may hire one or 2 consultants to baby sit a migration, but once people are up to speed, what would be the problem?
Licensing costs are not as important, but neither are the points you tried to drag out into the open.
All boils down to a very simple matter: do you want to leave your IT infrastructure in the hands of a single company (which is not a trustworthy busines partner)?
I don't, if you do that is your problem, many people are paying far too much money for the privilege of receiving little or nothing in exchange.
Do they realize that by patenting software any mathematical equation could be "patented"? Do they realize that could cause untold harm to scientific advancement?
How would a system with software patents would benefit individuals that would be in no position to fight bogus patent infringement laswsuits, thus loosing control of their own work to predatory companies?
How do they think a system that incentivates law firms to build patent portfolios, without ever contributed anything to the advancment of computer science, will promote invention if real inveotrs do not have the deep pockets to protect themselves from these companies' actions?
Why do they want to intruduce patents where copyright could equally protect the author of any software?
Why should software be patentable if it is part of a physical device (as it would be if the current proposal is eventually passed) if this would kill competition of other companies improving on the original software by using different algorithms?
What stops people of getting software patents just by enouncing an idea but without writing any code?
Do they realize that any computer program can be as easily be enunciated in any language (English, Polish, Russian, Greek)? Do they realize this makes computer sofware a form of speech which they would be constraining by means of patents? (when there is already copyright for that)
Oh boy, If I can come up with all of the above just by thinkering, I hope guys involved more deeply come with more polished questions....
I could live 10 years at the same comfortable level of life I currently have. Without moving a single finger (and this assuming high taxation and that the money earns 0% interest).
After arresting scores of innocent people at the instigation of this and other war criminals and convicting the big amount of 0, zero, zilch, nada of activities related to terrorism.
In one case the damning evidence was a video of the alleged terrorists spending time in Disneyland.
And the only ones the neo-ayatollahs have any hope of "convicting" of any terrorism related activities they have safely guarded them in Guantanamo or Abu Gharib, were confessions can be conviniently extracted at the pleasure of the torturers and kangoroo courts will sentence in accordance to the public, on record wishes of the reelected Orwellian master overlord.
And the poster of the article still has the indecency to find something good to say about this individual.
So lets throw some facts in there to complement the picture:
-Bush is not the US. The current US goverment believes (and here I use the verb in its most damning meaning) Kyoto will accomplish nothing. Well, it is like sombebody in the Titanic believing he is safe staying in the sinking ship because he does not trust the lifeboats. The lifeboats may not be enough, but if that is all what you have got. And actually Bush has not stated scientific reasoning. He has cited economic "reasons" (an US job is more valuable than you children breathing and eating polutants).
-The US did not jump into the treaty in a "knee jerk reaction" fashion. There is enough scientific evidence collected and debated for the best part of 40 years that convinced a reasonable goverment (Clinton) that something like Kyoto was the best shot at addressing the problem. If there ever was a knee jerk reaction was that of Mr Bush withdrawing the US from the treaty. A failed former oil baron, whose VP is a former successful oil baron, whitdrawing without even trying to negotiate alluding to "science" that by know is spoused only by a shrinking voviferous, normally paid for, minority (not even the author of "The scheptic enironmetalist disputes anymore the *fact* of global warming happening).
The Bush administration's handling of Kyoto my friend is the definition of a knee jerk reaction.
-You pretend the US public cares about green house emissions. You are the number 1 polutant in the world (far outwheing your population size and econimc output. You simply do not care about green house gasses). THe testament to this is the popularity of polutant vehicles in the US.
But you frnakly know nothing about what you are saying.
If the arctic become warm enough to grow tropical plants then the water there, currently in the form of ice, will have to go somewhere else.
This would mean increased sea levels.
Since a big amount of economical activity in the world takes place in coastal towns the effect of sea levels raising as little as 2 or 3 meters could have devastating effects in our economies.
The problem is not changing weather and sea levels, the problem is that we may be accelarating the change beyond what is manageable.
The claim to have perfected a reactor that is cleaner and safer to operate than any of the current ones.
Check Wired Magazine one or two months ago.
Tha would deal with their CO2 emissions. As in regards to other envrionmental hazards I would say better dealing with the most immediate problem and we will figure out something else later.
Just think for one second: most goverments around the world have been pushing heavily for initiatives to use the Interent as part of the day to day dealings with the populace (the UK's gov has a Web portal, the easiest way to pay your taxes is via a website for example).
Would MS be so monumentally stupid as to want to make itself the enemy of the freeworld (and the unfree parts as well)?
Ballmer and Gates may be egotistical megalomaniacs, but frankly they ar not stupid.
Your way to speak reminds me East Germans before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Always the fault of their woes was elsewhere.
So many of you just don't get it and never will. Untill it is too late that is.
As horrendous as 9/11 was, it was an isolated incident due mostly that the complete disregard for security by US aviation authorities. I flew several times in te US pre 9/11 and to say that people were cavalier about security is an understatement.
In other places (for bunny's sake, like Mexico that had almost no problems with terrorism) security was taken seriously.
So keep your lip service to yourself and your incompetent politicians, they were the ones doing nothing to keep you safe, no wonder the terrorists chose local flights, not international ones, to inflict harm.
Talk about shooting the messenger. Your legitimate concerns have been turned into a travesty not by people in other countries, but by your re-elected Orwellian overlords. It has been probed beyond any doubt that this bunch lied to you. It has been probed that they had an agenda years before 9/11 (Google for "American Century" and learn). Oh no, but is the outside world that did not come yo your aid (chekc the coallition assembled to rid AFghanistan of terrorist training camps, you will see that French and Germans, amongst many others, extended the hand of friendship).
But friendship is not unconditional. If a friend questions my friendship because I don't want to jump into the abyss with him, I am not to blame.
You are blinded, and willingly jumping. The rest of the world is staring in amazement, pain and disbelief.
Hussein knew and met Rumsfeld, I supposse that cast a shadow in the Neocons as possible associate of Hussein and Al Quaeda.
Hussein was completely against the religious nuts (for selfish reasons certainly, but to even suggest a connection knowing the history of Hussein secularization of Iraq is absolutely ludicrous).
Get "The Power of Nightmares" and check how the noecons will fabricate evidence as and when they need it to convince an unsuspecting public of thatever they need.
.... is a minuscule group of disjointed individuals that manage to strike ferociosuly very rarely because it is impossible to stop 5 or 6 determined individuals wanting to inflict harm.
If it is worth reelecting a confirmed liar and mass murderer in order to send a clear message to a group of bandits, then your democracy is not worth the paper your Constitution is written in.
... I will give your cool down message to the families of the estimated 100000 (or 15000 if you refuse to extrapolate) Iraqi civilians killed during the invasion of your Orwellian reelected overlords.
Shame on the US, to reelect a liar, it is beyond belief.
It is an invention of the Neocons to keep you fearing for your safety.
Educate yourself, the Neocons are of an Orwellian quality that knows no limits.
No, I am not a conspiracy theory nut, the Neocons have been inventing enemies for the last 30 years and the puplace becomes ever more credulous with the latest incarnation of the enemy to be defeated.
Slashdot Mirror
Respect man.
Your trolling powers are on a class of their own.
You insensitive clod, etc..
Upgrading is a time consuming, very often frustrating process for one reason or another.
If I have to replace on machine with another then there is a lot of work installing a new version of the OS, applications, etc. Even minor upgrades like memory or a new interface card can be quite a hassle. USB is changing that, but it can still be quite frustrating.
If I was a Windows user it would imply trashing a perfectly capable machine just because the latest incarnation of Windows is crap for the hardware and getting used to a completely different user interface (because the user interface "experts" in Redmond dismiss familiarity as part of the user friendliness equation).
Does that make me a bad person or a terrorist?
After having to deal with underperforming Access "databases" by dudes that thought they knew better, my company (and another one I worked for) barred the damn thing from desktops and put DB development where it belongs: with dedicated teams.
These teams, knowing their stuff, would not touch Access with a 10 metre pole.
As for small companies, they are carving their own obsolescence: I used to porvide support for dentists. While the Access solutions they had normally gave uncountable headhaches, Linus or UNIX solutions kept working silently, the trusty powerhorses that ensured the dentist could do his work and not wait in frustration thanks to the latest virus or BSOD.
You are locking yourself in when there are wonderful open formats out there.
The lock in mentality is so entrenched that peopleforget what is the objective (training videos, conferences, etc as you said) and defend the too impossed on them by the manufacturer as an end on itself.
You have to hanlde it to MS, their biggest success has been to make people forget what the priorities are equiating legitimate busineess needs with MS solutions whihc are expensive and force a company into sclerosis since they stop looking for the best alternatives.
- Training is a continous process. People keep being trained no matter what their desktop is, because applications keep changing (otherwise people would be happily stuck with the oldest version of a given software). So if you are investing in training anyway, it does not stop you to do so in Linux based applications.
-Deployment: please make my day, tell me that it did not cost you anything to migrate from W98 to W2K or WXP. Well, that cost would be in the same ball park if you do a Linux migration (knowing what you are doing of course). The big difference would be that you may have more power in your hands to decide when to migrate once you move to Linux. If your Linux provider begins to pester you with upgrading it very well would be cheaper to move to another Linux provider (since you are keeping your data and applications properly segragated and in standard formats, which are much easier to port in Linux thatn in Windows).
-Support: dude, it takes 2 to 3 weeks to train a competent system administrator to RHCT or even RHCE (or any other accolade you may want to obtain for your SAs). If your Windows guys can't grasp a different computer system then I would bring into question the health of your IT support anyway. A professional SA can easily and confidently translate the skills learned in one platform to another. And since your company surely is providing regular, timely training anyway, you replace the WXP update with a RHCE and you are set. If you really need to you may hire one or 2 consultants to baby sit a migration, but once people are up to speed, what would be the problem?
Licensing costs are not as important, but neither are the points you tried to drag out into the open.
All boils down to a very simple matter: do you want to leave your IT infrastructure in the hands of a single company (which is not a trustworthy busines partner)?
I don't, if you do that is your problem, many people are paying far too much money for the privilege of receiving little or nothing in exchange.
Do they realize that by patenting software any mathematical equation could be "patented"? Do they realize that could cause untold harm to scientific advancement?
How would a system with software patents would benefit individuals that would be in no position to fight bogus patent infringement laswsuits, thus loosing control of their own work to predatory companies?
How do they think a system that incentivates law firms to build patent portfolios, without ever contributed anything to the advancment of computer science, will promote invention if real inveotrs do not have the deep pockets to protect themselves from these companies' actions?
Why do they want to intruduce patents where copyright could equally protect the author of any software?
Why should software be patentable if it is part of a physical device (as it would be if the current proposal is eventually passed) if this would kill competition of other companies improving on the original software by using different algorithms?
What stops people of getting software patents just by enouncing an idea but without writing any code?
Do they realize that any computer program can be as easily be enunciated in any language (English, Polish, Russian, Greek)? Do they realize this makes computer sofware a form of speech which they would be constraining by means of patents? (when there is already copyright for that)
Oh boy, If I can come up with all of the above just by thinkering, I hope guys involved more deeply come with more polished questions....
I could live 10 years at the same comfortable level of life I currently have. Without moving a single finger (and this assuming high taxation and that the money earns 0% interest).
Then what is in it for the shareholders?
After arresting scores of innocent people at the instigation of this and other war criminals and convicting the big amount of 0, zero, zilch, nada of activities related to terrorism.
In one case the damning evidence was a video of the alleged terrorists spending time in Disneyland.
And the only ones the neo-ayatollahs have any hope of "convicting" of any terrorism related activities they have safely guarded them in Guantanamo or Abu Gharib, were confessions can be conviniently extracted at the pleasure of the torturers and kangoroo courts will sentence in accordance to the public, on record wishes of the reelected Orwellian master overlord.
And the poster of the article still has the indecency to find something good to say about this individual.
... to be so pedantic and to be wrong?
A dictionary would have eased your gramatical hell.
So lets throw some facts in there to complement the picture:
-Bush is not the US. The current US goverment believes (and here I use the verb in its most damning meaning) Kyoto will accomplish nothing. Well, it is like sombebody in the Titanic believing he is safe staying in the sinking ship because he does not trust the lifeboats. The lifeboats may not be enough, but if that is all what you have got. And actually Bush has not stated scientific reasoning. He has cited economic "reasons" (an US job is more valuable than you children breathing and eating polutants).
-The US did not jump into the treaty in a "knee jerk reaction" fashion. There is enough scientific evidence collected and debated for the best part of 40 years that convinced a reasonable goverment (Clinton) that something like Kyoto was the best shot at addressing the problem. If there ever was a knee jerk reaction was that of Mr Bush withdrawing the US from the treaty. A failed former oil baron, whose VP is a former successful oil baron, whitdrawing without even trying to negotiate alluding to "science" that by know is spoused only by a shrinking voviferous, normally paid for, minority (not even the author of "The scheptic enironmetalist disputes anymore the *fact* of global warming happening).
The Bush administration's handling of Kyoto my friend is the definition of a knee jerk reaction.
-You pretend the US public cares about green house emissions. You are the number 1 polutant in the world (far outwheing your population size and econimc output. You simply do not care about green house gasses). THe testament to this is the popularity of polutant vehicles in the US.
But you frnakly know nothing about what you are saying.
If the arctic become warm enough to grow tropical plants then the water there, currently in the form of ice, will have to go somewhere else.
This would mean increased sea levels.
Since a big amount of economical activity in the world takes place in coastal towns the effect of sea levels raising as little as 2 or 3 meters could have devastating effects in our economies.
The problem is not changing weather and sea levels, the problem is that we may be accelarating the change beyond what is manageable.
And big time.
The claim to have perfected a reactor that is cleaner and safer to operate than any of the current ones.
Check Wired Magazine one or two months ago.
Tha would deal with their CO2 emissions. As in regards to other envrionmental hazards I would say better dealing with the most immediate problem and we will figure out something else later.
And don't intend to.
Just think for one second: most goverments around the world have been pushing heavily for initiatives to use the Interent as part of the day to day dealings with the populace (the UK's gov has a Web portal, the easiest way to pay your taxes is via a website for example).
Would MS be so monumentally stupid as to want to make itself the enemy of the freeworld (and the unfree parts as well)?
Ballmer and Gates may be egotistical megalomaniacs, but frankly they ar not stupid.
Your way to speak reminds me East Germans before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Always the fault of their woes was elsewhere.
So many of you just don't get it and never will. Untill it is too late that is.
As horrendous as 9/11 was, it was an isolated incident due mostly that the complete disregard for security by US aviation authorities. I flew several times in te US pre 9/11 and to say that people were cavalier about security is an understatement.
In other places (for bunny's sake, like Mexico that had almost no problems with terrorism) security was taken seriously.
So keep your lip service to yourself and your incompetent politicians, they were the ones doing nothing to keep you safe, no wonder the terrorists chose local flights, not international ones, to inflict harm.
Talk about shooting the messenger. Your legitimate concerns have been turned into a travesty not by people in other countries, but by your re-elected Orwellian overlords. It has been probed beyond any doubt that this bunch lied to you. It has been probed that they had an agenda years before 9/11 (Google for "American Century" and learn). Oh no, but is the outside world that did not come yo your aid (chekc the coallition assembled to rid AFghanistan of terrorist training camps, you will see that French and Germans, amongst many others, extended the hand of friendship).
But friendship is not unconditional. If a friend questions my friendship because I don't want to jump into the abyss with him, I am not to blame.
You are blinded, and willingly jumping. The rest of the world is staring in amazement, pain and disbelief.
At least try to refute his points.
Or perhaps you can't.
Guilt by tenous association.
Blimey mate, that is fucking conclusive.
Hussein knew and met Rumsfeld, I supposse that cast a shadow in the Neocons as possible associate of Hussein and Al Quaeda.
Hussein was completely against the religious nuts (for selfish reasons certainly, but to even suggest a connection knowing the history of Hussein secularization of Iraq is absolutely ludicrous).
Get "The Power of Nightmares" and check how the noecons will fabricate evidence as and when they need it to convince an unsuspecting public of thatever they need.
Crimental, doublespeak, 1984 is here.
... when the action of the man had spoken already?
.... is a minuscule group of disjointed individuals that manage to strike ferociosuly very rarely because it is impossible to stop 5 or 6 determined individuals wanting to inflict harm.
If it is worth reelecting a confirmed liar and mass murderer in order to send a clear message to a group of bandits, then your democracy is not worth the paper your Constitution is written in.
.... will piss and moan later, when they have to pay for the economic and military adventurism of their Orwellian reelected overlords.
The bill will come, we will talk again then.
... I will give your cool down message to the families of the estimated 100000 (or 15000 if you refuse to extrapolate) Iraqi civilians killed during the invasion of your Orwellian reelected overlords.
Shame on the US, to reelect a liar, it is beyond belief.
Show us where a Democratic politician calls electors like that...
It is an invention of the Neocons to keep you fearing for your safety.
Educate yourself, the Neocons are of an Orwellian quality that knows no limits.
No, I am not a conspiracy theory nut, the Neocons have been inventing enemies for the last 30 years and the puplace becomes ever more credulous with the latest incarnation of the enemy to be defeated.
Google for "The Power of Nightmares" and learn.