"I'll be stealing whatever parts of this I can manage to remember the next time I'm in one of those conversations."
I have been using Open Source software at home exclusively for the past 3 years now. So far, the only thing I have been able to contribute is $ and ideas. So, by all means, please "steal" anything you wish to take. Repost it here as your own, if you'd like. What matters to me is that the idea gets out and used. Your adopting the way I have articulated only flatters me.
We can argue forever on the definition of "Real professional," so let me summarize our different definitions:
You: Prioritizes doing their job the best they can
Me: Has gained control over their own profession
"not good for the economy in general, and is so self-involved."
To your first point above, I say whatever gain the economy received as a result of the openness of the IT profession, it has lost many times over from companies like MS taking advantage of that for their own gain. To your second point, I must agree that the "self-involved" part is extremely annoying and tiresome. The accountants in my company take a very long time to answer questions in order to try to show how "complex" and "difficult to understand" their job is. However, I work for a big corporation, and this behavior is common among most of the employees (the IT guys are usually the best at not being that way). I might add that Accountants are really what make corporations possible (otherewise, you wouldn't really need them), so the entire structure is infested with their stinch.
"I try to let anybody that wants the little facts to have them, and I try to tell everybody how to get good at IT."
This is a very contagious virtue of IT. Indeed, this is why Open Source exists. . So, I also do this all the time (though, I am not getting paid to do it), but I go the extra mile if it is Open Source related (giving out Knoppix CDs and stuff). However, I would have to argue that as an IT worker, you really don't have a choice. Accountants have a lot of slack in this area. They can try to explain as clear as possible, or they can be terse and spit out some half-truth quickly. But, I have trouble imagining an IT worker NOT explaining something as fully as possible. They always have at my company, and ones that don't get canned (I read about such an incident here at/., when a guy wore a "RTFM" T-shirt at work). So, you don't have a choice. And once your knowledge becomes widely understood throughout the company, don't be surprised if you get layed-off next time around.
I know a guy that met at my local LUG. He is my idol in IT respects. Knows both Unix and MS inside and out. He has good communication skills and is very amiable. However, he has been unemployed a lot and has started calling the jobs he gets "gigs" (as if he were in a band). Meanwhile, I got hired during a "hiring freeze" at my company, just before a large portion of employees got layed off (many of them IS guys). My opinion is if you are skilled at IT you should contribute freely but only to the Open Source community. IT professionals are treated like migrant workers these days. They are far more intelligent, efficient, and good natured than the rest of the lot but in the corporate world that makes you a low paid sucker (I know, I am the least self-involved accountant in my company and also the least paid;). If you have a choice between Open Source and Proprietary choose Open Source. Open Source is not well known enough and will mystify your work and give management second thoughts about giving you a pink slip. However, the proprietary solution, no matter how much better, will free the company to fire you on the whim. Worse, the company responsible for the product will most likely publish unreasonable TOC that will become management's expectations for your performance.
I don't think the IT profession will ever become the "ivory tower" that the CPA and Law profession have become. IT is too logical and fun to prevent a large number of people from becoming experts. However, as long as some other organization (MS) controls the standards, you will be the least paid, least respected, and least secure of all the types of employees. This is unfortunate since you are also the hardest working . . .
"In terms of Monopoly pricing, Marginal Revenue (MR) = Marginal Cost (MC)"
Another thing, if MR = MC in a Monopoly, then profit = 0 in a monopoly (P = MR - MC; if MR = MC then P = 0). You agreed with my Monopoly = Profit statement though, right?
I think you are getting confused with perfecton competition. I guess, it is more accurate to say:
Perfect competition: P = MR Perfect monopoly: P = MR
However:
Perfect competition: MR = MC, so P = MC. That is significant because you are only breaking even in PC.
But:
Perfect monopoly: MR > MC, so we say P = MR, where the difference between MC and MR are monopoly rents.
Please prove me wrong so that I can get tuition refund:)
"That's YOUR decision if you choose to ignore Microsoft just because they're microsoft - and I certainly won't bash you for it - but sometimes a microsoft product IS 'the best tool' for the job.."
I am not in IT, but I always find it amusing how efficient IT "professionals" are. Too efficient, I might add.
I have been studying to become a CPA, and I can state from direct experience that the current set of accounting standards are by no means the "best way to do things." In this respect, accounting standards for CPAs are comparable to Laws for Lawyers. So if they are so inefficient, why do CPAs and Lawyers make much, much more $ than "IT Professionals?" Because CPAs and Lawyers are REAL Professionals (please hear me out on this).
You see, REAL professionals need organisations, that are acting in the best interest of the profession, to have control over the standards of the profession. CPAs have the AICPA (and FASB). Lawyers have the BAR association. And IT workers have . . . Microsoft, who, like you said, control most of the industry, so they control the standards of the profession.
However, MS doesn't care about the IT profession. They care about selling their software. Cheap IT workers = more software sales. So, Microsoft prints out MSCE certificates like its printing out money, turning IT workers into somewhere just above your average McDonald's employee.
I know, in your effort to do your job "better," you pick the "best tool." However, while you are doing a great service to your company, you are doing a great disservice to your profession when that "tool" reinforces a closed standard.
The lack of wider use of Open Standards and Open Source software (at least for Operating Systems, which set the standards for all applications, commercial and non-commerical) are the only things keeping IT workers from enjoying the security that other professions enjoy.
Is that really the best for the kids? Let's see we can:
1. Only give them access to Windows so that they become for efficient workers for large corporations.
OR,
2. Give them access to Open Source so that they will have more access to IT resources when the are young (because it is cheaper, or maybe we can use $ to pay for better teachers instead), and they will be able to minimize the costs of their independent businesses when trying to compete with monster corporations.
You know, I am a drone myself, but it will be a long, long time before I forget the importance of the part that small businesses play in America.
After work yesterday I began to write up a response. It felt good to review the basics. However, too many principles have been brought up, and I lost interest when I remembered that this was just a post for/. So, even though I feel it is my duty when I spout off economic principles to explain them, the fact is that better explanations exist on the web, and the best thing I can do is say "RTFM" (F=fine). This should get you started:
P=MC in pefect competition, local monopolies, and opportunity costs are basic but very essential concepts to economics. It is as fundamental as Debits and Credits, or Accrual accounting to accountants. There are, of course, silent assumptions that are made with these concepts.
I am not saying that either of your ideas are wrong, of course. They are quite advanced, actually. But you can't just dismiss the basics and then expect people to get the advanced ideas you are trying to convey. It's like saying, "1+1 != 2. Now I will prove that a^2+b^2=c^2." Maybe, under your assumptions you appear right, but now people must forget the universal assumptions that they have learned over the years just to understand your idea. Its like having to learn a new language just to understand your point and after that, how would I convey your point with out having the person they are explaining to learn these new assumptions?
Now, if you find an "economics forum," kinda like/. (or you create one. Be ambitious !), I would certainly take the time to explain these concepts in detail. However, there is just no motivation to spend an hour or two carefully explaining some concepts that took me weeks of intense studying to grasp when some moderator (who might get "Open Source" WITHOUT getting Economics) mods my work as offtopic just because he/she (probably he) doesn't understand.
But one tidbit of advice . . . the strongest arguments you can make in economics USE the basic assumptions like P=MC in PC and such to disprove more complex assumptions. Dismissing the basics only proves that you have not invested the time to learn the basics. I know its an "ivory tower" thing to say, but a lot of great ideas and concepts are encrypted in a heirarchy of symbols and assumptions and the only way you will every grasp them is by learning these symbols and assumptions. The Internet is your oyster . ..
"I was then able to take this know how to make a bootable linux floppy that boots directly into a windows terminal services server full screen (basically kernel, X, dhcp, rdesktop all on a single bootable floppy) for a school project)."
Do you have the image of this floppy laying around somewhere? I have been looking for something like that for a long time. Could you release that for the good of humanity?
Sure . . . I believe you. Really. Of course, if you really wanted to convince me then you would release the image so we could check it out;)
This is more to the ill informed replies to your comment then your somewhat innocent post but . ..
"And that is where most Americans put their collective foot down."
No, I would say most Americans put their foot down way back when the price went above $10 or $20 (not that it historically ever did; I am thinking of supply and demand curves here).
MS wants to maximize profits. They do that by maximizing consumer surplus. However, if they charge too high then less people buy the more expensive versions, and they make less profit (@$1000, say). However, at $10 they sell a whole lot more (almost everyone in the U.S. can now afford a computer) but the price is so low that they still don't make the best profit. So they sell somewhere in the middle, or "under" sell. The economy suffers since an artificially small amount of people can afford computers at MS optimized profit levels (relative to a competitive market), but that loss to the economy (consumer surplus) becomes MS's gain.
So pat yourself on the back, you have just made MS richer at the cost of your next job or bonus by buying an MS product;)
According to contemporary economic theory, profit only occurs where a monopoly exists. This is because in perfect competition price = marginal cost.However, this cost includes "opportunity costs" or the next best choice given up.
Accounting profit alone does not indicate a monopoly. But who are we kidding, most businesses these days have some kind of monopoly.
For instance your example:
" What about soda fountains at McDonalds (or wherever you buy your greasy fat)? They charge you $1.25 for seventeen cents of syrup and some essentially free carbonated water. "
You have just described what is called a "local monopoly." You are paying monopoly rents because you'd rather not go to some other geographic region to get your sugar water at that particular time. Believe me, those prices would decrease drastically if there was another fountain next to it selling at half price.
"What if people just EXPECT windows to cost more?"
And what if MS has gained some much power over the computer industry that THEY now decide what people should expect from the market.
Monopoly is the ugly boil of capitalism that nobody wants to admit is real. Free markets fail when there is a monopoly and more closely resemble Micro-Communist empires.
"MS has priced their product (successfully, I'm sure) to maximise their profit - which is NOT the cheapest price they could charge, any more than the same is true for Coca-Cola. This is a feature of our modern "capitalist" society; competition only goes so far in the face of advertising and consumer apathy. It has nothing to do with being a monopoly."
Profit Maximization:
Perfect Competition Case Price = Marginal Cost
Perfect Monopoly Case Price = Marginal Revenue
It has EVERYTHING to do with being a monopoly. If Ford were to decide to raise their prices, people would buy less Fords (not less cars). If MS decides to raise their prices, people buy less Operating Systems, Computers, mice, etc (add any compliment good). The effect on the economy is devasting. Furthermore, optimal output for a monopoly != optimal profit, since they control the price (optimal profit is at much lower output). So, you get much less (maybe half) the purchases of computer related equipment than you would in a competitive market. So, you see, it has EVERYTHING to do with being a monopoly.
For the last couple years I have been depressed about Japan's response to Linux, because I read somewhere that MS had 90% of their webservers . . . your link proves that whatever I read was either FUD, really OLD news, or a stupid misunderstanding. Today is a good day!!!
Sorry, but who cares what the U.S. thinks about Linux and Open Source. Next year I am moving to Japan for good this time and am never looking back!
btw, have you tried Mandrake 9.0!? I just installed it on my main system today and it is EXCELLENT (great Japanese suppor)!
The topic was "what is keeping you from switching from Windows." Having bearable asian language support in Windows (XP) in the last year when it has been available on Mac and Linux for years doesn't seem to be a logical answer to "what is keeping you from switching." You might make a note in you "MS Manifesto" that most companies have not even begun thinking about switching to XP yet, hence my work place example.
My wife and I have also been using exclusively Linux for last couple of years (thanks, Mandrake).
I agree 100% on your point about web based services. My company, which sadly is VERY MS based right now, has almost ALL of the its company wide programs for end-users on a central intranet website:
401K Expense Reimbursements POs Accounting Information etc . ..
They only support Explorer, of course, but how hard would it really be to switch to, say, Mozilla if prices really got out of hand. This way of thinking has greatly crippled MS's ability to look in their customers. However, there are other fronts to worry about . . . (.net).
I toy with myself that so many webbased tools will be created that one day all you will need is a dumb i-appliance capable of rendering webpages to work. We'll see . . .
Okay, try the newest release of Mandrake and then come back here and post with a straight face. Maybe it was hard five years ago but asian language support in Linux is now as easy as picking which languages you want during installation (I know that can be confusing for some . . . but don't blame the OS for that).
I work for a Japanese company in the U.S. and MS language support is great, if you have money to buy two separate OSes (Japanese and English). What's up with that? Guess what, many programs don't run on the Japanese OS that run on the English OS and many programs don't run on the English OS that run on the Japanese OS. What about Global IME (jamondo)? Try using that with anything other than web forms . . . I cringe at the thought of having to support Chinese under MS (3 OSes just to use 3 languages, wtf?). MS poor support for asian languages was a major reason for me to ABANDON it at home. Makes me wonder what's going on in that little borg head of yours .
Be honest next time, the real reason you keep to windows is your ignorance and misconception about the alternatives.
its posts like this that kind of make me WISH that MS controls all computer/entertainment/media industries in ten years. Then I could go visit these MS sympathizers and see their faces as they try to explain how the world is better by having a monopoly control and charge fees for everything that was once free. Of course, they will probably still be in their parents basement playing "Halo 11" on Xbox 23 . . .
Poor COLLEGE students? Shouldn't you introduce her to.avi, divx, and a little friend known as P2P?
Mplayer will play the above formats, and I have had the best luck with gtk-gnutella.
Ofcourse, being a Mandrakemember I just downloaded the rpms using urpmi (you have to download plugins for the.avi and divx from another server because of legal issues). Of course, Mandrake doesn't have a Live version yet . . . maybe they should (and their are howtos out there that explain in detail how to roll your on Live ISO from any distro).
Sorry I couldn't be more help and don't listen to the clueless posts about upgrading her Windows (=$ for hardware, which you don't have.) . Your situation seems ideal for Linux, and what do you have to lose if you are using a live CD!? If she doesn't like it she can just take it out . . . If you upgrade her computer with Windows, and it doesn't work out you will look like a complete ass. Good luck.
I know exactly what you mean about not being able to donate code. Cash is definitely an appropriate substitute. However, buying the distro doesn't give enough bang for your buck.
Become a member and 100% of that goes to mandrake (not to mention the stable revenue stream . ..). Also, there are great perks like voting for club RPMs and the ISO download script. Infact, if you don't have a fast connection, it is still probably better to buy the CD from Cheapbytes.com for $5 and become a member for $60.
Is it just me, or is/. getting more MS friendly everyday. I wonder if this is due to Linux no longer being the "underdog," or the fact that slashdot is becoming more mainstream.
Note to moderators: parent is probably dual-booting and is looking forward to the day when he can just use Linux and is not saying you are stupid for using Windows. Lighten up.
Slashdot Mirror
"I'll be stealing whatever parts of this I can manage to remember the next time I'm in one of those conversations."
I have been using Open Source software at home exclusively for the past 3 years now. So far, the only thing I have been able to contribute is $ and ideas. So, by all means, please "steal" anything you wish to take. Repost it here as your own, if you'd like. What matters to me is that the idea gets out and used. Your adopting the way I have articulated only flatters me.
Cheers!
We can argue forever on the definition of "Real professional," so let me summarize our different definitions:
/., when a guy wore a "RTFM" T-shirt at work). So, you don't have a choice. And once your knowledge becomes widely understood throughout the company, don't be surprised if you get layed-off next time around.
You:
Prioritizes doing their job the best they can
Me:
Has gained control over their own profession
"not good for the economy in general, and is so self-involved."
To your first point above, I say whatever gain the economy received as a result of the openness of the IT profession, it has lost many times over from companies like MS taking advantage of that for their own gain. To your second point, I must agree that the "self-involved" part is extremely annoying and tiresome. The accountants in my company take a very long time to answer questions in order to try to show how "complex" and "difficult to understand" their job is. However, I work for a big corporation, and this behavior is common among most of the employees (the IT guys are usually the best at not being that way). I might add that Accountants are really what make corporations possible (otherewise, you wouldn't really need them), so the entire structure is infested with their stinch.
"I try to let anybody that wants the little facts to have them, and I try to tell everybody how to get good at IT."
This is a very contagious virtue of IT. Indeed, this is why Open Source exists. . So, I also do this all the time (though, I am not getting paid to do it), but I go the extra mile if it is Open Source related (giving out Knoppix CDs and stuff). However, I would have to argue that as an IT worker, you really don't have a choice. Accountants have a lot of slack in this area. They can try to explain as clear as possible, or they can be terse and spit out some half-truth quickly. But, I have trouble imagining an IT worker NOT explaining something as fully as possible. They always have at my company, and ones that don't get canned (I read about such an incident here at
I know a guy that met at my local LUG. He is my idol in IT respects. Knows both Unix and MS inside and out. He has good communication skills and is very amiable. However, he has been unemployed a lot and has started calling the jobs he gets "gigs" (as if he were in a band). Meanwhile, I got hired during a "hiring freeze" at my company, just before a large portion of employees got layed off (many of them IS guys). My opinion is if you are skilled at IT you should contribute freely but only to the Open Source community. IT professionals are treated like migrant workers these days. They are far more intelligent, efficient, and good natured than the rest of the lot but in the corporate world that makes you a low paid sucker (I know, I am the least self-involved accountant in my company and also the least paid;). If you have a choice between Open Source and Proprietary choose Open Source. Open Source is not well known enough and will mystify your work and give management second thoughts about giving you a pink slip. However, the proprietary solution, no matter how much better, will free the company to fire you on the whim. Worse, the company responsible for the product will most likely publish unreasonable TOC that will become management's expectations for your performance.
I don't think the IT profession will ever become the "ivory tower" that the CPA and Law profession have become. IT is too logical and fun to prevent a large number of people from becoming experts. However, as long as some other organization (MS) controls the standards, you will be the least paid, least respected, and least secure of all the types of employees. This is unfortunate since you are also the hardest working . . .
"In terms of Monopoly pricing, Marginal Revenue (MR) = Marginal Cost (MC)"
Another thing, if MR = MC in a Monopoly, then profit = 0 in a monopoly (P = MR - MC; if MR = MC then P = 0). You agreed with my Monopoly = Profit statement though, right?
I think you are getting confused with perfecton competition. I guess, it is more accurate to say:
Perfect competition:
P = MR
Perfect monopoly:
P = MR
However:
Perfect competition:
MR = MC, so P = MC. That is significant because you are only breaking even in PC.
But:
Perfect monopoly:
MR > MC, so we say P = MR, where the difference between MC and MR are monopoly rents.
Please prove me wrong so that I can get tuition refund:)
This is how I see P=MR:
1. Revenue = P*Q
2. dQRevenue = dQ(P*Q)
3. Marginal Revenue = P
4. ***
5. Profit!!!
(I learned step 4. and 5. from Slashdot;)
"That's YOUR decision if you choose to ignore Microsoft just because they're microsoft - and I certainly won't bash you for it - but sometimes a microsoft product IS 'the best tool' for the job.."
I am not in IT, but I always find it amusing how efficient IT "professionals" are. Too efficient, I might add.
I have been studying to become a CPA, and I can state from direct experience that the current set of accounting standards are by no means the "best way to do things." In this respect, accounting standards for CPAs are comparable to Laws for Lawyers. So if they are so inefficient, why do CPAs and Lawyers make much, much more $ than "IT Professionals?" Because CPAs and Lawyers are REAL Professionals (please hear me out on this).
You see, REAL professionals need organisations, that are acting in the best interest of the profession, to have control over the standards of the profession. CPAs have the AICPA (and FASB). Lawyers have the BAR association. And IT workers have . . . Microsoft, who, like you said, control most of the industry, so they control the standards of the profession.
However, MS doesn't care about the IT profession. They care about selling their software. Cheap IT workers = more software sales. So, Microsoft prints out MSCE certificates like its printing out money, turning IT workers into somewhere just above your average McDonald's employee.
I know, in your effort to do your job "better," you pick the "best tool." However, while you are doing a great service to your company, you are doing a great disservice to your profession when that "tool" reinforces a closed standard.
The lack of wider use of Open Standards and Open Source software (at least for Operating Systems, which set the standards for all applications, commercial and non-commerical) are the only things keeping IT workers from enjoying the security that other professions enjoy.
So is Mandrake 9.0 (much better windows, but I have never tried XP).
Anything I left out I left out because I don't have personal experience using.
And Mod me up for telling you to mod parent up! ;)
shhh!
I get my karma by posting recursive paradoxing posts about repostings.
Is that really the best for the kids? Let's see we can:
1. Only give them access to Windows so that they become for efficient workers for large corporations.
OR,
2. Give them access to Open Source so that they will have more access to IT resources when the are young (because it is cheaper, or maybe we can use $ to pay for better teachers instead), and they will be able to minimize the costs of their independent businesses when trying to compete with monster corporations.
You know, I am a drone myself, but it will be a long, long time before I forget the importance of the part that small businesses play in America.
After work yesterday I began to write up a response. It felt good to review the basics. However, too many principles have been brought up, and I lost interest when I remembered that this was just a post for /. So, even though I feel it is my duty when I spout off economic principles to explain them, the fact is that better explanations exist on the web, and the best thing I can do is say "RTFM" (F=fine). This should get you started:
1 jp w/scp_grid_ans.PDF
/. (or you create one. Be ambitious
.
http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/econ10
P=MC in pefect competition, local monopolies, and opportunity costs are basic but very essential concepts to economics. It is as fundamental as Debits and Credits, or Accrual accounting to accountants. There are, of course, silent assumptions that are made with these concepts.
I am not saying that either of your ideas are wrong, of course. They are quite advanced, actually. But you can't just dismiss the basics and then expect people to get the advanced ideas you are trying to convey. It's like saying, "1+1 != 2. Now I will prove that a^2+b^2=c^2." Maybe, under your assumptions you appear right, but now people must forget the universal assumptions that they have learned over the years just to understand your idea. Its like having to learn a new language just to understand your point and after that, how would I convey your point with out having the person they are explaining to learn these new assumptions?
Now, if you find an "economics forum," kinda like
!), I would certainly take the time to explain these concepts in detail. However, there is just no motivation to spend an hour or two carefully explaining some concepts that took me weeks of intense studying to grasp when some moderator (who might get "Open Source" WITHOUT getting Economics) mods my work as offtopic just because he/she (probably he) doesn't understand.
But one tidbit of advice . . . the strongest arguments you can make in economics USE the basic assumptions like P=MC in PC and such to disprove more complex assumptions. Dismissing the basics only proves that you have not invested the time to learn the basics. I know its an "ivory tower" thing to say, but a lot of great ideas and concepts are encrypted in a heirarchy of symbols and assumptions and the only way you will every grasp them is by learning these symbols and assumptions. The Internet is your oyster . .
Thanks!
"I was then able to take this know how to make a bootable linux floppy that boots directly into a windows terminal services server full screen (basically kernel, X, dhcp, rdesktop all on a single bootable floppy) for a school project)."
Do you have the image of this floppy laying around somewhere? I have been looking for something like that for a long time. Could you release that for the good of humanity?
Sure . . . I believe you. Really. Of course, if you
really wanted to convince me then you would release the image so we could check it out;)
This is more to the ill informed replies to your comment then your somewhat innocent post but . . .
;)
"And that is where most Americans put their collective foot down."
No, I would say most Americans put their foot down way back when the price went above $10 or $20 (not that it historically ever did; I am thinking of supply and demand curves here).
MS wants to maximize profits. They do that by maximizing consumer surplus. However, if they charge too high then less people buy the more expensive versions, and they make less profit (@$1000, say). However, at $10 they sell a whole lot more (almost everyone in the U.S. can now afford a computer) but the price is so low that they still don't make the best profit. So they sell somewhere in the middle, or "under" sell. The economy suffers since an artificially small amount of people can afford computers at MS optimized profit levels (relative to a competitive market), but that loss to the economy (consumer surplus) becomes MS's gain.
So pat yourself on the back, you have just made MS richer at the cost of your next job or bonus by buying an MS product
According to contemporary economic theory, profit only occurs where a monopoly exists. This is because in perfect competition price = marginal cost.However, this cost includes "opportunity costs" or the next best choice given up.
Accounting profit alone does not indicate a monopoly. But who are we kidding, most businesses these days have some kind of monopoly.
For instance your example:
" What about soda fountains at McDonalds (or wherever you buy your greasy fat)? They charge you $1.25 for seventeen cents of syrup and some essentially free carbonated water. "
You have just described what is called a "local monopoly." You are paying monopoly rents because you'd rather not go to some other geographic region to get your sugar water at that particular time. Believe me, those prices would decrease drastically if there was another fountain next to it selling at half price.
"What if people just EXPECT windows to cost more?"
And what if MS has gained some much power over the computer industry that THEY now decide what people should expect from the market.
Monopoly is the ugly boil of capitalism that nobody wants to admit is real. Free markets fail when there is a monopoly and more closely resemble Micro-Communist empires.
"MS has priced their product (successfully, I'm sure) to maximise their profit - which is NOT the cheapest price they could charge, any more than the same is true for Coca-Cola. This is a feature of our modern "capitalist" society; competition only goes so far in the face of advertising and consumer apathy. It has nothing to do with being a monopoly."
Profit Maximization:
Perfect Competition Case
Price = Marginal Cost
Perfect Monopoly Case
Price = Marginal Revenue
It has EVERYTHING to do with being a monopoly. If Ford were to decide to raise their prices, people would buy less Fords (not less cars). If MS decides to raise their prices, people buy less Operating Systems, Computers, mice, etc (add any compliment good). The effect on the economy is devasting. Furthermore, optimal output for a monopoly != optimal profit, since they control the price (optimal profit is at much lower output). So, you get much less (maybe half) the purchases of computer related equipment than you would in a competitive market.
So, you see, it has EVERYTHING to do with being a monopoly.
For the last couple years I have been depressed about Japan's response to Linux, because I read somewhere that MS had 90% of their webservers . . . your link proves that whatever I read was either FUD, really OLD news, or a stupid misunderstanding. Today is a good day!!!
Sorry, but who cares what the U.S. thinks about Linux and Open Source. Next year I am moving to Japan for good this time and am never looking back!
btw, have you tried Mandrake 9.0!? I just installed it on my main system today and it is EXCELLENT (great Japanese suppor)!
The topic was "what is keeping you from switching from Windows." Having bearable asian language support in Windows (XP) in the last year when it has been available on Mac and Linux for years doesn't seem to be a logical answer to "what is keeping you from switching." You might make a note in you "MS Manifesto" that most companies have not even begun thinking about switching to XP yet, hence my work place example.
Now . . . what the hell are you talking about?
My wife and I have also been using exclusively Linux for last couple of years (thanks, Mandrake).
.
I agree 100% on your point about web based services. My company, which sadly is VERY MS based right now, has almost ALL of the its company wide programs for end-users on a central intranet website:
401K
Expense Reimbursements
POs
Accounting Information
etc . .
They only support Explorer, of course, but how hard would it really be to switch to, say, Mozilla if prices really got out of hand. This way of thinking has greatly crippled MS's ability to look in their customers. However, there are other fronts to worry about . . . (.net).
I toy with myself that so many webbased tools will be created that one day all you will need is a dumb i-appliance capable of rendering webpages to work. We'll see . . .
Okay, try the newest release of Mandrake and then come back here and post with a straight face. Maybe it was hard five years ago but asian language support in Linux is now as easy as picking which languages you want during installation (I know that can be confusing for some . . . but don't blame the OS for that).
I work for a Japanese company in the U.S. and MS language support is great, if you have money to buy two separate OSes (Japanese and English). What's up with that? Guess what, many programs don't run on the Japanese OS that run on the English OS and many programs don't run on the English OS that run on the Japanese OS. What about Global IME (jamondo)? Try using that with anything other than web forms . . . I cringe at the thought of having to support Chinese under MS (3 OSes just to use 3 languages, wtf?). MS poor support for asian languages was a major reason for me to ABANDON it at home. Makes me wonder what's going on in that little borg head of yours .
Be honest next time, the real reason you keep to windows is your ignorance and misconception about the alternatives.
its posts like this that kind of make me WISH that MS controls all computer/entertainment/media industries in ten years. Then I could go visit these MS sympathizers and see their faces as they try to explain how the world is better by having a monopoly control and charge fees for everything that was once free. Of course, they will probably still be in their parents basement playing "Halo 11" on Xbox 23 . . .
"And Flash and RealPlayer are vital for her."
.avi, divx, and a little friend known as P2P?
.avi and divx from another server because of legal issues). Of course, Mandrake doesn't have a Live version yet . . . maybe they should (and their are howtos out there that explain in detail how to roll your on Live ISO from any distro).
Poor COLLEGE students? Shouldn't you introduce her to
Mplayer will play the above formats, and I have had the best luck with gtk-gnutella.
Ofcourse, being a Mandrakemember I just downloaded the rpms using urpmi (you have to download plugins for the
Sorry I couldn't be more help and don't listen to the clueless posts about upgrading her Windows (=$ for hardware, which you don't have.) . Your situation seems ideal for Linux, and what do you have to lose if you are using a live CD!? If she doesn't like it she can just take it out . . . If you upgrade her computer with Windows, and it doesn't work out you will look like a complete ass. Good luck.
I know exactly what you mean about not being able to donate code. Cash is definitely an appropriate substitute. However, buying the distro doesn't give enough bang for your buck.
.). Also, there are great perks like voting for club RPMs and the ISO download script. Infact, if you don't have a fast connection, it is still probably better to buy the CD from Cheapbytes.com for $5 and become a member for $60.
Become a member and 100% of that goes to mandrake (not to mention the stable revenue stream . .
urpmi IS excellent, and it is very unfortunate that so many people do not even know it exists . . .
Or has MS decided that being a cancer is okay, too, now.
Is it just me, or is /. getting more MS friendly everyday. I wonder if this is due to Linux no longer being the "underdog," or the fact that slashdot is becoming more mainstream.
Note to moderators: parent is probably dual-booting and is looking forward to the day when he can just use Linux and is not saying you are stupid for using Windows. Lighten up.