Too much stuff is written by programmers who think that writing to the application directory is ok. It's easy enough to enable write permission to individual files to get around this (and registrey keys in some cases), but doing it for about half of the installed programs gets old really quick. And that's after you determine which files/keys they need write permission to.
Don't expect much help from the program supplier though...
Is there NO way to tell *any* flavor of Windows to allow any or all programs to write to the user directories only, by limiting the privileges of a user? In Linux and the Mac it is possible to disallow a user or any program he may run from touching anything that might affect the system.
The problem is that many Windows apps (n.b. not just old applications) are written using a "personal computer" design which assumes that the person sat in front of the computer can alter anything.
A more interesting situation would be if anyone ever mounted a successful challenge against EULAs, which would surely cripple the GPL as well.
No it wouldn't, since an EULA is a different type of entity. An EULA claims to restrict how you may use a copyrighted work. Whereas the GPL says under what conditions someone other than the copyright holder may distribute copies of a copyrighted work to third parties.
And I don't see how the courts can possibly support EULAs on basic legal principles, so things might get interesting someday.
However the GPL is supported by statute and case laws surrounding the concept of copyright.
Not really. SCO's original argument was that "the GPL is invalid, developers are effectively putting their work into the Public Domain".
Quite a hard claim to prove considering that all of the relevent copyright holders can say that they have not placed anything in the Public Domain.
If the court agrees with this, the GPL becomes invalid and SCO are well within their rights to do what they want with the code.
If the court even looks like this then it is likely that the BSA, RIAA, MPAA, etc will be defending the GPL. Such a ruling would greatly weaken copyright. SCO's argument is effectivly "we don't like the licence terms so it's Public Domain". By their "logic" Microsoft is producting Public Domain software if anyone dosn't like an EULA; AOL Time Warner produces Public Domain movies if someone dosn't like the licence associated with a DVD; etc...
The problem I always see with Windows organizations is that they have to make a million compromises to make certain legacy apps work, usually negating most features of their 'advanced' OS.
Possibly the most common is a single application running on the machine which is the only thing which need to be running on it. (Looking especially daft when that application is hyperterm...)
You see places using FAT32 on their XP boxes so they can keep their auto-imaging tools from ten years ago,
Quite possibly they'd be quite happy with Windows 95 or even Windows 3.1. A more relevent question would be why is disk imaging still considered necessary...
you see file and print services turned on by default because users think it's OK to share office files P2P, even though you have NAS.
Windows is at it's heart a Personal Computer operating system. Thus assumes that the person sat in front of it knows what they are doing.
It's convenient how when it's presented it's always as if nothing changes between Windows versions. There were pretty big differences between NT and 2000, and even more between 2000 and XP.
There are also "under the hood" differences which can cause all sorts of problems when sysadmins have to work out why something which used to work dosn't and how to restore the old behaviour.
The users that would have trouble going from MS Office to OO (or from Windows to X) are the same users that will have trouble going from 2000 to XP
Probably the same ones who'd get confused just by changing the screen resolution and the desktop icons:)
A transition is a transition, whethers it's from MS stuff to OSS stuff, or from MS to MS. I'm willing to accept the cost of one being higher than the other,
It's prefectly possible for a small change to cause more problems than a big change.
but why is the cost of going to a newer version MS product completely overlooked?
Because the point of these "studies" is to show that Microsoft stuff is somehow better.
MS makes sure that migrating away from their software is demonstratably more expensive then staying with them.
Except that "staying with MS" actually means a string of "updates". With all the associated costs everytime. Since you are most likely following Microsoft's timing here there is less chance you can minimise these costs.
Having worked as an Linux & Open Source entrepreneur, my experience tells me that there are lots of organizations whose IT infrastructure is on the verge of collapsing and cracking down because it's poorly managed. Poor management is usually the result of incompetent staff for Windoze sysadmin jobs.
Windows is a complicated system which looks nice.
The-kid-next-door-who-knows-computers make good tech support, who will fix individual workstations, but when it comes to servers and complete IT environments, knowing how to (un)install programs and set up trivial stuff won't get you too far.
But they will look like they are doing something.
A lot of organizations' IT departments need great deal of training, no matter what the platform is.
Probably quite a bit of this would be training about networks without assuming any specific platform...
MS's only hope at a valid argument for why MS Office is cheaper than OO is something like "well since we know you're already using MS Office, if you moved to OO you would save on the license, but you it would cost you $$$ in retraining your users."
Assuming they actually are using some version of MS Office in the first place...
Of course that's based on the incorrect assumption that most users actually USE many of the features of MS Office. Most typical office drones could use Wordpad and never know the difference (between MS Office), except that Wordpad wouldn't do wacky automatic shit to them that they'd have to keep manually undoing.
Wordpad isn't too good on handling mailmerge and form letters. But if that's what is being produced then a WYSIWYG type wordprocessor probably isn't the best tool in the first place...
Even the MS argument, valid as it may be for their twisted scenario, would break down after one upgrade cycle. OO license savings + retraining cost might theoretically be > than MS Office license cost, but come next upgrade cycle, there will no longer be a retraining issue. So then it will simply be a question of Free versus $$.
Missing here is the retraining cost of moving from move version of MS Office to another.
It all reminds me of the illogical (but hopeful) arguments a child will give for why they must have something, or why they must not do something. It's somewhat comical when it's a child, but it's really sad and embarassing when it's an "adult" corporation.
Why should it be assumed that "corporate people" are "adults"? That they can be excused from the negative consequences of their actions has more in common with "children".
when munich goes through the paces for about a year or two. the TCO will no longer be theoretical for a large government body, but real.
Assuming that Microsoft won't use every method it can to prevent this happening. The last thing they would want is any real data. Which would tend to show that TCO studies are academic exercised. Even if those carrying out the study do make an attempt to carry out a total cost of ownership study.
Very slightly if the water is fed back into the lake. However water has a high specific heat capacity around 4.2kJ is required to raise one litre of water by 1 degree celsius. The water in this case is comming from a very large lake, so it would take a huge amount of energy input to change the temperature of the lake by any noticable amount. There also exist methods of extracting heat from rivers and lakes for heating. So possibly these could be used in winter.
What are the envirnmental effects of this?
Most likely considerably less than dumping heat in to the atmosphere, which is how conventional air conditioning works.
They don't know about patches, firewalls, antivirus, defrag, spyware, disk space, screen resolution/refresh rate, etc. I guess they view computers as appliances
Probably because that's what the machine was sold as.
and expect them to be as reliable and maintenance free.
Maybe they would be were it not for the use of personal computer operating systems which expect the end user to do all the "servicing".
CEO's get to vote the same number of times as the rest of us. Yeah they lobby and run commercials on all different sides of issues and candidates, but in the end, it's the rest of us who win or lose elections, because we all get only one vote.
Voting is not the be all and end all of democracy. Lobbying can matter far more than voting. Especially somewhere like the US where the 2 major political parties agree on many issues.
It's a crappy argument since I have yet, in my 29 blessed years on this planet, to see evidence that a wiretap has tipped authorities off to someone that they hadn't already identified through conventional, less Big Brother style means. Once. All I'm asking is once.
It's quite possible that relying on such techniques will take away resources from other methods of crime detection/prevention.
Show me _ONE TIME_ when spying on our own citizens has prevented a crime.
Also that there are no cases of this kind of thing being used to help commit a crime.
A big company tries to protect itself from safety lawsuits since a lawsuit could cost them hundreds of millions. The mom and pop store down the street doesn't have all that much to lose in comparison.
It could well work the opposite way. The mom and pop store owners risk losing their business and possibly their liberty. Whereas the big company only risks a fine.
What we need is to _REMOVE_ all the protecting legislation which is supposed to protect us but, because of monetary fact, only protects corporations.
It might well be better to get rid of the semi-personhood status of corporations. Either go back to their being something other than "people". Or treat them entirely as "people", including being jailed if they break the law and subject to compulsary medical treatment if they are diagnosed as insane...
Well companies already have lots of people who know how to do things the windows way.
What exactly is the "Windows way"? Considering that Microsoft likes to change all sorts of things about the way it works every time they come up with a new version.
I _can_ verify that that is indeed my driving licence.
The real point of your driving licence is to prove that you are permitted to drive certain catqagories of of motor vehicles on the public road. Generally that you have passed some tests to show basic competence and have not subsequently been caught doing stupid things which endanger other road users.
No, they're not interested in the average Joe as long as he remains that. But should he ever become or try to become someone of power and importance (or just too annoying), they'd love to have all sorts of dirt to wreck your life, career and credibility.
You also have the problem that there is a catagory of people interested in the "average Joe". Criminals, especially organised crime (which includes other country's "intelligence services), for purposes of identity theft...
The KGB etc. were notorious for collecting vast amounts of information. Most of it they never needed, but they had it in case that person was turning out to be a problem.
There is the problem of "data overload" or "failing to see the wood for the trees" type problem. As the German Democratic Republic found out a little too late:)
If you haven't been following the story, you might be interested to know that this isn't a gift from the record companies but a settlement arising out of an illegal price-fixing case. You should also know that it's been considered a lousy settlement, since the overwhelming majority of CDs going to the libraries of various states has been unsalable stock that was moldering in warehouses.
But a good deal for the defendents. Since they not only get rid of trash which is costing them money to store and would cost them money dispose of for only the cost of transporting it somewhere else. But also get out of paying an actual fine and can use whatever arbitrary value they put on their trash against tax. When ordinary people are fined they have to pay actual money. They can't offer the court a year's worth of trash...
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Too much stuff is written by programmers who think that writing to the application directory is ok. It's easy enough to enable write permission to individual files to get around this (and registrey keys in some cases), but doing it for about half of the installed programs gets old really quick. And that's after you determine which files/keys they need write permission to.
Don't expect much help from the program supplier though...
Is there NO way to tell *any* flavor of Windows to allow any or all programs to write to the user directories only, by limiting the privileges of a user? In Linux and the Mac it is possible to disallow a user or any program he may run from touching anything that might affect the system.
The problem is that many Windows apps (n.b. not just old applications) are written using a "personal computer" design which assumes that the person sat in front of the computer can alter anything.
A more interesting situation would be if anyone ever mounted a successful challenge against EULAs, which would surely cripple the GPL as well.
No it wouldn't, since an EULA is a different type of entity. An EULA claims to restrict how you may use a copyrighted work. Whereas the GPL says under what conditions someone other than the copyright holder may distribute copies of a copyrighted work to third parties.
And I don't see how the courts can possibly support EULAs on basic legal principles, so things might get interesting someday.
However the GPL is supported by statute and case laws surrounding the concept of copyright.
Not really. SCO's original argument was that "the GPL is invalid, developers are effectively putting their work into the Public Domain".
Quite a hard claim to prove considering that all of the relevent copyright holders can say that they have not placed anything in the Public Domain.
If the court agrees with this, the GPL becomes invalid and SCO are well within their rights to do what they want with the code.
If the court even looks like this then it is likely that the BSA, RIAA, MPAA, etc will be defending the GPL. Such a ruling would greatly weaken copyright. SCO's argument is effectivly "we don't like the licence terms so it's Public Domain". By their "logic" Microsoft is producting Public Domain software if anyone dosn't like an EULA; AOL Time Warner produces Public Domain movies if someone dosn't like the licence associated with a DVD; etc...
Adware and spyware won't be an issue if you manage to prevent software installation by end users.
That being one big if... It's not as if Windows has a simple allow/disallow software installation setting.
The problem I always see with Windows organizations is that they have to make a million compromises to make certain legacy apps work, usually negating most features of their 'advanced' OS.
Possibly the most common is a single application running on the machine which is the only thing which need to be running on it. (Looking especially daft when that application is hyperterm...)
You see places using FAT32 on their XP boxes so they can keep their auto-imaging tools from ten years ago,
Quite possibly they'd be quite happy with Windows 95 or even Windows 3.1. A more relevent question would be why is disk imaging still considered necessary...
you see file and print services turned on by default because users think it's OK to share office files P2P, even though you have NAS.
Windows is at it's heart a Personal Computer operating system. Thus assumes that the person sat in front of it knows what they are doing.
It's convenient how when it's presented it's always as if nothing changes between Windows versions. There were pretty big differences between NT and 2000, and even more between 2000 and XP.
:)
There are also "under the hood" differences which can cause all sorts of problems when sysadmins have to work out why something which used to work dosn't and how to restore the old behaviour.
The users that would have trouble going from MS Office to OO (or from Windows to X) are the same users that will have trouble going from 2000 to XP
Probably the same ones who'd get confused just by changing the screen resolution and the desktop icons
A transition is a transition, whethers it's from MS stuff to OSS stuff, or from MS to MS. I'm willing to accept the cost of one being higher than the other,
It's prefectly possible for a small change to cause more problems than a big change.
but why is the cost of going to a newer version MS product completely overlooked?
Because the point of these "studies" is to show that Microsoft stuff is somehow better.
MS makes sure that migrating away from their software is demonstratably more expensive then staying with them.
Except that "staying with MS" actually means a string of "updates". With all the associated costs everytime. Since you are most likely following Microsoft's timing here there is less chance you can minimise these costs.
Having worked as an Linux & Open Source entrepreneur, my experience tells me that there are lots of organizations whose IT infrastructure is on the verge of collapsing and cracking down because it's poorly managed. Poor management is usually the result of incompetent staff for Windoze sysadmin jobs.
Windows is a complicated system which looks nice.
The-kid-next-door-who-knows-computers make good tech support, who will fix individual workstations, but when it comes to servers and complete IT environments, knowing how to (un)install programs and set up trivial stuff won't get you too far.
But they will look like they are doing something.
A lot of organizations' IT departments need great deal of training, no matter what the platform is.
Probably quite a bit of this would be training about networks without assuming any specific platform...
MS's only hope at a valid argument for why MS Office is cheaper than OO is something like "well since we know you're already using MS Office, if you moved to OO you would save on the license, but you it would cost you $$$ in retraining your users."
Assuming they actually are using some version of MS Office in the first place...
Of course that's based on the incorrect assumption that most users actually USE many of the features of MS Office. Most typical office drones could use Wordpad and never know the difference (between MS Office), except that Wordpad wouldn't do wacky automatic shit to them that they'd have to keep manually undoing.
Wordpad isn't too good on handling mailmerge and form letters. But if that's what is being produced then a WYSIWYG type wordprocessor probably isn't the best tool in the first place...
Even the MS argument, valid as it may be for their twisted scenario, would break down after one upgrade cycle. OO license savings + retraining cost might theoretically be > than MS Office license cost, but come next upgrade cycle, there will no longer be a retraining issue. So then it will simply be a question of Free versus $$.
Missing here is the retraining cost of moving from move version of MS Office to another.
It all reminds me of the illogical (but hopeful) arguments a child will give for why they must have something, or why they must not do something. It's somewhat comical when it's a child, but it's really sad and embarassing when it's an "adult" corporation.
Why should it be assumed that "corporate people" are "adults"? That they can be excused from the negative consequences of their actions has more in common with "children".
when munich goes through the paces for about a year or two. the TCO will no longer be theoretical for a large government body, but real.
Assuming that Microsoft won't use every method it can to prevent this happening. The last thing they would want is any real data. Which would tend to show that TCO studies are academic exercised. Even if those carrying out the study do make an attempt to carry out a total cost of ownership study.
Will this not cause the lake to warm up?
Very slightly if the water is fed back into the lake. However water has a high specific heat capacity around 4.2kJ is required to raise one litre of water by 1 degree celsius. The water in this case is comming from a very large lake, so it would take a huge amount of energy input to change the temperature of the lake by any noticable amount.
There also exist methods of extracting heat from rivers and lakes for heating. So possibly these could be used in winter.
What are the envirnmental effects of this?
Most likely considerably less than dumping heat in to the atmosphere, which is how conventional air conditioning works.
She had enough trouble learning XP - I wouldn't dare put Linux in front of her.
This could translate to "Moving from Win98 to Linux is as easy as moving from Win98 to WinXP"...
They don't know about patches, firewalls, antivirus, defrag, spyware, disk space, screen resolution/refresh rate, etc. I guess they view computers as appliances
Probably because that's what the machine was sold as.
and expect them to be as reliable and maintenance free.
Maybe they would be were it not for the use of personal computer operating systems which expect the end user to do all the "servicing".
CEO's get to vote the same number of times as the rest of us. Yeah they lobby and run commercials on all different sides of issues and candidates, but in the end, it's the rest of us who win or lose elections, because we all get only one vote.
Voting is not the be all and end all of democracy. Lobbying can matter far more than voting. Especially somewhere like the US where the 2 major political parties agree on many issues.
Actually, he was a fighter pilot. They weren't sent "slogging through the jungles of Vietnam" regardless of who their family was.
Unless they got shot down...
There are hundred of papers on this and none but the most pedestrian sites (i.e. marketers to the windows user) advocate blocking ALL ICMPs.
Which also happens to be the default with XP SP2.
Toy? Mac OSX is arguably more ready for the corporate world than linux, and it's not that I don't think linux is ready.
Maybe the question which should be asked is "Is MS Windows ready for the corporate desktop?"
OSX is the most polished (more than explorer, or anything else) desktop software, has all the important software, and even games, for crying out loud.
Since when has games software been an especially desirable feature for a corporate desktop?
It's a crappy argument since I have yet, in my 29 blessed years on this planet, to see evidence that a wiretap has tipped authorities off to someone that they hadn't already identified through conventional, less Big Brother style means. Once. All I'm asking is once.
It's quite possible that relying on such techniques will take away resources from other methods of crime detection/prevention.
Show me _ONE TIME_ when spying on our own citizens has prevented a crime.
Also that there are no cases of this kind of thing being used to help commit a crime.
A big company tries to protect itself from safety lawsuits since a lawsuit could cost them hundreds of millions. The mom and pop store down the street doesn't have all that much to lose in comparison.
It could well work the opposite way. The mom and pop store owners risk losing their business and possibly their liberty. Whereas the big company only risks a fine.
What we need is to _REMOVE_ all the protecting legislation which is supposed to protect us but, because of monetary fact, only protects corporations.
It might well be better to get rid of the semi-personhood status of corporations. Either go back to their being something other than "people". Or treat them entirely as "people", including being jailed if they break the law and subject to compulsary medical treatment if they are diagnosed as insane...
Well companies already have lots of people who know how to do things the windows way.
What exactly is the "Windows way"? Considering that Microsoft likes to change all sorts of things about the way it works every time they come up with a new version.
I _can_ verify that that is indeed my driving licence.
The real point of your driving licence is to prove that you are permitted to drive certain catqagories of of motor vehicles on the public road. Generally that you have passed some tests to show basic competence and have not subsequently been caught doing stupid things which endanger other road users.
No, they're not interested in the average Joe as long as he remains that. But should he ever become or try to become someone of power and importance (or just too annoying), they'd love to have all sorts of dirt to wreck your life, career and credibility.
:)
You also have the problem that there is a catagory of people interested in the "average Joe". Criminals, especially organised crime (which includes other country's "intelligence services), for purposes of identity theft...
The KGB etc. were notorious for collecting vast amounts of information. Most of it they never needed, but they had it in case that person was turning out to be a problem.
There is the problem of "data overload" or "failing to see the wood for the trees" type problem. As the German Democratic Republic found out a little too late
If you haven't been following the story, you might be interested to know that this isn't a gift from the record companies but a settlement arising out of an illegal price-fixing case. You should also know that it's been considered a lousy settlement, since the overwhelming majority of CDs going to the libraries of various states has been unsalable stock that was moldering in warehouses.
But a good deal for the defendents. Since they not only get rid of trash which is costing them money to store and would cost them money dispose of for only the cost of transporting it somewhere else. But also get out of paying an actual fine and can use whatever arbitrary value they put on their trash against tax.
When ordinary people are fined they have to pay actual money. They can't offer the court a year's worth of trash...