Linux running in commodity hardware is a very attractive proposition as long as somebody is supporting it at the same standards as Sun or HP currently do with their offerings.
Big financial companies and oil industry big hitters are using Linux more and more.
You buy the machines, buy your copies of MS Windows and install your damn super safe and secure (running in Windows?) software.
Oil and gas companies run mostly on Unix, so the change to Linux is trivial (and many already provide the sofware for Linux).
I am not familiar with airlines but I don't see why they should use WIndows at all for the kind of software they need. Aircontrol software I have seen runs in primitive machines and I am not aware of any running on WIndows
Vietnam is doing this because they want to move towards more capitalistic practices like free trade. This is done as a pre requisite to enter the WTO and other free trade organizations.
So unsurprisingly SCO was not right and you should add more peperoni to your brain cells.
Second, they are not mandating a monopoly. MS is very welcome to open source their software and they would be on business. If that sounds silly think: who wold Vietnamese people be looking for support and advice regarding Windows software? MS or the guy down the street? And Vietnamese companies?
MS is missing the ship, they could become a services company providing consultancy for their open sourced operating system. They have such a hughe head start that they should be relishing the challenge and not cowering behind monopolistic tactics.
Or a place with free markets that is not capitalist (before you point China, they are capitalist for all intents and purposes since now people can freely accoumulate capital).
People that support and promote FLOSS very often loose sifgt of the most important characteristic of this kind of software: transparency, accountability (specially when software is GPLed) and avoiding to be locked in by software providers.
I would not care about paying twice as much for an open solution if after a few years my institution is sued for millions because a watchdog comes and finds impossible to audit our internal procedures.
Or after some years come a propietary company and changes the licensing schemes (because that is what is in their interest, not mine) and I am forced to pay extra money that was not in my budget.
Or waht about the propietary software company decides that my version of X program is not going to be supported enymore and all my main processes are using that software perfectly fine and I would prefer to rather no upgrade or migrate to the latest and shiniest?
MS will emphasize the TCO when they can put forwad cases in which it would appear MS stuff is cheaper. Well, at this stage of the game TCO is a red herring, since there are many other considerations far more important, specially for democratically elected bodies, I would glance at such study and ingonre it it completely since closed source software companies are to be considered only as a very last desperate resource.
Dominance does not imply monopoly, specially if the dominant product does not impede in any way your freedom to choose another product fit for the same task.
This may be/. , and there area many people dreaming conspiracy theories, but that does not exclude others that are completely misinformed that misunderstand the most basic terms about how the computer industry moves.
Some people seem to have in high steem the values of the USSR, PRC, DDR, PRK and some other nasties.
How can we drill in this people's brains that the software used by a democratic goverment, specially during something so important as elections, has to be 100% accountable by anybody that wishes to do so. No NDAs, no half hearted open code offerings.
Only 100% fully open code will do, no close source sofyware can meet those high standards.
If you can't afford the kind of support that Sun provides (no idiot reading an script in the other side of the phone) it is because your business is not worth it.
Do you understand GPL, OSS? Does Mandrake forbid (in the remote case they could) distribution?
In other words: what is your point?
If Mandrake can't come with a way to survive as a distributor of free software that is not my problem.
I am entitled to my copy of software if they decide to distribute it (which they do). There are other companies that are wiser and either become a non profit or sell services around the product.
As long as the software is out ther, because it is GPLed I am entitled to my damn copy. That is the whole bloody point.
Any person that goes into space is properly called astronaut in English.
Cosmonaut and the even more hideous term used in this article are concoctions of people that tried to be too clever and that had (or have) a political agenda that in nothing contributes to describe the facts.
For a clue, you should always check media that is not always stupid, like the BBC who are calling this person an astronaut as he should be called.
Slashdot Mirror
Linux running in commodity hardware is a very attractive proposition as long as somebody is supporting it at the same standards as Sun or HP currently do with their offerings.
Big financial companies and oil industry big hitters are using Linux more and more.
.... but you are pretty ignorant.
Most software development is in-house applications, so all those families you are so concerned about will continue to be fine.
I can't see anywhere a prohibition for MS to open their OS and sell it.
SIlly me.
You buy the machines, buy your copies of MS Windows and install your damn super safe and secure (running in Windows?) software.
Oil and gas companies run mostly on Unix, so the change to Linux is trivial (and many already provide the sofware for Linux).
I am not familiar with airlines but I don't see why they should use WIndows at all for the kind of software they need. Aircontrol software I have seen runs in primitive machines and I am not aware of any running on WIndows
To apply a measure that eases your entry into free trade organizations is going to be seen as communistic.
Only idiots would see that as you rightly point out.
Vietnam is doing this because they want to move towards more capitalistic practices like free trade. This is done as a pre requisite to enter the WTO and other free trade organizations.
So unsurprisingly SCO was not right and you should add more peperoni to your brain cells.
First Linux is not Unix.
Second, they are not mandating a monopoly. MS is very welcome to open source their software and they would be on business. If that sounds silly think: who wold Vietnamese people be looking for support and advice regarding Windows software? MS or the guy down the street? And Vietnamese companies?
MS is missing the ship, they could become a services company providing consultancy for their open sourced operating system. They have such a hughe head start that they should be relishing the challenge and not cowering behind monopolistic tactics.
They could eliminate social security payments creating a system in which people are forced to save for their old age.
And you could reduce air pollution by increasing public transpirt and taxing polluting means of private transport. Like they do in most of Europe.
That would be progress.
My company had a lot of a hell of freedom of choice at the beginning of this year when NT4 was phased out.
A perfectly working infrastructure became obsolote.
Thanks but no thanks.
Create some rules then allow your employees to brake them to show how understanding you are.
Give us a brake wise man.
Show me a capitlist country with no free markets.
Or a place with free markets that is not capitalist (before you point China, they are capitalist for all intents and purposes since now people can freely accoumulate capital).
People that support and promote FLOSS very often loose sifgt of the most important characteristic of this kind of software: transparency, accountability (specially when software is GPLed) and avoiding to be locked in by software providers.
I would not care about paying twice as much for an open solution if after a few years my institution is sued for millions because a watchdog comes and finds impossible to audit our internal procedures.
Or after some years come a propietary company and changes the licensing schemes (because that is what is in their interest, not mine) and I am forced to pay extra money that was not in my budget.
Or waht about the propietary software company decides that my version of X program is not going to be supported enymore and all my main processes are using that software perfectly fine and I would prefer to rather no upgrade or migrate to the latest and shiniest?
MS will emphasize the TCO when they can put forwad cases in which it would appear MS stuff is cheaper. Well, at this stage of the game TCO is a red herring, since there are many other considerations far more important, specially for democratically elected bodies, I would glance at such study and ingonre it it completely since closed source software companies are to be considered only as a very last desperate resource.
Pop CD in WindowsXP machine (not mine, I would never submit to a convicted monopolist for my computing needs).
Try to rip tracks of perfectly legal CD to disk.
Try to find way of *chosing* mp3 format in place of the default WMA, MS owned, format.
Realize *there is not choice of format* by default.
Find out in the net that you need a third party plugin for this.
Install another application to achieve what you want.
Thank MS for the choice they have given you by completely ignoring the most widespread format to store music in digital format.
Dominance does not imply monopoly, specially if the dominant product does not impede in any way your freedom to choose another product fit for the same task.
/. , and there area many people dreaming conspiracy theories, but that does not exclude others that are completely misinformed that misunderstand the most basic terms about how the computer industry moves.
This may be
Some people seem to have in high steem the values of the USSR, PRC, DDR, PRK and some other nasties.
How can we drill in this people's brains that the software used by a democratic goverment, specially during something so important as elections, has to be 100% accountable by anybody that wishes to do so. No NDAs, no half hearted open code offerings.
Only 100% fully open code will do, no close source sofyware can meet those high standards.
So get on with it and celebrate this new achievement.
I ma atheist. Very different.
I pitty religious people, so much energy into a mindless endeavour is truly heart wrenching.
And my "god" bashing is not mindless, I use all the might of my reason to arrive to a conclussion: there is no god.
In order to probe that faith in a god is a
supreme waste of time?
In order to probe that faith is akin to a farytale comparable to believing in gnomes, Santa Claus and the monster of Loch Ness?
In order to probe that to guide our lives based in the "wisdom" of some middle eastern sheperds that lived 3000 years ago is not very wise?
That is what you get with Sun.
If you can't afford the kind of support that Sun provides (no idiot reading an script in the other side of the phone) it is because your business is not worth it.
Do you understand GPL, OSS?
Does Mandrake forbid (in the remote case they could) distribution?
In other words: what is your point?
If Mandrake can't come with a way to survive as a distributor of free software that is not my problem.
I am entitled to my copy of software if they decide to distribute it (which they do). There are other companies that are wiser and either become a non profit or sell services around the product.
As long as the software is out ther, because it is GPLed I am entitled to my damn copy. That is the whole bloody point.
Wanting that GNU software receives the credit it deserves.
Who would have said he would be such an unreasonable idiot.
Any person that goes into space is properly called astronaut in English.
Cosmonaut and the even more hideous term used in this article are concoctions of people that tried to be too clever and that had (or have) a political agenda that in nothing contributes to describe the facts.
For a clue, you should always check media that is not always stupid, like the BBC who are calling this person an astronaut as he should be called.
For a better explanation check Wikipedia.
... the terms that other people have used to express their opinion.
/. or the FLOSS movement.
And you do not represent
Thus your profilactic apology is facile and only helps to reinforce mostly false stereotypes.
As reflected by many others in this thread, responses have been polite but to the point.
.... it is free because nobody can aprehend it.
BSD can be caged, raped, and violated. If I was a BSD program my freedom would be completely lost.
You think I may be joking. I am deadly serious, ideas flowing freely is what makes progress.
Ther are social and political reasons for that state of affairs.
Your childish simplification does nothing to enlighten people that have not been in Malaysia.