The usual disclaimer about British gits swearing and ranting about open source applies.
You need to bear in mind that now that our coal and steel industries are near non-existent, manufacturing exports are shafted by the high value of the pound and Britain is governed by a group of people for whom mediocrity is a desirable state, swearing and ranting is one of the few sports we British gits can compete in at a world class level.
That and our top class cynicism skills are the few things we have to comfort ourselves during our post imperial hangover.
Among the primary benefits of the free update is the inclusion of security enhancements similar to those added to Windows XP with last year's Service Pack 2
In other words now you've finished dealing with the chaos that was caused by XP SP2 you can now start dealing with the chaos that is S2k3 SP1
Is it reasonable to force Microsoft to produce a license that is royalty free
Kinda depends on what sort of society you live in.If you want a free market based democracy then yes, they should be forced to open their protocols as monopolies have no place in such a society.
Microsft itself is now at the point where punitive fines like the EU's have little or no effect on the company itself. Looking back on Microsoft's previous behaviour you have a desktop that was lifted from Xerox, applications that were ripped off from other companies, a web browser that was stolen from Spyglass, Java that was bastardised and used as a tool to keep the competition out of the browser market and all built on top of open protocols like TCP/IP, SMB, HTML etc. that were given away by other people at zero cost to Microsoft.
Ultimately, the only way to break the monoploy is to either fine MS 50 Billion dollars to bring them down to other people's level or to create a scenario where real competition can exist. As the only real competition in the last 10 years has come from Open Source any action designed to specifically target it is, in itself, anti-competitive and should be stamped on.
Alternatively you can just accept a society where vast wealthy corporations pull the strings and the interests of the common voters are cast aside in the name of the top 5% of the population but then who'd be silly enough to let happen eh?
Reuters reports that 'Microsoft is to give the U.S. government priority in fixing security holes in Windows and other software
Translate to:
Microsoft confirm that businesses are second rate customers.
Seriously, if it was a case of MS to reveal details of vulnerabilities to US Military first I could understand it but giving them the patches first?
When a new virus is released that exploits a hole I suspect the military are the least likely to bee the ones who end up DDoS'ing or spamming people as I'd hope they'd have mechanisms in place to monitor that kind of thing. Most of the damage is done by SME's and individuals who think a patch is something that nictine addicts use.
Best solution is still to test properly and release to all at the same time in as easy a way to deploy manner as possible. Also seems a bit odd that the first people to get a new patch and possibly suffer the unforseen side effects are the ones who need security the most.
In theory yes. I suspect that at the end of the day the biggest bunch of aethiests were the church and the king. Each needed the other to legitimise their existence and wealth. At the end of the day the lust for power (and money) governed them more than God.
Money itself came into existence purely as a means of exchanging goods and services based on the idea that a thatcher could only exchange his service with a farmer if the farmer required his roof mending. Money existed purely to give the people involved in that exchange and independant medium with which to complete the exchange i.e. money was a means to an end. However, the aquisition of money has become an end in it's own right primarily as a source of power.
Ironically, in feudal times the rich land owners owned every thing including the people which although wrong was at least an honest form of exploitation. Today however the ultra-rich employ clever accountants to reduce their taxes to zero while the rest of the population supports them also enjoying an exemption from the rules that govern the rest of us due to the better quality of justice they can afford.
Funnily enough though, I'm no christian either but the bible has a lot common sense in it and the phrase "the lust for money is the root of all evil" has never been more relevant than it is now.
The older I get, the more I realise that cynicism and reality are close relatives.
Too true. The fines for causing death by dangerous driving, discharging a firearm in public, burglary, rape, GBH (Grievous Bodily Harm) etc rarely exceed £500-£1000 buit it's so obvious that sharing MP3's causes so much injury and misery in this world that £50,000 is not enough.
On the other hand, maybe being rich and having lots of politicians as friends just buys you a better quality of justice.
For the first time ever, Microsoft has real competition and two of the main players are based in Europe, e.g. SuSE and Mandrake. I fully expected Microsoft et al to pressure the EU but didn't expect Europe to basically decapitate the very industry that could have made it a real force to be reckoned with.
A couple of years ago, there was an EU purge on corruption within the commission itself and a minister was appointed to ensure that it did not recur. Sadly, either the bastards asleep or has other reasons for not acting.
I used to be all for Europe but UKIP now looks like an attractive option as the old corrupt gravy train image seems just as real now as it did 10 years ago.
As for Arlene McCarty, if only reward was based on integrity she'd be f*****g penniless
4 odd years ago I had a success converting one guy to Linux after he'd had KAK worm take his computer out.
At first, the response was to tell him to buy a virus checker. He bought a £15 a month McAfee subscription but got suspicious when his PC slowed right down. He updated McAfee which found nothing and then uninstalled McAfee and installed AVG which found Sircam. After much swaering he asked "how I dealt with all this shit" at which point I said I don't have to, produced my laptop, showed off Linux. He started using Windows 80% of the time and tinkering with Mandrake the rest and within 4 months was wholly Linux. The rest of his company followed soon after.
Inspired by how easy it was I tried pushing it on someone who lacked the "pissed off" motivation and was only interested because of the low price. The cost savings were easily offset by the constant moaning of his office lackey who had enough trouble dealing with Word, let alone a new OS so the whole thing failed dismally.
Since then, I mention Linux once to people and never allow myself to start a conversation in which it's mentioned. If I'm asked about why I use it or whatever I'll happily state my case in as few words as possible leaving the other person to lead the conversation along handing out Knoppix CDs where required. This worked quite nicely in the interview for my current job. Linux on the CV/resume, mention it once or twice as an aside during the interview and after getting the job in what was a 100% Windows office, waiting for small tasks that are easy to setup as examples.
So far, CD server that was bought 3 years ago works with NT but not with XP. No problem, save £1000 licence update fee with a copy of Mandrake 10.1 pulled off their site that night. Print servers? three in the pipeline using parts salvaged from a pile of 600MHz Celerons that would otherwise end up in a skip.
All the time I'm working on the server I have KDE running and have installed a selection of apps that attract attention from users and other IT staff along the way as I have set the monitor up to be visible to all who enter. Once again, let them initiate the conversation so I don't come across a zealot and answer only things that they ask about although the odd "watch this it's pretty damn cool" moment can be throw in if they appear interested enough.
On the whole, reaction has been good with a couple of Knoppix recipients asking where they can download a full version. Mandrake seems favourite so far. People love the look of Fedora although they're disappointed by the relative lack of apps (maybe better now the extras site is up).
Best of all, if it all goes tits up they hung themselves (although I provided them with the rope) as at no point have I suggested they try it. This leaves them with a: a philosophical attitude e.g. "well, I gave it a go but it's not for me" and/or b: enough of a glimpse to set the seeds for another look further down the road to see if it's improved since lastime.
Bottom lime, people don't like to be pushed, but are happy to be helped along the way. Hopefully, if it ever comes to trialing a desktop version in the office enough people may have sufficient familiarity to soften the shock.
I no longer care as I'm rolling out Linux in a public sector job which in the UK is a rarity of F****g huge proportions. The pay may be sad compared to the private world but the job satisfaction makes up for it.
The only time I've had XP install in less than 30 mins is by ghosting it. Even then you have to add in the time for altering the SID (if it's networked) and changing the name etc..
Seriously, if he can install XP in 6 minutes, please get him to tell me how I'd love to know.
In the last year I've built a hundred + machines all 2.4GHz + Athlons and Prescotts with 512MB DDR and I don't think I've had a single one finish in less than 30 minutes (and that's with a quick NTFS format). Add Windows updates with reboots and all that cack and you're up to an hour at least.
Mandrake on the other hand takes about 20 minutes then run MandrakeUpdate, click "all" and walk away while it does the stuff it has to do (no rebbots for each 3 or 4 updates). The only hardware I can honestly say I'm wary of now is Webcams, USB modems and wireless but NDISWrapper seems to take care of that with reasonable results.
The more I had to use XP in my last job, the more determined I became to find a job where I wouldn't have to.
I've spent the last few weeks working out how to swap as much of my current employers network over to Linux as possible. The Windows CD server has gone, the file servers are looking like they'll follow with Samba/Winbind and a couple of old PCs are being turned over to print serving.
Until now, I had not seriously looked into Wine/VMWare etc (time constraints mainly) as although they are well known to the Linux community, I don't have enough experience with them to talk my IT director into trying it.
The fact that MS are so anti-wine is probably the best indication yet of its effectiveness and given a few more months while Linux settles in it could swing the balance when it comes to replacing NT4.
What, after all, is the point in going through to all the trouble of an electoral process is a bunch of failed has-been politicians who are appointed with no direct electoral mandate can overrule with no justification required?
I remember in the 80s/90s one euro commissioner - Martin Bangemann (German) who spent an inordinate amount of time trying to limit motorcycle power output to 99bhp. Funnily enough, the only manufacturer whose entire product range already met this criteria was BMW. Hmm... no signs of dodginess there then. All this was based on a survey so flawed that a six year old could have seen through it and the whole thing could have been neatly nipped in the bud if the commission hadn't kept bringing it back after the parliament had buried it (in the same coffin as the democratic ideal perhaps).
The setups were hypothetical, however. Both were in the most basic configuration, an approach that some in the audience suggested may tilt the results in favor of Windows, which comes with more features.
translates to:
Companies who employ admins who use default setups because they're doing a job beyond their understanding leave their servers open to attack.
Alternatively, company bosses could employ admins who have a clue rather than leaving it to Joe in accounts who's good with computers i.e. can use macros in office.
The use of the name "genuine advantage" by Microsoft should be viewed in the same light as the terms "People's republic of" and "Democratic republic of" in the names of opressive regimes i.e. you only need to constantly remind people of their freedom, democracy or advantage if it's the only thing you really aren't offering.
Then again, their not stating in who's advantage the service works, theirs or their users. This may in fact be the first display of genuinely honest sound bite advertising in Microsoft's history.
Personally I can't help but think that if Microsoft sell buggy software that makes it easy to flood the net with spam, viruses and other crap non-Microsoft users have the right to expect them to clear up their mess. Quite frankly, I don't give a toss whether or not virus infected PCs are legit or not, denying the illegitemate users access to updates just means the rest of us will have to put up with the resulting cascade of crap.
On the other side, maybe I can bill MS for the time and effort I've spent equipping my non-ms servers with spamassassin. After all, as an MS free user I have no contract/EULA with them and their wilful negligence in making ActiveX, IE and Outlook Express so feebly secured...........
what do you do with your OS? I've seen windows boxes with over a year of uptime.
Meaning that all the patches that required a reboot weren't installed or are installed but not having any effect?
Sadly, the once bolshi British (forget the stiff upper lip image and read some english history) have had the shitty end of the stick for so long now that most people can't be bothered any more.
I remember my brother-in law telling us about how he watched a group of police assemble in Wapping at the time that News International bought the Sun, a "newspaper" in the UK. The resulting purge of print workers from the Wapping factory led to demonstrations of striking workers one of which was marching past his flats at the time. He had a perfect view of the whole demo as he lived on the 5th floor and could see nothing apart from a peaceful march in progress. The police stormed around the corner and piled into the marchers starting a very widespread fight that was reported on the news as evil protestors attack police shock.
The same happened at the Poll tax protest in the 80's when a Police van hitting a pram in Trafalgar Square triggered a riot (seen the film from CCTV at the point the riot was triggered). Further into the demo more Police came pouring out of South Africa House (despite the fact that sanctions were in place against the aparthied regime Maggie was a great friend of SA) but this time their were enough "normal" middle class people there to see what was going on and the "evil commies start riot" line didn't stick.
Funnily enough I feel sorry for the police who, bound by the job, have to put up with being painted as uniformed thugs after carrying out the politicians dirty work. Conversations with many coppers on duty during demos have shown that they generally don't want to end up in a punch up as it sours the taste of the overtime cheque they get.
The repeated use of start a fight and then blame the protestors worked well through the 80's but Maggie overdid it and the strategy was finally seen through. Still, in most cases the government just went ahead and did what they wanted anyway leading people to believe that regardless of what you do it will make no difference. 2 million protest against invading Iraq (biggest march in English history) because no-one believes the "evidence" of WMD - Government goes ahead anyway and refuses to apologies when it turns out that there was no evidence.
Politicians know why voter turnout is around 30% i.e. no-one believes that they work in the public interest anymore. Blair himself is in power not because people believe he's the best man for the job but because he's percieved as the least worst of an appalling range of choices. The patent issue just demonstrates the accuracy of this belief and should, despite the best efforts of those of us who still give a shit, the law go through it'll just strengthen the apathy and feeling of helplessness.
The truly shocking thing is that two of the countries who stand to gain most from the success of Open Source and Linux e.g. France and Germany seem so willing to play along.
I'd like to see the anti-trust lawyers going after something that'll make a real difference.
All this pratting around over media player is wasted time when the real corner stone that holds Microsoft's monopoly up is Office. Everywhere I've tried to deploy Linux the response is favourable until people ask about Office. I'm sorry, but the claim that OpenOffice is Office compatible falls apart when you're opening a heavily formatted.doc file. Not to say that I'm detracting from Openoffice's achievement so far but unless it's flawless people don't care because they don't want to open, remake and save 5 years of Word docs.
Why should a commercial company have to open its document formats? Simple. They are a monopoly, they have abused and are still abusing their position and despite the new cuddly image they're trying to portray they are still bullshitting in their adverts and are still using their position and wealth to control the marketplace.
Office is the key, M$ knows it withn their "we're using an open XML format now so we must be nice" redfining the term open to mean closed. The competition knows it as they all try to offer MSOffice compliance and the fact that this is ignored by lawyers and anti-trust courts is probably the biggest indicator that someone high up is on the make.
After the start of the DoJ case I felt quite optimistic but Bush having let MS off and the EU case looking like a bit of muscle flexing leaves me feeling fairly depressed at the whole business.
At least living in the EU I can go Germany, France or somewhere else where they're a bit more imaginative than the UK. Come on Prime Minister, Bill will let you be photographed with him for another £100,000,000 order. Won't that help you to feel important.
The BBC program Tomorrows World came out with the classic line By the year 2000 computers will make the use of paper obsolete. This one is only really matched by the idea that in the 21st century, machines will be doing all the work and we'll have much more leisure time.
Slashdot Mirror
You need to bear in mind that now that our coal and steel industries are near non-existent, manufacturing exports are shafted by the high value of the pound and Britain is governed by a group of people for whom mediocrity is a desirable state, swearing and ranting is one of the few sports we British gits can compete in at a world class level.
That and our top class cynicism skills are the few things we have to comfort ourselves during our post imperial hangover.
Among the primary benefits of the free update is the inclusion of security enhancements similar to those added to Windows XP with last year's Service Pack 2
In other words now you've finished dealing with the chaos that was caused by XP SP2 you can now start dealing with the chaos that is S2k3 SP1
Kinda depends on what sort of society you live in.If you want a free market based democracy then yes, they should be forced to open their protocols as monopolies have no place in such a society.
Microsft itself is now at the point where punitive fines like the EU's have little or no effect on the company itself. Looking back on Microsoft's previous behaviour you have a desktop that was lifted from Xerox, applications that were ripped off from other companies, a web browser that was stolen from Spyglass, Java that was bastardised and used as a tool to keep the competition out of the browser market and all built on top of open protocols like TCP/IP, SMB, HTML etc. that were given away by other people at zero cost to Microsoft.
Ultimately, the only way to break the monoploy is to either fine MS 50 Billion dollars to bring them down to other people's level or to create a scenario where real competition can exist. As the only real competition in the last 10 years has come from Open Source any action designed to specifically target it is, in itself, anti-competitive and should be stamped on.
Alternatively you can just accept a society where vast wealthy corporations pull the strings and the interests of the common voters are cast aside in the name of the top 5% of the population but then who'd be silly enough to let happen eh?
By the fact that I assumed this the second I heard it'd been leaked and found the fact that someone needed to ask the question more unbelievable.
God, I'm a cynical bastard........
Reuters reports that 'Microsoft is to give the U.S. government priority in fixing security holes in Windows and other software
Translate to:
Microsoft confirm that businesses are second rate customers. Seriously, if it was a case of MS to reveal details of vulnerabilities to US Military first I could understand it but giving them the patches first? When a new virus is released that exploits a hole I suspect the military are the least likely to bee the ones who end up DDoS'ing or spamming people as I'd hope they'd have mechanisms in place to monitor that kind of thing. Most of the damage is done by SME's and individuals who think a patch is something that nictine addicts use. Best solution is still to test properly and release to all at the same time in as easy a way to deploy manner as possible. Also seems a bit odd that the first people to get a new patch and possibly suffer the unforseen side effects are the ones who need security the most.
The European Commission would be favourite at the moment.
In theory yes. I suspect that at the end of the day the biggest bunch of aethiests were the church and the king. Each needed the other to legitimise their existence and wealth. At the end of the day the lust for power (and money) governed them more than God.
The name?
To true.
Money itself came into existence purely as a means of exchanging goods and services based on the idea that a thatcher could only exchange his service with a farmer if the farmer required his roof mending. Money existed purely to give the people involved in that exchange and independant medium with which to complete the exchange i.e. money was a means to an end. However, the aquisition of money has become an end in it's own right primarily as a source of power.
Ironically, in feudal times the rich land owners owned every thing including the people which although wrong was at least an honest form of exploitation. Today however the ultra-rich employ clever accountants to reduce their taxes to zero while the rest of the population supports them also enjoying an exemption from the rules that govern the rest of us due to the better quality of justice they can afford.
Funnily enough though, I'm no christian either but the bible has a lot common sense in it and the phrase "the lust for money is the root of all evil" has never been more relevant than it is now.
The older I get, the more I realise that cynicism and reality are close relatives.
"They're so extreme with the amounts."
Too true. The fines for causing death by dangerous driving, discharging a firearm in public, burglary, rape, GBH (Grievous Bodily Harm) etc rarely exceed £500-£1000 buit it's so obvious that sharing MP3's causes so much injury and misery in this world that £50,000 is not enough.
On the other hand, maybe being rich and having lots of politicians as friends just buys you a better quality of justice.
True, but having bought out Conectiva they're now the home player in Brazil where Linux appears to be the preferred choice. Just give 'em the time.
Funnily enough, nor do I.
For the first time ever, Microsoft has real competition and two of the main players are based in Europe, e.g. SuSE and Mandrake. I fully expected Microsoft et al to pressure the EU but didn't expect Europe to basically decapitate the very industry that could have made it a real force to be reckoned with.
A couple of years ago, there was an EU purge on corruption within the commission itself and a minister was appointed to ensure that it did not recur. Sadly, either the bastards asleep or has other reasons for not acting.
I used to be all for Europe but UKIP now looks like an attractive option as the old corrupt gravy train image seems just as real now as it did 10 years ago.
As for Arlene McCarty, if only reward was based on integrity she'd be f*****g penniless
4 odd years ago I had a success converting one guy to Linux after he'd had KAK worm take his computer out.
At first, the response was to tell him to buy a virus checker. He bought a £15 a month McAfee subscription but got suspicious when his PC slowed right down. He updated McAfee which found nothing and then uninstalled McAfee and installed AVG which found Sircam. After much swaering he asked "how I dealt with all this shit" at which point I said I don't have to, produced my laptop, showed off Linux. He started using Windows 80% of the time and tinkering with Mandrake the rest and within 4 months was wholly Linux. The rest of his company followed soon after.
Inspired by how easy it was I tried pushing it on someone who lacked the "pissed off" motivation and was only interested because of the low price. The cost savings were easily offset by the constant moaning of his office lackey who had enough trouble dealing with Word, let alone a new OS so the whole thing failed dismally.
Since then, I mention Linux once to people and never allow myself to start a conversation in which it's mentioned. If I'm asked about why I use it or whatever I'll happily state my case in as few words as possible leaving the other person to lead the conversation along handing out Knoppix CDs where required. This worked quite nicely in the interview for my current job. Linux on the CV/resume, mention it once or twice as an aside during the interview and after getting the job in what was a 100% Windows office, waiting for small tasks that are easy to setup as examples.
So far, CD server that was bought 3 years ago works with NT but not with XP. No problem, save £1000 licence update fee with a copy of Mandrake 10.1 pulled off their site that night. Print servers? three in the pipeline using parts salvaged from a pile of 600MHz Celerons that would otherwise end up in a skip.
All the time I'm working on the server I have KDE running and have installed a selection of apps that attract attention from users and other IT staff along the way as I have set the monitor up to be visible to all who enter. Once again, let them initiate the conversation so I don't come across a zealot and answer only things that they ask about although the odd "watch this it's pretty damn cool" moment can be throw in if they appear interested enough.
On the whole, reaction has been good with a couple of Knoppix recipients asking where they can download a full version. Mandrake seems favourite so far. People love the look of Fedora although they're disappointed by the relative lack of apps (maybe better now the extras site is up).
Best of all, if it all goes tits up they hung themselves (although I provided them with the rope) as at no point have I suggested they try it. This leaves them with a: a philosophical attitude e.g. "well, I gave it a go but it's not for me" and/or b: enough of a glimpse to set the seeds for another look further down the road to see if it's improved since lastime.
Bottom lime, people don't like to be pushed, but are happy to be helped along the way. Hopefully, if it ever comes to trialing a desktop version in the office enough people may have sufficient familiarity to soften the shock.
At least they're doing something towards open source. Try getting anything out of Autodesk.
Lol.....
I no longer care as I'm rolling out Linux in a public sector job which in the UK is a rarity of F****g huge proportions. The pay may be sad compared to the private world but the job satisfaction makes up for it.
The only time I've had XP install in less than 30 mins is by ghosting it. Even then you have to add in the time for altering the SID (if it's networked) and changing the name etc..
Seriously, if he can install XP in 6 minutes, please get him to tell me how I'd love to know.
You got XP to install in 15 minutes!!!???
In the last year I've built a hundred + machines all 2.4GHz + Athlons and Prescotts with 512MB DDR and I don't think I've had a single one finish in less than 30 minutes (and that's with a quick NTFS format). Add Windows updates with reboots and all that cack and you're up to an hour at least.
Mandrake on the other hand takes about 20 minutes then run MandrakeUpdate, click "all" and walk away while it does the stuff it has to do (no rebbots for each 3 or 4 updates). The only hardware I can honestly say I'm wary of now is Webcams, USB modems and wireless but NDISWrapper seems to take care of that with reasonable results.
The more I had to use XP in my last job, the more determined I became to find a job where I wouldn't have to.
I've spent the last few weeks working out how to swap as much of my current employers network over to Linux as possible. The Windows CD server has gone, the file servers are looking like they'll follow with Samba/Winbind and a couple of old PCs are being turned over to print serving.
Until now, I had not seriously looked into Wine/VMWare etc (time constraints mainly) as although they are well known to the Linux community, I don't have enough experience with them to talk my IT director into trying it.
The fact that MS are so anti-wine is probably the best indication yet of its effectiveness and given a few more months while Linux settles in it could swing the balance when it comes to replacing NT4.
Couldn't agree more.
What, after all, is the point in going through to all the trouble of an electoral process is a bunch of failed has-been politicians who are appointed with no direct electoral mandate can overrule with no justification required?
I remember in the 80s/90s one euro commissioner - Martin Bangemann (German) who spent an inordinate amount of time trying to limit motorcycle power output to 99bhp. Funnily enough, the only manufacturer whose entire product range already met this criteria was BMW. Hmm... no signs of dodginess there then. All this was based on a survey so flawed that a six year old could have seen through it and the whole thing could have been neatly nipped in the bud if the commission hadn't kept bringing it back after the parliament had buried it (in the same coffin as the democratic ideal perhaps).
The setups were hypothetical, however. Both were in the most basic configuration, an approach that some in the audience suggested may tilt the results in favor of Windows, which comes with more features.
translates to:
Companies who employ admins who use default setups because they're doing a job beyond their understanding leave their servers open to attack.
Alternatively, company bosses could employ admins who have a clue rather than leaving it to Joe in accounts who's good with computers i.e. can use macros in office.
The use of the name "genuine advantage" by Microsoft should be viewed in the same light as the terms "People's republic of" and "Democratic republic of" in the names of opressive regimes i.e. you only need to constantly remind people of their freedom, democracy or advantage if it's the only thing you really aren't offering.
Then again, their not stating in who's advantage the service works, theirs or their users. This may in fact be the first display of genuinely honest sound bite advertising in Microsoft's history.
Personally I can't help but think that if Microsoft sell buggy software that makes it easy to flood the net with spam, viruses and other crap non-Microsoft users have the right to expect them to clear up their mess. Quite frankly, I don't give a toss whether or not virus infected PCs are legit or not, denying the illegitemate users access to updates just means the rest of us will have to put up with the resulting cascade of crap.
On the other side, maybe I can bill MS for the time and effort I've spent equipping my non-ms servers with spamassassin. After all, as an MS free user I have no contract/EULA with them and their wilful negligence in making ActiveX, IE and Outlook Express so feebly secured...........
what do you do with your OS? I've seen windows boxes with over a year of uptime. Meaning that all the patches that required a reboot weren't installed or are installed but not having any effect?
Sadly, the once bolshi British (forget the stiff upper lip image and read some english history) have had the shitty end of the stick for so long now that most people can't be bothered any more.
I remember my brother-in law telling us about how he watched a group of police assemble in Wapping at the time that News International bought the Sun, a "newspaper" in the UK. The resulting purge of print workers from the Wapping factory led to demonstrations of striking workers one of which was marching past his flats at the time. He had a perfect view of the whole demo as he lived on the 5th floor and could see nothing apart from a peaceful march in progress.
The police stormed around the corner and piled into the marchers starting a very widespread fight that was reported on the news as evil protestors attack police shock.
The same happened at the Poll tax protest in the 80's when a Police van hitting a pram in Trafalgar Square triggered a riot (seen the film from CCTV at the point the riot was triggered). Further into the demo more Police came pouring out of South Africa House (despite the fact that sanctions were in place against the aparthied regime Maggie was a great friend of SA) but this time their were enough "normal" middle class people there to see what was going on and the "evil commies start riot" line didn't stick.
Funnily enough I feel sorry for the police who, bound by the job, have to put up with being painted as uniformed thugs after carrying out the politicians dirty work. Conversations with many coppers on duty during demos have shown that they generally don't want to end up in a punch up as it sours the taste of the overtime cheque they get.
The repeated use of start a fight and then blame the protestors worked well through the 80's but Maggie overdid it and the strategy was finally seen through. Still, in most cases the government just went ahead and did what they wanted anyway leading people to believe that regardless of what you do it will make no difference. 2 million protest against invading Iraq (biggest march in English history) because no-one believes the "evidence" of WMD - Government goes ahead anyway and refuses to apologies when it turns out that there was no evidence.
Politicians know why voter turnout is around 30% i.e. no-one believes that they work in the public interest anymore. Blair himself is in power not because people believe he's the best man for the job but because he's percieved as the least worst of an appalling range of choices. The patent issue just demonstrates the accuracy of this belief and should, despite the best efforts of those of us who still give a shit, the law go through it'll just strengthen the apathy and feeling of helplessness.
The truly shocking thing is that two of the countries who stand to gain most from the success of Open Source and Linux e.g. France and Germany seem so willing to play along.
I'd like to see the anti-trust lawyers going after something that'll make a real difference.
.doc file. Not to say that I'm detracting from Openoffice's achievement so far but unless it's flawless people don't care because they don't want to open, remake and save 5 years of Word docs.
All this pratting around over media player is wasted time when the real corner stone that holds Microsoft's monopoly up is Office. Everywhere I've tried to deploy Linux the response is favourable until people ask about Office. I'm sorry, but the claim that OpenOffice is Office compatible falls apart when you're opening a heavily formatted
Why should a commercial company have to open its document formats? Simple. They are a monopoly, they have abused and are still abusing their position and despite the new cuddly image they're trying to portray they are still bullshitting in their adverts and are still using their position and wealth to control the marketplace.
Office is the key, M$ knows it withn their "we're using an open XML format now so we must be nice" redfining the term open to mean closed. The competition knows it as they all try to offer MSOffice compliance and the fact that this is ignored by lawyers and anti-trust courts is probably the biggest indicator that someone high up is on the make.
After the start of the DoJ case I felt quite optimistic but Bush having let MS off and the EU case looking like a bit of muscle flexing leaves me feeling fairly depressed at the whole business.
At least living in the EU I can go Germany, France or somewhere else where they're a bit more imaginative than the UK. Come on Prime Minister, Bill will let you be photographed with him for another £100,000,000 order. Won't that help you to feel important.
The BBC program Tomorrows World came out with the classic line By the year 2000 computers will make the use of paper obsolete. This one is only really matched by the idea that in the 21st century, machines will be doing all the work and we'll have much more leisure time.