Regardless of the anti-military bullshit you may see from Hollywood, let me assure you that your average military officer is a paranoid SOB...but not of some 'enemy', but paranoid of going to war.
The average grunt is a recent high-school graduate who has been brainwashed through a very efficient indoctrination called 'boot camp'. These guys do not have access to 'the button', and no officer would ever let them near it during peacetime.
The average officer is a college graduate with a family. He wants to grow old with his wife and see his kids graduate college. He will be much more mature (because he's older) on average.
Officers with access to 'the button' are senior officials. They will probably have grandchildren. They've had to survive years of keeping a cool head under political pressure. They've had to prove themselves as able thinkers and strategist time and time again. People who blow up at the first signs of danger do NOT make it to senior positions (rarely past Captain), 'cause blowing up tends to cause more problems than it solves and pisses off those higher in the chain of command (the same ones deciding on who gets an advancement) The senior officers that I have met tend to not like the indoctrinated hotheads, and considers them simpletons.
So, to sum up, "military people" covers a lot of different attitudes and persuasion, but be assured that the ones with access to "the button" won't be launching one until it is known and confirmed three different ways that country X fired a YMegaton weapon from facility Z.
Even the best superconductors break down and stop superconducting under high current loads. The only reason I see for reducing the voltage is to save on parasitic coupling, ie the produce enough of a magnetic field to drain off a lot of power over the lenght of the cable.
HELL no! And they won't either. Have you not heard of planned obsolescence. It's a trick that the big companies use. The make a product at half the cost that will only last 1/4th the time. It keeps them in business. No, the "solution" will be cheap replacement monitors.
As a side note, have you noticed how hard the inkjet manufacturers fight the cheap refill market. You know, the kits that come with a bottle of ink and a syringe. I picked up a kit last night. For 2/3 the cost of a new HP45 black injet cartridge, I got the material to refill the one I had 5 times. The HP cartridge has a small metallic ball shoved into a syllicon lined hole to seal the ink in, and the kit comes with a plug for the hole. Guess what? HP has changed the size of the hole so that the plugs don't fit. Coincidence? I had to file the head of a screw flat to make my own plug. (Take that HP!!)
Companies would love a 'monitor' that you had to replace once a year. It would do wonders for THEIR bottom line. Of course, this being a capitalist society, look for someone harping a solution on TV that will "extend the life" of your monitor by converting the color blue to a mixture of red and green.
Because being able to do something that most other people can't even comprehend, or modifying a system to do something that the original designers never intended for it to do gives me a woody. And isn't life all about getting a woody?
Sorry to tell you this, but it happens all the time.
Consider a drug bust. The police have a warrant to search a crack den for crack, but they had no reason to suspect that the dealer had moved into meth and coacaine. After knocking the door down, they catch the guy dumping the other contraband down the toilet. The not only have a right and a duty to stop the guy, they have an obligation to stop evidence from being destroyed.
You have to remember that the laws against 'unreasonable' search and seizure were implemented to protect against harassing fishing expeditions from an overbearing government. They do not take into account the quickness with which evidence can be completely destroyed today (there weren't even toilets at the time to flush contraband down, not that anyone then would be foolish enough to outlaw a plant).
I agree that there should be concern that everyone gets the right to due process, but I also think that an overly rigorous interpretation of 'unreasonable' will lead to anarchy.
In Australia they have these things called "road trains".
Which are still way less efficient than a real train. The biggest thing that real trains have going for them in the efficiency department is the fact that they have steel wheels running on a steel track. Any sort of vehicle running on road has to account for rather large imperfections in the pavement. In the US, the Department of Tranportation OUTLAWED solid wheels many years ago because they were dangerous (hit a bump and you lose contact with the road), and because they tended to destroy the pavement (Experiment: How easy is it to destroy the asphalt pavement with a simple claw hammer? How much damage would that hammer do if it had the weight of your car behind it?)
Trains don't have to deal with this restriction. They also don't have to deal with the continous braking from compressing and bending rubber. Even at 90-100psi, truck tires do a lot of energy absorbing. In fact, leave out a little air so that the rubber bends even more, and truck tires will build up enough energy to catch fire. I've personally seen it happen. When I was a driver, the number one job of the day was to check tire pressure.
In summary, trains do indeed gain efficiency by consolidating a lot of carts behind one engine, but the major benefit comes from less impedence from bending rubber tires.
If Microsoft were to advertise that certain features were available in Internet Explorer by way of third party plug-ins that just happened to be GPLed, would this force IE to be GPLed itself?
You are correct. That would not be a violation of the GPL.
BUT, if Microsoft distributed the plug-in with IE, AND that program did something critical in the program, such as, um..., displaying web pages, then Microsoft would most definitely be in violation.
The original authors point is that Vidomi is advertising the functionality that is derived from the GPL code as major features of its product. The product will not work as advertised without the code. Furthermore, Vidomi doesn't direct the user on where the DLL containing the GPL code can be obtained and allow the user to go get and install the code. Vidomi has an installer that puts the GPLed code on the user's hard disk, without the user ever knowing that they installed GPL code. For all the end user knows, Vidomi was the author of the entire program.
This program isn't extended by GPLed modules. This program requires GPLed modules. There's a difference. Think of it this way. Your computer is extended by the addition of a text editor, but your computer requires an operating system.
When I need to set up a new desktop client, it typically takes 3-4 days, using Windows 2000.
You take 3-4 days to set up a client (of any kind), and moderators mod you up to +4 Informative? Do you have several friends with mod points today or something. Man, if it takes you more than 4 hours you should be fired as a clueless twit!! Moreso, if it takes an additional 10 hrs to get a linux client running.
It's supported on 99.999 % of the hardware out there
Probably 99.999% of the stuff at CompUSA (where you're probably working as a checkout clerk). The rest of us know that the world of computers is comprised of more than what comes from hallowed halls of the WalMart of Computerdom. Besides, try downloading a copy of Mandrake 8.0. I find it a nice replacement for that stack of driver CDs and floppies that you get when you put together a new system.
Sir, I think you are the one who should consider an increase in maturity. It is a religious vendetta, and a very serious one. It is a vendetta against injustice, wherever it may be found.
You're words can be used in any number of situations. It's only a strip search. People are not dying from it. It's only taxation without representation. People are not dying from it.
No, people are not dying from having an inferior product shoved down their throats by a lucky monopolist. People are not dying because they lost their jobs at companies who tried to compete with a monopolist who forces competitors from the market using extortionist practices. People are not dying because choice in the marketplace has been destroyed.
But that doesn't make any of it right, fair or just. And just because the monopolist can do these things legally doesn't mean that I can't gloat and maybe even push a little when I see them stumble.
The five or six hundred million that keeping Mir alive
I don't understand what would have to be done to 'keep Mir alive'. I don't understand why you would want to keep it 'alive'. I was suggesting that it would just need a booster rocket to push it up instead of down. Wouldn't the vacuum of space be a nice preservative. Just turn the thing off and let it float until if and when it is needed. Just strap on a small ionizing drive if orbit decay is a concern.
Which brings up the question that just begs to be asked, "Why did you scuttle Mir?"
Would it have been more expensive to push the thing a into a slightly higher orbit? We've (as in humanity) have already paid the cost to push the thing out of the gravity well. Why not just leave it up there just in case there is an emergency in which it could be useful? I can't tell you what would constitute such an emergency, but that is the point. If I could list all possible contigencies, then I would be a god. But, I'm not and neither is anyone at NASA or any other space agency.
I must just be my upbringing. We always kept junk in the back of the garage for the odd project that you didn't want to spend money on (not that there was ever much of that available). We could always make do with the junk pile when necessary. The worst thing that could have happened with Mir is that it would be converted into a storage bin and eventually a museum piece sometime in the next 100 yrs or so. Now, it is just some rusting metal at the bottom of the ocean.
Why do you have to hate something? Why isn't it enough for you that Linux or your favorite open source project is successful and works great? Why do you have to stomp everything else?
Maybe it has something to do with the situation I found myself in when I first started programming. Being a new programmer, I would make a lot of mistakes, and even though it was just a DOS program, every time I would hit one of my bugs Windows 3.1 would become completely unstable and require a complete reboot. Under suggestion from a friend, I switched to OS/2 and found programming much easier. When I hit a bug, all I had to do was close the DOS box and continue working.
Unfortunately, Microsoft's goal of 'one world - one OS' made it very difficult to use MY OS of choice for other things, since there was not much support from ISVs and hardware vendors. I detested all the FUD and underhanded tactics used by MS to destroy all competing OS solutions. It burned my soul that people would settle for a second rate solution just because they knew of no other, which they could not learn of due to Microsoft's tying deals and manipulation of the network effects.
I want to see MS fall. I want to see them fall hard. I want to see people fired for buying Microsoft, for when that day arrives every OS will have to stand on its merits, HW vendors will write portable device drivers, ISVs will write portable programs, diversity will thrive and reliability will overrule mediocrity. Until then , every nitch in Microsoft's armor is a pleasure to me.
Sorry, but there are not nearly enough details about this situation for me to carry anything resembling an intelligent conversation.
Basically, the GPL is best for general purpose software, the kind Microsoft produces. So, the app was used by one other company. Releasing it as GPL would not produce much developer interest outside your company, so what would be the point? If the app was something like a word processor, spreadsheet, an order processing system, an accounting package or database, then you would have something with wide ranging applicability that WOULD generate of interest and feedback from others. Your company got a windfall on a vertical app that it was not in the business of creating. Great. In the end, though, writing the app was only an expense that enabled more efficiency in the enterprise, it was not the business in and of itself. So while the GPL might have ruined this one-up opportunity, the software itself would not make or break the company. Your company isn't in the business of writing software.
OTOH, consider if the application had to contain complex text formatting, graphing and image editing functions. We still are making widgets, but these widgets can be made cheaper with this vertical application which means more profit from us. However, since we have to pay a team of 10 programmers to add this functionality, the functions will not be added because it's not cost effective. The programmers cost more than the functionality will save. The GPL will allow you to add the functionality without the cost, and then go about making your widgets. Give the software back to 'the community'. Who cares?! You make widgets! If this scenario doesn't fit your situation, then the GPL doesn't fit.
What would it take to write a program or script that would work out the best optimization parameters for gcc, and then set them as the default? Then when installing an RPM, the installer pulls the source, compiles it with the optimum parameters for that platform, and install the libraries/programs where RPM normally would.
Why does RPM not work like this now?
Re:Everybody's not above average!
on
IT Unions?
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· Score: 1
Ahh, the fallacy of statistics.
I just had a talk with my very intelligent manager (!PHB) about 'average' programmers. His beef with upper management was that they wanted him to rank programmers and declare 15% as elite and 15% as deadweight (they had more PC terms for it, but this is my interpretation). His view, which I totally agree with, is that the distribution of programmers is heavy tailed. They have already been through a long selection process. They had to complete a CS degree (much harder than the average 'business' degree), and had to survive a lengthy interview selection process. Most programmers with jobs fall near the tail of the programmer quality distribution, even though they would be in the 95th percentile of the general population. Picking the 15% lowest performers then becomes a crap shoot of picking people out of a very homogeneous group. Futhermore, my manager tends to spend 'quality time' with any programmer who is truly falling behind his peers, so that the guy is either up to speed or removed from the company come review time.
I would say that there is a 85% chance that an individual programmer is below the 'average' (actually, we mean to say 'median' here). So, the point of my rant is to ask, "What are you averaging?"
Um, no. It's unlikely that the disaster will even be reconized outside the immediate vicinity of the accident. The upper parts are kept in orbit by the weight of the strand beneath. Cut the strand and the upper part goes flying off into space. The part that falls to Earth, the strand, will strike water very gradually. A very small wave, if any, will be made as the 10cm cord slowly sinks below the waves. Try this thought experiment. Have a friend stand on top of a house and dangle a 25ft dropcord above your head. Does it hurt much when he lets go. Now have him curl the cord into a tight ball and hit you in the head from the house top. Which hurt more?
Just adding kinetic energy into the ocean won't do much if it's undirected and added over time.
Sonny, you haven't just lost the plot, you've lost the whole book!!
If I work for a company developing software (which I did) and they went open source then I can practically wave goodbye to my job. That company makes its money on the basis that its product is better than anyone elses
Bzzt.Wrong.Thanks for playing.
The vast majority of programmers out there do not work for closed source software shops. In fact, only a small minority do. The VAST majority of programmers work on in-house programs and customization of closed source apps. If you work for a closed source shop that went open for any reason other than that there was no market for the app, then chances are that you would have a very lucrative career as a consultant to the companies using the app. If you are one of the majority of people trying to shoehorn a closed source app into your companies business model, GPL means your job just got much easier, the app can actually be changed to fit your business, and YOUR company's bottom line improves.
The deception of Microsoft claiming that the GPL is bad for business is that they don't tell you whose business it is bad for. Your response to all IT managers should be a set rhetorical question:
Who gains when Microsoft loses?
What do we lose to GPLed code?
If we only have to give out source when we distribute the code (which we don't), how does using GPLed code hurt us?
...because there isn't enough to customers to support everyone.
If a lot of people don't buy some Linux games now, Loki, et.al., will be out of business. Other shops will look at the situation and say, "Linux ain't shit. Just a bunch of college kids looking for free software. We can't make any money there."
I was a OS/2 bigot for a long time, and trust me, this will be the attitude of all the game shops. Choose to use WineX now, and there will be NO choice later. Loki, et.al., are small companies in a small market. They have the potential to grow large, but they also have the potential for crib death. They MUST show success NOW in order for larger houses to allow them to co-develope games LATER. At that point, it won't matter. They will be established, and will be able to weather a few bumps, but right now, they are on the edge.
Support them now, or settle for emulation FOREVER!!
As anyone who has suffered through providing tech support knows, users will continue to use software forever, or at least long after its useful life cycle. I know people who are still using Office 95, and one guy who is still trying to install Office 4.3 (for Windows 3.1) on his Win2K Pro machine. MS is in for a world of hurt if they're serious about this scheme.
And rightfully so. I still use CorelDraw 3.0. Why? Because I need a vector drawing program maybe twice a year to do something simple, and this is a program I now know. BUT XYZ is so much better!! So you say, but I will only need to use it twice this year, and it will take hours to learn to use it. Meanwhile I could get the work I needed to do finished in 30minutes with my 10yr old copy of CorelDraw. It doesn't make sense to spend hundreds of $ for a program that is going to do nothing but waste my time on a learning curve.
I would not 'subscribe' to any program. What happens when MS decides to 'upgrade' the product, completely changing the interface and breaking a slew of line-of-business scripts? Isn't the number one rule of business, Don't touch it if it isn't broken? I've seen a lot of small businesses using outdated equipment and software even thought they had plenty of money to upgrade, because the incidental cost of upgrading is just too high and doesn't have a clear benefit.
If I were CTO, the company would still be running Windows 3.1. (Try loading it on a modern machine and see how fast it is) That would take away all the management toys (heh, I can produce 200 types of useless graphs instead of just 20) and maybe people would go back to concentrating on content instead of formatting.
For a little more expansion, you can also train a section of the net on graphics. The graphics recognition will probably only be around 50% accurate, but it will only be one more data point into the net.
Personally, I believe that this will produce the very best filter that will ever be possible with computers (and it will be far from perfect). I predict a success rate of only around 98%.
The problem of defining 'success' still remains, but that is a social problem, not a technical one.
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The average grunt is a recent high-school graduate who has been brainwashed through a very efficient indoctrination called 'boot camp'. These guys do not have access to 'the button', and no officer would ever let them near it during peacetime.
The average officer is a college graduate with a family. He wants to grow old with his wife and see his kids graduate college. He will be much more mature (because he's older) on average.
Officers with access to 'the button' are senior officials. They will probably have grandchildren. They've had to survive years of keeping a cool head under political pressure. They've had to prove themselves as able thinkers and strategist time and time again. People who blow up at the first signs of danger do NOT make it to senior positions (rarely past Captain), 'cause blowing up tends to cause more problems than it solves and pisses off those higher in the chain of command (the same ones deciding on who gets an advancement) The senior officers that I have met tend to not like the indoctrinated hotheads, and considers them simpletons.
So, to sum up, "military people" covers a lot of different attitudes and persuasion, but be assured that the ones with access to "the button" won't be launching one until it is known and confirmed three different ways that country X fired a YMegaton weapon from facility Z.
Even the best superconductors break down and stop superconducting under high current loads. The only reason I see for reducing the voltage is to save on parasitic coupling, ie the produce enough of a magnetic field to drain off a lot of power over the lenght of the cable.
As a side note, have you noticed how hard the inkjet manufacturers fight the cheap refill market. You know, the kits that come with a bottle of ink and a syringe. I picked up a kit last night. For 2/3 the cost of a new HP45 black injet cartridge, I got the material to refill the one I had 5 times. The HP cartridge has a small metallic ball shoved into a syllicon lined hole to seal the ink in, and the kit comes with a plug for the hole. Guess what? HP has changed the size of the hole so that the plugs don't fit. Coincidence? I had to file the head of a screw flat to make my own plug. (Take that HP!!)
Companies would love a 'monitor' that you had to replace once a year. It would do wonders for THEIR bottom line. Of course, this being a capitalist society, look for someone harping a solution on TV that will "extend the life" of your monitor by converting the color blue to a mixture of red and green.
Because being able to do something that most other people can't even comprehend, or modifying a system to do something that the original designers never intended for it to do gives me a woody. And isn't life all about getting a woody?
Consider a drug bust. The police have a warrant to search a crack den for crack, but they had no reason to suspect that the dealer had moved into meth and coacaine. After knocking the door down, they catch the guy dumping the other contraband down the toilet. The not only have a right and a duty to stop the guy, they have an obligation to stop evidence from being destroyed.
You have to remember that the laws against 'unreasonable' search and seizure were implemented to protect against harassing fishing expeditions from an overbearing government. They do not take into account the quickness with which evidence can be completely destroyed today (there weren't even toilets at the time to flush contraband down, not that anyone then would be foolish enough to outlaw a plant).
I agree that there should be concern that everyone gets the right to due process, but I also think that an overly rigorous interpretation of 'unreasonable' will lead to anarchy.
If God meant for us to be vegetarian, then why did he make animals out of MEAT!?!
Which are still way less efficient than a real train. The biggest thing that real trains have going for them in the efficiency department is the fact that they have steel wheels running on a steel track. Any sort of vehicle running on road has to account for rather large imperfections in the pavement. In the US, the Department of Tranportation OUTLAWED solid wheels many years ago because they were dangerous (hit a bump and you lose contact with the road), and because they tended to destroy the pavement (Experiment: How easy is it to destroy the asphalt pavement with a simple claw hammer? How much damage would that hammer do if it had the weight of your car behind it?)
Trains don't have to deal with this restriction. They also don't have to deal with the continous braking from compressing and bending rubber. Even at 90-100psi, truck tires do a lot of energy absorbing. In fact, leave out a little air so that the rubber bends even more, and truck tires will build up enough energy to catch fire. I've personally seen it happen. When I was a driver, the number one job of the day was to check tire pressure.
In summary, trains do indeed gain efficiency by consolidating a lot of carts behind one engine, but the major benefit comes from less impedence from bending rubber tires.
You are correct. That would not be a violation of the GPL.
BUT, if Microsoft distributed the plug-in with IE, AND that program did something critical in the program, such as, um..., displaying web pages, then Microsoft would most definitely be in violation.
The original authors point is that Vidomi is advertising the functionality that is derived from the GPL code as major features of its product. The product will not work as advertised without the code. Furthermore, Vidomi doesn't direct the user on where the DLL containing the GPL code can be obtained and allow the user to go get and install the code. Vidomi has an installer that puts the GPLed code on the user's hard disk, without the user ever knowing that they installed GPL code. For all the end user knows, Vidomi was the author of the entire program.
This program isn't extended by GPLed modules. This program requires GPLed modules. There's a difference. Think of it this way. Your computer is extended by the addition of a text editor, but your computer requires an operating system.
You take 3-4 days to set up a client (of any kind), and moderators mod you up to +4 Informative? Do you have several friends with mod points today or something. Man, if it takes you more than 4 hours you should be fired as a clueless twit!! Moreso, if it takes an additional 10 hrs to get a linux client running.
It's supported on 99.999 % of the hardware out there
Probably 99.999% of the stuff at CompUSA (where you're probably working as a checkout clerk). The rest of us know that the world of computers is comprised of more than what comes from hallowed halls of the WalMart of Computerdom. Besides, try downloading a copy of Mandrake 8.0. I find it a nice replacement for that stack of driver CDs and floppies that you get when you put together a new system.
You're words can be used in any number of situations. It's only a strip search. People are not dying from it. It's only taxation without representation. People are not dying from it.
No, people are not dying from having an inferior product shoved down their throats by a lucky monopolist. People are not dying because they lost their jobs at companies who tried to compete with a monopolist who forces competitors from the market using extortionist practices. People are not dying because choice in the marketplace has been destroyed.
But that doesn't make any of it right, fair or just. And just because the monopolist can do these things legally doesn't mean that I can't gloat and maybe even push a little when I see them stumble.
I don't understand what would have to be done to 'keep Mir alive'. I don't understand why you would want to keep it 'alive'. I was suggesting that it would just need a booster rocket to push it up instead of down. Wouldn't the vacuum of space be a nice preservative. Just turn the thing off and let it float until if and when it is needed. Just strap on a small ionizing drive if orbit decay is a concern.
Would it have been more expensive to push the thing a into a slightly higher orbit? We've (as in humanity) have already paid the cost to push the thing out of the gravity well. Why not just leave it up there just in case there is an emergency in which it could be useful? I can't tell you what would constitute such an emergency, but that is the point. If I could list all possible contigencies, then I would be a god. But, I'm not and neither is anyone at NASA or any other space agency.
I must just be my upbringing. We always kept junk in the back of the garage for the odd project that you didn't want to spend money on (not that there was ever much of that available). We could always make do with the junk pile when necessary. The worst thing that could have happened with Mir is that it would be converted into a storage bin and eventually a museum piece sometime in the next 100 yrs or so. Now, it is just some rusting metal at the bottom of the ocean.
Maybe it has something to do with the situation I found myself in when I first started programming. Being a new programmer, I would make a lot of mistakes, and even though it was just a DOS program, every time I would hit one of my bugs Windows 3.1 would become completely unstable and require a complete reboot. Under suggestion from a friend, I switched to OS/2 and found programming much easier. When I hit a bug, all I had to do was close the DOS box and continue working.
Unfortunately, Microsoft's goal of 'one world - one OS' made it very difficult to use MY OS of choice for other things, since there was not much support from ISVs and hardware vendors. I detested all the FUD and underhanded tactics used by MS to destroy all competing OS solutions. It burned my soul that people would settle for a second rate solution just because they knew of no other, which they could not learn of due to Microsoft's tying deals and manipulation of the network effects.
I want to see MS fall. I want to see them fall hard. I want to see people fired for buying Microsoft, for when that day arrives every OS will have to stand on its merits, HW vendors will write portable device drivers, ISVs will write portable programs, diversity will thrive and reliability will overrule mediocrity. Until then , every nitch in Microsoft's armor is a pleasure to me.
Basically, the GPL is best for general purpose software, the kind Microsoft produces. So, the app was used by one other company. Releasing it as GPL would not produce much developer interest outside your company, so what would be the point? If the app was something like a word processor, spreadsheet, an order processing system, an accounting package or database, then you would have something with wide ranging applicability that WOULD generate of interest and feedback from others. Your company got a windfall on a vertical app that it was not in the business of creating. Great. In the end, though, writing the app was only an expense that enabled more efficiency in the enterprise, it was not the business in and of itself. So while the GPL might have ruined this one-up opportunity, the software itself would not make or break the company. Your company isn't in the business of writing software.
OTOH, consider if the application had to contain complex text formatting, graphing and image editing functions. We still are making widgets, but these widgets can be made cheaper with this vertical application which means more profit from us. However, since we have to pay a team of 10 programmers to add this functionality, the functions will not be added because it's not cost effective. The programmers cost more than the functionality will save. The GPL will allow you to add the functionality without the cost, and then go about making your widgets. Give the software back to 'the community'. Who cares?! You make widgets! If this scenario doesn't fit your situation, then the GPL doesn't fit.
Why does RPM not work like this now?
I would say that there is a 85% chance that an individual programmer is below the 'average' (actually, we mean to say 'median' here). So, the point of my rant is to ask, "What are you averaging?"
Just adding kinetic energy into the ocean won't do much if it's undirected and added over time.
If I work for a company developing software (which I did) and they went open source then I can practically wave goodbye to my job. That company makes its money on the basis that its product is better than anyone elses
Bzzt.Wrong.Thanks for playing.
The vast majority of programmers out there do not work for closed source software shops. In fact, only a small minority do. The VAST majority of programmers work on in-house programs and customization of closed source apps. If you work for a closed source shop that went open for any reason other than that there was no market for the app, then chances are that you would have a very lucrative career as a consultant to the companies using the app. If you are one of the majority of people trying to shoehorn a closed source app into your companies business model, GPL means your job just got much easier, the app can actually be changed to fit your business, and YOUR company's bottom line improves.
The deception of Microsoft claiming that the GPL is bad for business is that they don't tell you whose business it is bad for. Your response to all IT managers should be a set rhetorical question:
If a lot of people don't buy some Linux games now, Loki, et.al., will be out of business. Other shops will look at the situation and say, "Linux ain't shit. Just a bunch of college kids looking for free software. We can't make any money there."
I was a OS/2 bigot for a long time, and trust me, this will be the attitude of all the game shops. Choose to use WineX now, and there will be NO choice later. Loki, et.al., are small companies in a small market. They have the potential to grow large, but they also have the potential for crib death. They MUST show success NOW in order for larger houses to allow them to co-develope games LATER. At that point, it won't matter. They will be established, and will be able to weather a few bumps, but right now, they are on the edge.
Support them now, or settle for emulation FOREVER!!
And rightfully so. I still use CorelDraw 3.0. Why? Because I need a vector drawing program maybe twice a year to do something simple, and this is a program I now know. BUT XYZ is so much better!! So you say, but I will only need to use it twice this year, and it will take hours to learn to use it. Meanwhile I could get the work I needed to do finished in 30minutes with my 10yr old copy of CorelDraw. It doesn't make sense to spend hundreds of $ for a program that is going to do nothing but waste my time on a learning curve.
I would not 'subscribe' to any program. What happens when MS decides to 'upgrade' the product, completely changing the interface and breaking a slew of line-of-business scripts? Isn't the number one rule of business, Don't touch it if it isn't broken? I've seen a lot of small businesses using outdated equipment and software even thought they had plenty of money to upgrade, because the incidental cost of upgrading is just too high and doesn't have a clear benefit.
If I were CTO, the company would still be running Windows 3.1. (Try loading it on a modern machine and see how fast it is) That would take away all the management toys (heh, I can produce 200 types of useless graphs instead of just 20) and maybe people would go back to concentrating on content instead of formatting.
For a little more expansion, you can also train a section of the net on graphics. The graphics recognition will probably only be around 50% accurate, but it will only be one more data point into the net. Personally, I believe that this will produce the very best filter that will ever be possible with computers (and it will be far from perfect). I predict a success rate of only around 98%. The problem of defining 'success' still remains, but that is a social problem, not a technical one.