OpenOffice is good enough for most tasks and the cool charge you have to pay for each bum on a set using MS Office begins to look more an more like waste, specially with a recession being talked up by the media.
If there is a real crunch a lot of people will question why they should continue to use MS office if there are plenty of options out there cheaper or free.
Any contraption intended to keep a person safe, that requires human subjective calculations to keep the user safe is badly designed.
You should not need to think about the danger if the contraption is designed correctly and it is used according to instructions.
Contraptions of any kind protecting human life should be immune to human error.
As for your example of people walking behind fenced areas and hopping that their good judgment will be enough to protect them, well, what can I say, myopic idiotic views like this cause accidents.
The Linux kernel is as free and gratis as it was the day Mr. Linus T. decided to GPL it.
It does not need corporate backing. We all benefit from that corporate backing, but the day the corps lose their marbles and stop supporting the only choice they have of having a fair, levelled playing field, then some bright kids will pick it up and continue squashing bugs and making improvements. And they will make big bucks while doing it.
At this point something very interesting has happened: the FOSS corps can't just abandon the FOSS projects, many companies that are their clients (I am sure most of the Fortune 100) would not take gladly lack of support for Linux based OSes that by now are everywhere in corporate datacentres.
So I predict Linux will continue growing, but not in the way you are implying.
And the Catholic Church and Protestant Christian sects have made no scientific effort to support their assertions about the humanity of a few cells after conception and upwards.
They just throw diatribe about moral judgments about a subject in which there is clearly no agreement about its morality or lack thereof, in which case they should not be the absolutist pricks that they are and leave it to the conscience of each individual while supporting the moral choices those individuals have to make.
In Mexico I just stopped going to church and well, that was pretty much it. It is not uncommon in Mexican families that only one or two members follow the rites while all the others thoroughly ignore religion.
The Catholic Church did not put itself as the source of Christian authority. If you believe in all that stuff it was Jesus himself (i.e. God) and there is a traceable historic lineage from the current Pope back to Saint Peter. Other denominations may not like it but it is unquestionable from an historic point of view.
The fact is that protestant sects of Christianity after Luther separated from the Catholic Church, which is and will always be the direct representative of God on Earth. Please note that Jesus did not say that his representatives were going to be holly, wise or apt. At least Orthodox churches can claim that they smelled fish much earlier.
But frankly rational people should look at the above with a sigh of relief and wondering when we all will look at it as we do look now at many other superstitions that arose when we did not know any better.....
The M$ moniker is perfectly legitimate and weakens nobody's position in the slightest.
Arguments are weakened by false or inaccurate premises, writing M$ gives a perfect idea of the bias of the poster without going in long explanations to disclose those biases.
People getting worked out about this are the real childish ones lending far too much significance to this in the judgment of the character of the person who u$e$ it.
Because you could have copied your stuff in the first place. In such a world anybody paying would do so in the understanding that their stuff would be copied.
Some people would pay for the original fries to support the person that came with the recipe.
Or perhaps the fries are so good that several people would band together and ask the original cook to come with some other marvellous dish under comission.
The world would work completely different, which is what the people making movies and bad songs can't come to terms with.
The PB chaps have got a business model that is clearly working. The movie industry could make them their official torrent trackers guaranteeing access to stuff that is original and as advertised (no shaky camera work by a guy recording from a cinema screen).
But no, that is not them. People with all kind of addictions (this is the music and movie industries, OK?) are not known for the clearness of thought and visionary insights in how the real world works.
-Malaysia: Muslim country. They allow some western media but they blacken, by hand, the bits they don't like (white bare chested ladies are their favorites). Political dissent? You would be forgiven for thinking there is any if you would watch Malaysian TV or listen to Malaysian radio. Newspapers are slightly better, but not much, they know how far they can go before been harassed. One year the government forbade political campaigning because it considered it a waste of money.
-Vietnam? Yeah, right.
-Thailand: they do military overthrows for fun.
-Singapore: they are even worst than Malaysia when it comes to independent media and political dissent. Politicians from the ruling party sue for slander or libel opposition leaders if they say they are not doing a good job. Unsurprisingly the curts always rule on their favor. They have bankrupted opposition figures this way.
-The Philippines? They don't have the infrastructure, and I would not call them stable exactly.
And the above are the not so rotten, Then we have Burma. Now that would be a great place to put a datacentre.
Lets face it folks, there are few safe heavens in South East Asia.
Opera and Netscape used to be paid for products, but MS's monopolistic dominance in the OS field allowed them to give the browser away for free.
Microsofties will go all wobbly on their knees reminding us that IE was better than Netscape, but when your knees are wobbling you are most likely to miss the point: MS killed the incentive to produce a browser, the only way to "compete" was to give the browser away for free, the cost of producing such software was swallowed by MS, making it impossible for anybody else to compete in a level playing field, unless they worked gratis.
In an alternative universe where MS is ethical and the US's DOJ is fair, MS would have priced the browser realistically, Netscape would have died because it was shit and a multitude of companies would have entered the business providing innovation and reinvigorating the browser market.
The only way to re-establish some degree of advancement in the browser arena was for other people to give their work away for free. Any market that relies on handouts is no market at all. Thanks to MS for the favour... not.
.... people voting for right wing politicians in Germany are placated, because less Romanians have the need to emigrate to Germany to find well paid jobs.
As always people want to have their cake (Nokia plant) and eat it (no Romanians in Germany please). How sad is that?
And given the fact that you miserably fail to grasp the benefits to deploy Linux as an optimal option to teach general computing skills, it is hardly surprising that you fail to understand the general objectives of a school.
Schools are centers of education, introduction to science, culture, civic duties and general betterment of the individual.
Schools are not peddlers of the flavor of the day when it comes to technologies. And for goodness sakes, do not tell me that moving icons, cutting and pasting, is a skill that can be learned in a computer platform.
In Linux the sky is the limit, curious kids can go as far as time and skill will allows them. In Windows you can go only as far as the licensed software allows you to go.
Wake up people, even if your ultimate goal in life is to be proficient in Windows (shudder) you can get proficient at general computer skills in any modern platform. Stop drinking the damn expensive Windows Kool Aid.
Canadians wholeheartedly supporting this nonsense should look at their NAFTA partners in Mexico.
The Mexican equivalent organization also collects copyrights for all composers (not yet in the way proposed in the article, but for several other legislated privileges) but guess what, the composers that make the most out of these arrangements are the president of the organization and his close friends.
They are so cosy and comfy milking the taxpayers money that they have asked for compensation when a Public Domain work is commercialized because the poor lambs lose income. Bunch of vultures.
When an organization receives public money they should be accountable to the electorate, so will they? If similar experiences in other places are an indicator they will not, and will only forced to publish what they are doing under duress.
What about the novel concept of paying the person that provides a service for me? What about the novel concept of the government getting out or private matters?
Proposals like this by special interest groups is only one more attempt to milk the state machine for their very particular and private benefit. People hailing this as a great idea are completely deluded.
Why is it that some folks have a mental block regarding what capitalism is and what socialized endeavors are?
If your country has relatively free markets, recognition of private property and a state that mostly stays out of public ownership of enterprises then, in broad terms, it is a capitalistic one (spare me any detail about what I may have missed, I may not know exactly what a capitalist country is but I sure as hell can recognize one when I see it).
A country spousing the principles of capitalism can and often do socialize some services (because as the above post pointed out is the right thing to do from the moral and economical sense).
There are few non capitalistic countries in the world: North Korea, Cuba and in their way into capitalism Vietnam, China and sundry former Soviet republics. On the way out of Capitalism is Venezuela, only time will tell if this is a successful move or not.
To claim that Canada does not follow capitalism is inane in extreme.
Slashdot Mirror
So why do you bother asking?
Share sliding since November.
While there is a global turmoil in the financial markets.
Shock horror.
MS will leverage his monopolistic position to get a leg on the search market.
Siding with them is siding against your best interests.
OpenOffice is good enough for most tasks and the cool charge you have to pay for each bum on a set using MS Office begins to look more an more like waste, specially with a recession being talked up by the media.
If there is a real crunch a lot of people will question why they should continue to use MS office if there are plenty of options out there cheaper or free.
Any contraption intended to keep a person safe, that requires human subjective calculations to keep the user safe is badly designed.
You should not need to think about the danger if the contraption is designed correctly and it is used according to instructions.
Contraptions of any kind protecting human life should be immune to human error.
As for your example of people walking behind fenced areas and hopping that their good judgment will be enough to protect them, well, what can I say, myopic idiotic views like this cause accidents.
Men of reason can only continue these discussions with mild amusement, and if they are ill predisposed, with hostile derision.
Religious people ask so many ifs and buts to muzzle rational thinking that the only appropriate reactions are no longer necessarily polite.
.... marriage would collapse in a few days.
Honestly folks, in which planet are you living?
And most importantly, how it comes that you like your politicians to live in such a strange place?
Here back in reality, women tolerate, often reluctantly, adulterous husbands for many reasons, from the noble, to the stupid.
Unless you are Hillary Clinton's conscience you can't possibly know why she did not leave Bill.
The Linux kernel is as free and gratis as it was the day Mr. Linus T. decided to GPL it.
It does not need corporate backing. We all benefit from that corporate backing, but the day the corps lose their marbles and stop supporting the only choice they have of having a fair, levelled playing field, then some bright kids will pick it up and continue squashing bugs and making improvements. And they will make big bucks while doing it.
At this point something very interesting has happened: the FOSS corps can't just abandon the FOSS projects, many companies that are their clients (I am sure most of the Fortune 100) would not take gladly lack of support for Linux based OSes that by now are everywhere in corporate datacentres.
So I predict Linux will continue growing, but not in the way you are implying.
This individual was gambling with other people's money without authorization.
That is one of the most hideous white collar crimes I can think of: betraying the trust of the people that give you their hard earned cash.
And the Catholic Church and Protestant Christian sects have made no scientific effort to support their assertions about the humanity of a few cells after conception and upwards.
They just throw diatribe about moral judgments about a subject in which there is clearly no agreement about its morality or lack thereof, in which case they should not be the absolutist pricks that they are and leave it to the conscience of each individual while supporting the moral choices those individuals have to make.
If he was limited to a few millions, how it happened that he managed to bet billions?
Planet US of A?
In Mexico I just stopped going to church and well, that was pretty much it. It is not uncommon in Mexican families that only one or two members follow the rites while all the others thoroughly ignore religion.
The Catholic Church did not put itself as the source of Christian authority. If you believe in all that stuff it was Jesus himself (i.e. God) and there is a traceable historic lineage from the current Pope back to Saint Peter. Other denominations may not like it but it is unquestionable from an historic point of view.
The fact is that protestant sects of Christianity after Luther separated from the Catholic Church, which is and will always be the direct representative of God on Earth. Please note that Jesus did not say that his representatives were going to be holly, wise or apt. At least Orthodox churches can claim that they smelled fish much earlier.
But frankly rational people should look at the above with a sigh of relief and wondering when we all will look at it as we do look now at many other superstitions that arose when we did not know any better.....
The M$ moniker is perfectly legitimate and weakens nobody's position in the slightest.
Arguments are weakened by false or inaccurate premises, writing M$ gives a perfect idea of the bias of the poster without going in long explanations to disclose those biases.
People getting worked out about this are the real childish ones lending far too much significance to this in the judgment of the character of the person who u$e$ it.
Because you could have copied your stuff in the first place. In such a world anybody paying would do so in the understanding that their stuff would be copied.
Some people would pay for the original fries to support the person that came with the recipe.
Or perhaps the fries are so good that several people would band together and ask the original cook to come with some other marvellous dish under comission.
The world would work completely different, which is what the people making movies and bad songs can't come to terms with.
The PB chaps have got a business model that is clearly working. The movie industry could make them their official torrent trackers guaranteeing access to stuff that is original and as advertised (no shaky camera work by a guy recording from a cinema screen).
But no, that is not them. People with all kind of addictions (this is the music and movie industries, OK?) are not known for the clearness of thought and visionary insights in how the real world works.
I have many friends in different EU countries, who are not computer specialists, who are informed and are prepared to try new stuff.
I have walked in the worst places in Manila. The things you see there have no parallel in any developed country.
Then we have all the rotten apples:
-Malaysia: Muslim country. They allow some western media but they blacken, by hand, the bits they don't like (white bare chested ladies are their favorites). Political dissent? You would be forgiven for thinking there is any if you would watch Malaysian TV or listen to Malaysian radio. Newspapers are slightly better, but not much, they know how far they can go before been harassed. One year the government forbade political campaigning because it considered it a waste of money.
-Vietnam? Yeah, right.
-Thailand: they do military overthrows for fun.
-Singapore: they are even worst than Malaysia when it comes to independent media and political dissent. Politicians from the ruling party sue for slander or libel opposition leaders if they say they are not doing a good job. Unsurprisingly the curts always rule on their favor. They have bankrupted opposition figures this way.
-The Philippines? They don't have the infrastructure, and I would not call them stable exactly.
And the above are the not so rotten, Then we have Burma. Now that would be a great place to put a datacentre.
Lets face it folks, there are few safe heavens in South East Asia.
Opera and Netscape used to be paid for products, but MS's monopolistic dominance in the OS field allowed them to give the browser away for free.
Microsofties will go all wobbly on their knees reminding us that IE was better than Netscape, but when your knees are wobbling you are most likely to miss the point: MS killed the incentive to produce a browser, the only way to "compete" was to give the browser away for free, the cost of producing such software was swallowed by MS, making it impossible for anybody else to compete in a level playing field, unless they worked gratis.
In an alternative universe where MS is ethical and the US's DOJ is fair, MS would have priced the browser realistically, Netscape would have died because it was shit and a multitude of companies would have entered the business providing innovation and reinvigorating the browser market.
The only way to re-establish some degree of advancement in the browser arena was for other people to give their work away for free. Any market that relies on handouts is no market at all. Thanks to MS for the favour... not.
None. My family was to poor to afford neither...
.... people voting for right wing politicians in Germany are placated, because less Romanians have the need to emigrate to Germany to find well paid jobs.
As always people want to have their cake (Nokia plant) and eat it (no Romanians in Germany please). How sad is that?
What is Microsoft opinion in the matter?
It does not have to be an individual.
And given the fact that you miserably fail to grasp the benefits to deploy Linux as an optimal option to teach general computing skills, it is hardly surprising that you fail to understand the general objectives of a school.
Schools are centers of education, introduction to science, culture, civic duties and general betterment of the individual.
Schools are not peddlers of the flavor of the day when it comes to technologies. And for goodness sakes, do not tell me that moving icons, cutting and pasting, is a skill that can be learned in a computer platform.
In Linux the sky is the limit, curious kids can go as far as time and skill will allows them. In Windows you can go only as far as the licensed software allows you to go.
Wake up people, even if your ultimate goal in life is to be proficient in Windows (shudder) you can get proficient at general computer skills in any modern platform. Stop drinking the damn expensive Windows Kool Aid.
Canadians wholeheartedly supporting this nonsense should look at their NAFTA partners in Mexico.
The Mexican equivalent organization also collects copyrights for all composers (not yet in the way proposed in the article, but for several other legislated privileges) but guess what, the composers that make the most out of these arrangements are the president of the organization and his close friends.
They are so cosy and comfy milking the taxpayers money that they have asked for compensation when a Public Domain work is commercialized because the poor lambs lose income. Bunch of vultures.
When an organization receives public money they should be accountable to the electorate, so will they? If similar experiences in other places are an indicator they will not, and will only forced to publish what they are doing under duress.
What about the novel concept of paying the person that provides a service for me? What about the novel concept of the government getting out or private matters?
Proposals like this by special interest groups is only one more attempt to milk the state machine for their very particular and private benefit. People hailing this as a great idea are completely deluded.
Why is it that some folks have a mental block regarding what capitalism is and what socialized endeavors are?
If your country has relatively free markets, recognition of private property and a state that mostly stays out of public ownership of enterprises then, in broad terms, it is a capitalistic one (spare me any detail about what I may have missed, I may not know exactly what a capitalist country is but I sure as hell can recognize one when I see it).
A country spousing the principles of capitalism can and often do socialize some services (because as the above post pointed out is the right thing to do from the moral and economical sense).
There are few non capitalistic countries in the world: North Korea, Cuba and in their way into capitalism Vietnam, China and sundry former Soviet republics. On the way out of Capitalism is Venezuela, only time will tell if this is a successful move or not.
To claim that Canada does not follow capitalism is inane in extreme.