Take dealing with services as an example. A well designed system has unnecessary services turned off (or even better, not installed) by default, so that any flaws in those services won't compromise the system.
Also there is good documentation of the service and what it does and no way that it is going to "automagically" get turned on.
. Similarly, a system that allows users to spend most of their time in an unpriviledged mode is less likely to cause problems if/when those users eventually stumble onto trojans/viruses/worms.
Even if the idea is to have the same person being the end user performing maintanance and administration. Then having to go into a privileged mode in order to install software, drivers, change critical settings makes sense. It also makes sense for applications related to maintanance to only run in this privileged more/login/etc and for end user applications to only run in a non privileged mode (possibly with the ability to drop privileges and run as "crippleware", sufficent to indicate that its installed sucessfully.) This could be done based around either a unix type core or around an NT type core. But it isn't the way Microsoft builds Windows. Indeed they manage to make a relativly good OS, NT, emulate a poor one, Win9X If you asked people "Would you want a computer difficult to accidentaly break?" how many people would say no. How about "... difficult for your children to break?", "... your students...?", "... your employees...?" The "price" you pay for that is that you can't have click and install programs. In many environments this isn't even a "price" it's a bonus, no need for third party utilities to "lock down" workstations, less time spent spent cleaning up the mess of end user initiated installs which didn't work.
To make money, Lindows and the Linux corps need a big button at the front of their wizards that says "Default Install-- For First-time Users"
Even with Windows how many end users actually install their own OS?
Re:The odds aren't even *that* good.
on
Lindows Reviewed
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· Score: 2
Are these people really going to buy into a system that doesn't run everything they're used to as well as their current one, costs nearly as much, but hey, it's not made by a company called Microsoft.
But if it is made by Microsoft they will quite happly pay more for something which may well not run their current software as well as they are used to... If they buy a new machine they probably don't even have any choice because of the dodgy OEM deals Microsoft still has going.
Hell, most of them won't even buy counterfeit Levi's if they can avoid it. "It's not the real thing, it's not as good."
Problem with that analogy is that Levi does not have a monoploy in the garment market. Indeed rather than forcing every outlet to exclusivly sell their products they actually try to stop retailers selling their stuff.
Had that person been using Mandrake for the last few years (and the basic operation has been drummed into them) and you gave them WinXP, they would be just as confused. (I personally can't really see this either way, Mandrake looks almost exactly like Windows from the default install, down to task-bar icons being in the same place and looking similar - but hey, users are users).
There appears to be almost a sort of "pride" amongst a certain group of end users in being only able to use a certain computer UI. Yet take these people and sit them in a different car and they probably wouldn't make near as much fuss. But where does this kind of "culture" come from? BR> The problem here is that Linux doesn't have to be "as good as Windows" with the average user, it has to be a lot better, because most users are used to Windows, and it's not a matter of learning something new (like the first time they used Windows) but rather converting from something they are used to. That, or it can just try to mimic Windows as much as possible (at which point the idea becomes just to save money or something, and that's just sad).
If you mimic Windows you also end up mimicing the bad parts of Windows.
The majority of people don't like their PC crashing randomly, or having to defrag their hard drive, or having to completely reinstall everything.
However a large proportion of them have been (re)"educated" to think that this is "how computers are". Hence you end up with all the fuss about end users being able to install software.
A product that allows them to use all their software and the vast majority of their hardware without the unnecessary inconvenience of the above would no doubt be very popular.
The vast majority of custom, in-house developed apps will never be ported to Linux. (It's just too expensive to do the massive rewrite needed to port any non-trivial program written in VB or VC++ to Linux.)
These must be quite new apps anyway. Would they work on future versions of Windows?
They have to be trained to login to their system anyway. This is standard for me when supporting a user who is used to Windows 9.x or Mac and then moves to Winnt or win2k.
If they move from Win9x to NT/2K the first thing they have to do is use a key combination they have probably previously been repeatedly told not to use:) Also it's still a case of "put your username in where it says, put your password in where it says" (No potentially confusing "domain" box if they move to Linux though...)
The Desktop is not that radically different if they're using KDE. I can tell you that the end user on a linux system doesn't even have to worry about the filesystem. They can only write files in their home dir, and that's pretty simple. In Windows, they can write pretty much anywhere they want.
Also with Windows they can often attempt to install applications. Both of these lead to support issues and downtime.
I used to work in a software house. A very large, International company that made Business Machines. I worked in the networking section. As part of my work, I found some horrendously inefficient code that had been cut-n-pasted because it had been used and worked somewhere else. When I pointed out, and then documented the inneficiency by implementing and benchmarking, all I got for a reply was "We don't modify working code!!"
Pissed at the boneheaded attitude, I began inspecting lots of code. Everything was hacks tacked on top of more hacks, and all because "We don't modify working code!!"
When it comes to both proprietary software and such in house code very few people ever get to actually see it. It wouldn't surprise me if there is quite a lot of open source stuff which is simply better written, because it isn't hiddden away.
It shouldn't take me an hour just to get Gnucash installed and running.
Installing and getting running applications (and operating systems) can be very time consuming. With one hour being towards the "short time" end of the scale. However it is a different task from using software and "user configuration". In many situations these tasks are performed by different people. Indeed often with Windows considerably work is involved in not having end users mess with settings they shouldn't even be touching in the first place.
Get easy installation of apps on the Linux desktop, and you'll get MS desktop business users migrating to Linux en masse.
Except that in a business environment the absolute last thing you need is computer illiterate users attempting to install software. This is one of the things seriously wrong with Windows.
Yes, I like linux, and yes, I use it at home, and YES I don't mind doing some work to find the libraries, drivers, and programs I need to get linux apps working like I want them too. But the simple fact of the matter is that most business people don't have that kind of time to waste on just installing a simple program.
So why do you want them to do it. Do these same, busy, people install their own network points, wire up their own telephones, etc. Even if they are running some version of Windows odds on they dosn't so self installs of software anyway. Some businesses have whole departments working on all sorts of custom software, compared with maintaining custom apps written in obscure propriatary languages, finding a few bits of C probably isn't going to be too taxing.
There's always a need, though, so it's always a good idea. It is never a good idea to limit yourself to only one platform as an option
Especially if that one platform is a proprietary one.
That doesn't mean make it portable to everything under the sun, but it does mean make sure that your eggs can be switched into one or two other baskets if the current platform starts to look like a bad decision.
In any other area of business this would be just "common sense". Or are there businesses which specifically seek to lock themselves into single supplier deals?
Benefits of OpenOffice != hardware savings + licensing costs. There are switching costs involved, irrespective of whether the UI is monolithic or not, and they're nontrivial. The cost models I've thought about involve a relatively massive up front cost that'll defray itself over several years, and that's not a model that businessPeople will buy into on a large scale.
Are you comparing like with like, e.g. moving from MS Office to OpenOffice with changing from MS Office whatever to MS Office XP.
1. MS are a bunch of buttheads, but they adapt well. Win2k isn't THAT unstable, and is perfectly useable as a business desktop (NOT as servers). What, exactly, does linux afford that W2K doesn't, now that the stability differentiation has been reduced considerably?
Ability of remote administration. Application settings are discrete, rather than all in one monolithing "registry". None of this "profile" copying stuff back and forth on log in/out. Which can mean you need a network capable of a high peak usage, but which is idle most of the time.
Just as the vendor is not under any obligation to change the terms he wishes to impose upon you, you also are not required to agree the the vendor's terms. You can walk away from the deal.
If it's ok for a software company to say "by opening this box you have agreed to whatever" why isn't it equally binding on the software company to have "by opening the envelope you have agreed to..."?
Why doesn't someone just make one that specifically doesn't let you play a copy, this is the logical step to to take as no one is going to try to pull you into court and sue you for play a non US game are they.
IIRC the way Sony's "protection system" works simply dosn't allow playing only imports and not pirate. I'm not even sure if it allows the equivalent of a region 0 on the media.
I have a number of friends who pay a premium to have games shipped from Japan to the United States because in their infinite wisdom, Sony and the software companies have decided not to import that game.
Presumably Sony think that by being able to overcharge people in some places on the games they do release they make up for the lost sales as "imports". Or maybe being able to control distribution matters to them more than actually making money by selling things.
Your statement is a scary indication of the way people are beginning to think due to the bizarre software licensing issues we have been plagued with for the last 2 decades. People actually think that the company that sold you a device outright can dictate what you do with it. They can't.. they SOLD IT TO YOU..
However people like car makes may well think "if software companies can get away with this stuff, why can't we?" "Maybe we can even use the same laws, or get them tweaked..."
Completely wrong (at least in the EU). There is a large market in after market spares from independent manufacturers for most makes of cars, and the car companies took a test case to the High Court and lost
But they keep trying, which is the point. What happens if instead of going to court they decide instead to start lobbying to get the law changed?
When you buy a book you own it. That does not give you copyright to the text embodied in it - you are still bound by copyright law that allow you to make copies for personal use (in most countries anyway), and in other very restricted circumstances, and that clearly forbid you from mass copying whether for profit or not.
Assuming that the copyright law is sensible. When it comes to software that in the UK is daft, since it dosn't allow using the software. Things are similar in the US, but the law appears to have been bodged slightly in the customers favour. A well written copyright law would not restrict using, making backups, transfering to different media at all, problem is that if such laws did exist they have been obliterated by the lobbying of greedy publishers.
Imagine, if you will, buying the product instead of a lisence. Having outright ownership to the product entitles you to do with it whatever you want, up to and including making hundres of copies of the product (a PS2 game, in this case) and freely distributing it at no charge
That would be be a violation of regular copyright law. It's "commercial piracy", that you arn't charging isn't relevent. Why should buying a PS2 game be any different from buying a book?
This is why lisencing as it exists today is the norm. Unfortunately, such a system is also prone to abuse, but I think the good (the continued existence of the software industry) outweighs the bad (unreasonable EULA's and overzealous attourneys).
So how come the software industry needs this special kind of rules? Especially when the "software industry" is a minority of industry as a whole and the number of corporate consumers of software dwarfs the producers. Note that even if this "software industry" were to vanish overnight software would not and enterprising people would come up with viable ways for software to be used as the useful tool it is. (Protecting the "software industry" is starting to look like the tail wagging the dog.)
This was first tried around a century ago with books, IIRC eventually wound up with the US supreme court saying that it was utterly meaningless. I wonder why this ruling was never followed through with software.
with software and, increasingly, hardware, we tolerate buying "licenses" instead of buying the product, and being tied down to restrictive agreements that would be null and void or even illegal in most other cases.
Effectivly the problem started with software and is spreading (through firmware) into hardware...
Recently, Tesco, a UK retailer, lost a case in the European Court about importing "grey market" jeans - it's just the same. The jean manufacturers want to control the supply of products in Europe so they can control the price.
But odds on Levi and Sony would be shouting "free trade" if anyone tried to restrict their supply systems.
Customers' who pirate games aren't really customers, and I doubt Sony give a flying frogstar fart about alienating THEM.
People who import games are most definitly customers. They are not "pirates" because they are perfectly prepared to pay a fair price for the games. Pirates generally would not pay at all for the games.
How would you feel if Honda said that they started making their cars maintenence free, and as such welded the hood shut, and got rid of all the filler caps, so that when its time to change the oil, add gas, change filters, replace battery etc, you had to buy a new car, or a new engine. Don't think that would fly.
Consider if they then started prosecuting people who make a kit to change the car back into one with more regular maintenence.
When I buy a book, a CD, a DVD, or a program, I have bought a set of data. I own it. It is mine. I can sell it. I can loan it to my friends. If it is covered under copyright and I don't have a license to cover that then the law doesn't allow me to make copies and distribute those copies or perform public reinactments.
That was the old law. The newer laws extend this to making backup copies you never distribute and if using the entity involves some sort of "copy", even if making the copy is essential, even if it's a "copy" which only exists for a nanosecond. Effectivly "copyright" becomes "useright". But only where it's big corporates producing the "content". Individuals can't use these laws (especially against big corporates) any more they can use "Digital Rights Management" for stuff they film themselves, etc.
CLEARLY the DMCA trumps free speech. but i am not without hope, if the DMCA got to the supreme court it would be RIPPED IN HALF. it just may take a while for that to happen. but that is much more likely than a repeal of the DMCA by our representatives, they are getting more money from the corps than from us.
How likely do you think that is to happen before the rest of the world has DMCA clones and enough interwoven treaty obligations that the US congress could claim they were "obliged" to reincarnate it?
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Take dealing with services as an example. A well designed system has unnecessary services turned off (or even better, not installed) by default, so that any flaws in those services won't compromise the system.
...?", "... your employees ...?"
Also there is good documentation of the service and what it does and no way that it is going to "automagically" get turned on.
. Similarly, a system that allows users to spend most of their time in an unpriviledged mode is less likely to cause problems if/when those users eventually stumble onto trojans/viruses/worms.
Even if the idea is to have the same person being the end user performing maintanance and administration. Then having to go into a privileged mode in order to install software, drivers, change critical settings makes sense. It also makes sense for applications related to maintanance to only run in this privileged more/login/etc and for end user applications to only run in a non privileged mode (possibly with the ability to drop privileges and run as "crippleware", sufficent to indicate that its installed sucessfully.)
This could be done based around either a unix type core or around an NT type core. But it isn't the way Microsoft builds Windows. Indeed they manage to make a relativly good OS, NT, emulate a poor one, Win9X
If you asked people "Would you want a computer difficult to accidentaly break?" how many people would say no. How about "... difficult for your children to break?", "... your students
The "price" you pay for that is that you can't have click and install programs. In many environments this isn't even a "price" it's a bonus, no need for third party utilities to "lock down" workstations, less time spent spent cleaning up the mess of end user initiated installs which didn't work.
To make money, Lindows and the Linux corps need a big button at the front of their wizards that says "Default Install-- For First-time Users"
Even with Windows how many end users actually install their own OS?
Are these people really going to buy into a system that doesn't run everything they're used to as well as their current one, costs nearly as much, but hey, it's not made by a company called Microsoft.
But if it is made by Microsoft they will quite happly pay more for something which may well not run their current software as well as they are used to...
If they buy a new machine they probably don't even have any choice because of the dodgy OEM deals Microsoft still has going.
Hell, most of them won't even buy counterfeit Levi's if they can avoid it. "It's not the real thing, it's not as good."
Problem with that analogy is that Levi does not have a monoploy in the garment market. Indeed rather than forcing every outlet to exclusivly sell their products they actually try to stop retailers selling their stuff.
Had that person been using Mandrake for the last few years (and the basic operation has been drummed into them) and you gave them WinXP, they would be just as confused. (I personally can't really see this either way, Mandrake looks almost exactly like Windows from the default install, down to task-bar icons being in the same place and looking similar - but hey, users are users).
There appears to be almost a sort of "pride" amongst a certain group of end users in being only able to use a certain computer UI. Yet take these people and sit them in a different car and they probably wouldn't make near as much fuss. But where does this kind of "culture" come from?
BR> The problem here is that Linux doesn't have to be "as good as Windows" with the average user, it has to be a lot better, because most users are used to Windows, and it's not a matter of learning something new (like the first time they used Windows) but rather converting from something they are used to. That, or it can just try to mimic Windows as much as possible (at which point the idea becomes just to save money or something, and that's just sad).
If you mimic Windows you also end up mimicing the bad parts of Windows.
The majority of people don't like their PC crashing randomly, or having to defrag their hard drive, or having to completely reinstall everything.
However a large proportion of them have been (re)"educated" to think that this is "how computers are". Hence you end up with all the fuss about end users being able to install software.
A product that allows them to use all their software and the vast majority of their hardware without the unnecessary inconvenience of the above would no doubt be very popular.
If there was a freely competing market...
For the vast majority of computer users, the OS isn't the source of religious fervor Linux users seem to think it is.
Really? How do you explain the Windows Worshipers?
The vast majority of custom, in-house developed apps will never be ported to Linux. (It's just too expensive to do the massive rewrite needed to port any non-trivial program written in VB or VC++ to Linux.)
These must be quite new apps anyway. Would they work on future versions of Windows?
They have to be trained to login to their system anyway. This is standard for me when supporting a user who is used to Windows 9.x or Mac and then moves to Winnt or win2k.
:) Also it's still a case of "put your username in where it says, put your password in where it says" (No potentially confusing "domain" box if they move to Linux though...)
If they move from Win9x to NT/2K the first thing they have to do is use a key combination they have probably previously been repeatedly told not to use
The Desktop is not that radically different if they're using KDE. I can tell you that the end user on a linux system doesn't even have to worry about the filesystem. They can only write files in their home dir, and that's pretty simple. In Windows, they can write pretty much anywhere they want.
Also with Windows they can often attempt to install applications. Both of these lead to support issues and downtime.
I used to work in a software house. A very large, International company that made Business Machines. I worked in the networking section. As part of my work, I found some horrendously inefficient code that had been cut-n-pasted because it had been used and worked somewhere else. When I pointed out, and then documented the inneficiency by implementing and benchmarking, all I got for a reply was "We don't modify working code!!"
Pissed at the boneheaded attitude, I began inspecting lots of code. Everything was hacks tacked on top of more hacks, and all because "We don't modify working code!!"
When it comes to both proprietary software and such in house code very few people ever get to actually see it.
It wouldn't surprise me if there is quite a lot of open source stuff which is simply better written, because it isn't hiddden away.
It shouldn't take me an hour just to get Gnucash installed and running.
Installing and getting running applications (and operating systems) can be very time consuming. With one hour being towards the "short time" end of the scale.
However it is a different task from using software and "user configuration". In many situations these tasks are performed by different people. Indeed often with Windows considerably work is involved in not having end users mess with settings they shouldn't even be touching in the first place.
Get easy installation of apps on the Linux desktop, and you'll get MS desktop business users migrating to Linux en masse.
Except that in a business environment the absolute last thing you need is computer illiterate users attempting to install software. This is one of the things seriously wrong with Windows.
Yes, I like linux, and yes, I use it at home, and YES I don't mind doing some work to find the libraries, drivers, and programs I need to get linux apps working like I want them too. But the simple fact of the matter is that most business people don't have that kind of time to waste on just installing a simple program.
So why do you want them to do it. Do these same, busy, people install their own network points, wire up their own telephones, etc. Even if they are running some version of Windows odds on they dosn't so self installs of software anyway.
Some businesses have whole departments working on all sorts of custom software, compared with maintaining custom apps written in obscure propriatary languages, finding a few bits of C probably isn't going to be too taxing.
There's always a need, though, so it's always a good idea. It is never a good idea to limit yourself to only one platform as an option
Especially if that one platform is a proprietary one.
That doesn't mean make it portable to everything under the sun, but it does mean make sure that your eggs can be switched into one or two other baskets if the current platform starts to look like a bad decision.
In any other area of business this would be just "common sense". Or are there businesses which specifically seek to lock themselves into single supplier deals?
Benefits of OpenOffice != hardware savings + licensing costs. There are switching costs involved, irrespective of whether the UI is monolithic or not, and they're nontrivial. The cost models I've thought about involve a relatively massive up front cost that'll defray itself over several years, and that's not a model that businessPeople will buy into on a large scale.
Are you comparing like with like, e.g. moving from MS Office to OpenOffice with changing from MS Office whatever to MS Office XP.
1. MS are a bunch of buttheads, but they adapt well. Win2k isn't THAT unstable, and is perfectly useable as a business desktop (NOT as servers). What, exactly, does linux afford that W2K doesn't, now that the stability differentiation has been reduced considerably?
Ability of remote administration. Application settings are discrete, rather than all in one monolithing "registry". None of this "profile" copying stuff back and forth on log in/out. Which can mean you need a network capable of a high peak usage, but which is idle most of the time.
Just as the vendor is not under any obligation to change the terms he wishes to impose upon you, you also are not required to agree the the vendor's terms. You can walk away from the deal.
If it's ok for a software company to say "by opening this box you have agreed to whatever" why isn't it equally binding on the software company to have "by opening the envelope you have agreed to..."?
Why doesn't someone just make one that specifically doesn't let you play a copy, this is the logical step to to take as no one is going to try to pull you into court and sue you for play a non US game are they.
IIRC the way Sony's "protection system" works simply dosn't allow playing only imports and not pirate. I'm not even sure if it allows the equivalent of a region 0 on the media.
I have a number of friends who pay a premium to have games shipped from Japan to the United States because in their infinite wisdom, Sony and the software companies have decided not to import that game.
Presumably Sony think that by being able to overcharge people in some places on the games they do release they make up for the lost sales as "imports".
Or maybe being able to control distribution matters to them more than actually making money by selling things.
Your statement is a scary indication of the way people are beginning to think due to the bizarre software licensing issues we have been plagued with for the last 2 decades. People actually think that the company that sold you a device outright can dictate what you do with it. They can't.. they SOLD IT TO YOU..
However people like car makes may well think "if software companies can get away with this stuff, why can't we?" "Maybe we can even use the same laws, or get them tweaked..."
Completely wrong (at least in the EU). There is a large market in after market spares from independent manufacturers for most makes of cars, and the car companies took a test case to the High Court and lost
But they keep trying, which is the point. What happens if instead of going to court they decide instead to start lobbying to get the law changed?
When you buy a book you own it. That does not give you copyright to the text embodied in it - you are still bound by copyright law that allow you to make copies for personal use (in most countries anyway), and in other very restricted circumstances, and that clearly forbid you from mass copying whether for profit or not.
Assuming that the copyright law is sensible. When it comes to software that in the UK is daft, since it dosn't allow using the software. Things are similar in the US, but the law appears to have been bodged slightly in the customers favour.
A well written copyright law would not restrict using, making backups, transfering to different media at all, problem is that if such laws did exist they have been obliterated by the lobbying of greedy publishers.
Imagine, if you will, buying the product instead of a lisence. Having outright ownership to the product entitles you to do with it whatever you want, up to and including making hundres of copies of the product (a PS2 game, in this case) and freely distributing it at no charge
That would be be a violation of regular copyright law. It's "commercial piracy", that you arn't charging isn't relevent.
Why should buying a PS2 game be any different from buying a book?
This is why lisencing as it exists today is the norm. Unfortunately, such a system is also prone to abuse, but I think the good (the continued existence of the software industry) outweighs the bad (unreasonable EULA's and overzealous attourneys).
So how come the software industry needs this special kind of rules? Especially when the "software industry" is a minority of industry as a whole and the number of corporate consumers of software dwarfs the producers. Note that even if this "software industry" were to vanish overnight software would not and enterprising people would come up with viable ways for software to be used as the useful tool it is. (Protecting the "software industry" is starting to look like the tail wagging the dog.)
software is typically "licensed", not sold.
This was first tried around a century ago with books, IIRC eventually wound up with the US supreme court saying that it was utterly meaningless. I wonder why this ruling was never followed through with software.
with software and, increasingly, hardware, we tolerate buying "licenses" instead of buying the product, and being tied down to restrictive agreements that would be null and void or even illegal in most other cases.
Effectivly the problem started with software and is spreading (through firmware) into hardware...
Recently, Tesco, a UK retailer, lost a case in the European Court about importing "grey market" jeans - it's just the same. The jean manufacturers want to control the supply of products in Europe so they can control the price.
But odds on Levi and Sony would be shouting "free trade" if anyone tried to restrict their supply systems.
Customers' who pirate games aren't really customers, and I doubt Sony give a flying frogstar fart about alienating THEM.
People who import games are most definitly customers. They are not "pirates" because they are perfectly prepared to pay a fair price for the games. Pirates generally would not pay at all for the games.
How would you feel if Honda said that they started making their cars maintenence free, and as such welded the hood shut, and got rid of all the filler caps, so that when its time to change the oil, add gas, change filters, replace battery etc, you had to buy a new car, or a new engine. Don't think that would fly.
Consider if they then started prosecuting people who make a kit to change the car back into one with more regular maintenence.
When I buy a book, a CD, a DVD, or a program, I have bought a set of data. I own it. It is mine. I can sell it. I can loan it to my friends. If it is covered under copyright and I don't have a license to cover that then the law doesn't allow me to make copies and distribute those copies or perform public reinactments.
That was the old law. The newer laws extend this to making backup copies you never distribute and if using the entity involves some sort of "copy", even if making the copy is essential, even if it's a "copy" which only exists for a nanosecond.
Effectivly "copyright" becomes "useright". But only where it's big corporates producing the "content". Individuals can't use these laws (especially against big corporates) any more they can use "Digital Rights Management" for stuff they film themselves, etc.
CLEARLY the DMCA trumps free speech. but i am not without hope, if the DMCA got to the supreme court it would be RIPPED IN HALF. it just may take a while for that to happen. but that is much more likely than a repeal of the DMCA by our representatives, they are getting more money from the corps than from us.
How likely do you think that is to happen before the rest of the world has DMCA clones and enough interwoven treaty obligations that the US congress could claim they were "obliged" to reincarnate it?