I'm in the UK also and I find it even more sickening that when many schools are having to cut classes because they don't have enough money to pay teachers, they still pay MS for Windows / Office licenses.
It should be mandatory in UK schools to use Open Source software, not only for the financial savings but also because schoolkids will be taught Linux from an early age.
Whatever the differences between Linux and Windows, Linux is currently harder to use for the novice user and Linux-taught kids will find their home WIndows PC easy to use anyway.
I agree that there should be more clarification as to where these figures were obtained from but, if these include European businesses, then please remember that many governmental organisations in Europe (especially Germany) are moving to Linux on the desktop in a big way.
What really turned me off Star Trek in the latter years was the constant morality being forced down my throat in just about every episode - racial equality, child abuse, etc... not to mention the constant political correctness in having the token black, Asian, etc, in each show's cast...
I just watch a TV show for entertainment and who cares what race the lead actors are as long as they're GOOD actors with a good entertaining story to tell...
Dr Who never suffered from the morality issues and I hope the resurrection of it doesn't either...
I remember tuning into the 25th Anniversary story of Dr. Who ("Silver Nemesis") and seeing the Cybermen (my favourite Who monsters) striding out of a silver spacecraft... YESSSSS! I thought...
Imagine my disappointment when Ace took out the entire Cyberman invasion force with a catapult and a few gold coins!
Leave it up to American writers to turn good monsters into pussies (i.e. The Borg), get a good British writing team and it'll be a winner...
I'm a support engineer in a telecoms company in the UK office and, a few months ago, I had a problem connecting to one of our US web sites. So I fired up trusty "traceroute" on my Linux box and, sure enough, one of the US routers was dropping packets.
Not knowing who to report this to, I rang the local IT help desk to report the problem and spoke to one of the techs, who I know to be MCSE certified.
Here's a rough transcript of the conversation...
"Hi, I had a problem connecting to one of the US webservers so ran 'traceroute' and it looks like one of the Dallas routers is dropping packets. I've got a dump of the traceroute output if you want it."
"Don't you mean 'tracert'?"
"No, I ran 'traceroute' from the Linux box on my desk."
"We don't support Linux."
"Yes, I know that but this is a network problem, not a local computer problem."
"Have you got your Windows 2000 laptop booted up?"
"Yes, I have."
"I'd like to look at the Network settings in Control Panel."
"Why? I ran the 'traceroute' from my Linux box that's on the same subnet as my laptop. My laptop has the same problem - I can connect to the local mail server and to web sites in the UK. Therefore there is no problem with the network configuration of my laptop. It's a router in the US that has a problem."
"I'd still like to check your network settings. Go to the 'Start' button and..."
"No, you misunderstand me. I am just letting you know that one of the Dallas routers has a problem so that you can raise a fault with the people over there to get them to check it out. I have no problem with my laptop."
"We have a specific process that we need to follow to investigate all faults."
"Yes, I appreciate that but as an informed user and somebody who trains people in TCP/IP, I have done some initial diagnostic work on your behalf to allow you to bypass your process."
"But I can't raise a fault until I've done the initial check of your laptop."
"But my laptop is fine because I didn't initially see the problem from there anyway. I saw it from the Linux box on my desk. I just confirmed that I had the same problem using my laptop."
"I cannot take faults on Linux servers because we don't support Linux"
"Fine, then I'll run 'tracert' on my laptop."
"No, not yet, I have to check your network settings.."
I put the phone down at this point...
"Windows Installation and Maintenance Professional"???
"Standard Microsoft Engineering Grade"???
Or shall we just stick with MCSE (Microsoft Controlled Sad Entity)?
Technical Certifications are essentially meaningless. The only one which has ever really meant _anything_ is the CCIE.
Rubbish!
The value of *any* certification is dubious - if you're good at learning things book fashion, you can pass just about any certification and still have no idea how to resolve a real-life problem.
I work with CCIE people at work every day - some of them are really good at configuring and faulting networks and routers, others have no idea.
I'm an RHCE also (in the UK) and I found the testing process the most brain-melting thing I ever did! I'd happily volunteer my time also to assist in UK programs of this nature, if only because I object to my money, as a British tax payer, lining Microsoft's pockets when government and civil organisations enlist Microsoft for their IT infrastructure - they should all be forced to assess free alternatives first, it's ridiculous that our National Health Service hasn't enough hospital beds to treat people but can pay money to Microsoft for software.
Many people in the Linux community look down on Red Hat as our equivalent of Microsoft but they have been superb ambassadors for Linux and they do give back as much as they take from the Linux community.
I did my RHCE on Red Hat 6.2 and have no interest in updating it because I've moved on to "build your own" distros like Gentoo and Linux From Scratch. But I work for a telecoms company where Linux is forming the base OS for many of our new platforms and I've done a lot of internal training with people on IP and Linux - those same people now dual-boot Red Hat with their existing Windows OSes and I have nothing but favourable comments about Red Hat - they love the Red Hat 8.0 desktop!
As a final note, my girlfriend is an MCSE and deserves nothing but credit for having migrated from being a qualified accountant to a Siebel analyst in the space of 4 years or so - but I cannot believe she managed to get an MCSE in Windows 2000 without *ONCE* having to do any learning or testing in TCP/IP!!! This, to me, does not say much for the MCSE testing process...
What you talk about is the original Unix Way. If every program is a simple single minded program, and somebodt else would like to borrow a snippet of code, why not? And no, selling software is NOT a new idea. It's just another way to pay the programmers on code. And of course, if they open that code up, why buy their product (enter vicious circle)
Sorry, I don't see the point you are arguing. OSS software originates from the geek/MIT hacker/hippie (delete where applicable) mentality where by keeping code open, you allow it to be improved upon. That mentality was carried on by Stallman (love him ot hate him) with the FSF and GPL. I was just defining that to less informed people in this discussion. If programming pays your mortgage, great - and if the software you create is useful, usable and good value for money, I'll buy it! As long as you support it, you keep the code as closed as you want.
I think you misunderstand standards documents. Standards can be wrote in plain language that describe how something happens. Code is just an implementation of that standard.
Yeah, fine but I knew how to "suck eggs" before you very kindly told me how to. What point are you making here?
There's plenty of reasons why you would use Linux, rather than Microsoft stuff that would not be "I hate MS" topic.
Yes, I just covered them also if you'd have read it properly rather than jumping in all emotional... bad software, illicit business practices, "cool factor", all reasons why people might choose Linux over Windows. I admitted I hate Microsoft but I'm no martyr - I've been around UNIX (and Windows/DOS) for about 15 years and found Linux a relatively easy transition. But I never forced myself to use it simply because of a personal MS backlash.
If I could develop Windows stuff (and see basic windows programming like seeing the source for notepad and calc), I'd probably wouldnt have went to Linux.
Erm, why do you equate OSS directly to Linux? There's a heap of Open Source Software on Windows and free compilers / programming tools also.
I cant afford a Legit copy of MS programming suite, so I use GCC.
Ahhh, so Microsoft didn't support you properly as a Windows developer so you moved to Linux. I'll add that to my list of reasons...
What? So you wanna stick Gates' head to a pole which will speed up Open source?
It's called "humour". A flippant, throwaway comment to cover all the bases - namely, it doesn't matter what gestures Microsoft makes, it won't damage OSS. It might slow down migrations but why does the OSS movement care anyway? It survived for years with a handful of hackers... Apologies for offending the pedantic amongst the Slashdot readership...
Oh, just the dead horse getting beat.
It'd be nice if you joined the same race I'm in first... How about some rational argument first, then we'll decide who won if that's important to you.
Surely OSS, as a three letter acronym, could only stand for "Obscenely Slowass Shit" or "Obese Slow Software"... I hate to see how it can stand for "pile-of-shit slowass crap" outside of the grammar of somebody born of coital union between his father and his sister...
...and the dinosaurs died when the meteorite hit and they couldn't cope with the climatic changes - except those that already evolved into mammals of course...
1) Go read a history of UNIX / M.I.T / Stephen Levy's "Hackers" book. Then you'll understand people were giving away software long before they had any ideas before making money out of it. Selling software is a newer idea...
2) OSS/FSF/GPL exist purely to protect the rights of those who *choose* to distribute software freely to continue to do that, to allow them (and anyone else) the ability to use and modify that software and to ensure that nothing is hidden behind proprietary standards.
3) Microsoft *sell* software. They are not innovaters, just damn good at repackaging the ideas of others and marketing it - or just buying the company that innovated it in the first place. They can, and have, used Open Source software ideas in their own products but, then, that's what it's designed for. (Yes, when you Windows people venture to the command line on your Windows boxes, whenever you "ping" something, you're using software that originated from the dirty, disgusting free software movement.)
4) OSS does not give a damn about Microsoft "competition". OSS/Linux/FreeBSD users, who probably have experience with Windows, might hate Microsoft (yes, I'm one of them) because of their business methods, rubbish software or simply because it's "cool". But OSS was there long before Microsoft as a defence against predatory practices from UNIX vendors and will be there long after.
5) Microsoft reducing the cost of their products / turning Windows into an operating system / sticking Gates' head on a pole outside 1 Microsoft Way might slow down the migration from Windows to OSS but it probably won't do anything whatsoever to those already using / developing OSS software.
6) Microsoft cannot buy OSS because there's nothing tangible to own, they can't stamp on OSS because it's too widespread, they can just continue to spread FUD as they've always done.
End of OSS lesson...
We Linux geeks are *always* ugly and short-sighted...
It's as a result of having to screw up our faces and really *CONCENTRATE HARD* trying to remember when our machines last crashed...
Yeah, first time I've been called a "troll" also.:-)
I guess I owe you an apology for misreading your place in the thread...
However, the "sewage pipe" comment still applies to a lot of the other jerks here!
Good one!:-)
Oooh, it's a really BRAVE person with a "Linux_Users_Suck" nym!!!!
I'm so scared I'm going to go wrap my ass up in some nice coloured paper and go sell it to M$ in exchange for Windoze!
Buddy, if you ain't tried an alternative to Windoze, you're the loser, not me...
>Why?
Because some of us choose to reach our full potentials and not clamp our mouths over the Micro$oft sewage outlet pipe, mindlessly consuming the buggy, bloated cr*p being expelled from it?
Some us think for ourselves???
Yes! Let's all be born into the plastic world of Microsoft's Central Computer Core (that still needs rebooting every week) where Bill Gates and his gang of friendly clowns do all our thinking for us.
We can get our brains removed and use the spaces inside our skulls to store our MicroSoft CDs...
Hey, Gates!!! I don't want your crummy gang of crooks doing my thinking for me. I'll trust my information to myself using an OS I can rely on.
You can stick LONGHORN up your LONGASS!
Slashdot Mirror
I'm in the UK also and I find it even more sickening that when many schools are having to cut classes because they don't have enough money to pay teachers, they still pay MS for Windows / Office licenses.
It should be mandatory in UK schools to use Open Source software, not only for the financial savings but also because schoolkids will be taught Linux from an early age.
Whatever the differences between Linux and Windows, Linux is currently harder to use for the novice user and Linux-taught kids will find their home WIndows PC easy to use anyway.
I agree that there should be more clarification as to where these figures were obtained from but, if these include European businesses, then please remember that many governmental organisations in Europe (especially Germany) are moving to Linux on the desktop in a big way.
What really turned me off Star Trek in the latter years was the constant morality being forced down my throat in just about every episode - racial equality, child abuse, etc... not to mention the constant political correctness in having the token black, Asian, etc, in each show's cast...
I just watch a TV show for entertainment and who cares what race the lead actors are as long as they're GOOD actors with a good entertaining story to tell...
Dr Who never suffered from the morality issues and I hope the resurrection of it doesn't either...
I remember tuning into the 25th Anniversary story of Dr. Who ("Silver Nemesis") and seeing the Cybermen (my favourite Who monsters) striding out of a silver spacecraft... YESSSSS! I thought... Imagine my disappointment when Ace took out the entire Cyberman invasion force with a catapult and a few gold coins! Leave it up to American writers to turn good monsters into pussies (i.e. The Borg), get a good British writing team and it'll be a winner...
Would that have been run on "Open Sluice" software?
If you were told that one of the statements below is a hoax:
Microsoft to release the iLoo Internet Toilet
and
Microsoft to release secure, stable operating system
which would YOU fall for?
No... let me guess... Saddam Hussein's an MCSE isn't he???
I'm a support engineer in a telecoms company in the UK office and, a few months ago, I had a problem connecting to one of our US web sites. So I fired up trusty "traceroute" on my Linux box and, sure enough, one of the US routers was dropping packets.
Not knowing who to report this to, I rang the local IT help desk to report the problem and spoke to one of the techs, who I know to be MCSE certified.
Here's a rough transcript of the conversation...
"Hi, I had a problem connecting to one of the US webservers so ran 'traceroute' and it looks like one of the Dallas routers is dropping packets. I've got a dump of the traceroute output if you want it."
"Don't you mean 'tracert'?"
"No, I ran 'traceroute' from the Linux box on my desk."
"We don't support Linux."
"Yes, I know that but this is a network problem, not a local computer problem."
"Have you got your Windows 2000 laptop booted up?"
"Yes, I have."
"I'd like to look at the Network settings in Control Panel."
"Why? I ran the 'traceroute' from my Linux box that's on the same subnet as my laptop. My laptop has the same problem - I can connect to the local mail server and to web sites in the UK. Therefore there is no problem with the network configuration of my laptop. It's a router in the US that has a problem."
"I'd still like to check your network settings. Go to the 'Start' button and..."
"No, you misunderstand me. I am just letting you know that one of the Dallas routers has a problem so that you can raise a fault with the people over there to get them to check it out. I have no problem with my laptop."
"We have a specific process that we need to follow to investigate all faults."
"Yes, I appreciate that but as an informed user and somebody who trains people in TCP/IP, I have done some initial diagnostic work on your behalf to allow you to bypass your process."
"But I can't raise a fault until I've done the initial check of your laptop."
"But my laptop is fine because I didn't initially see the problem from there anyway. I saw it from the Linux box on my desk. I just confirmed that I had the same problem using my laptop."
"I cannot take faults on Linux servers because we don't support Linux"
"Fine, then I'll run 'tracert' on my laptop."
"No, not yet, I have to check your network settings.."
I put the phone down at this point...
"Windows Installation and Maintenance Professional"???
"Standard Microsoft Engineering Grade"???
Or shall we just stick with MCSE (Microsoft Controlled Sad Entity)?
Technical Certifications are essentially meaningless. The only one which has ever really meant _anything_ is the CCIE.
Rubbish!
The value of *any* certification is dubious - if you're good at learning things book fashion, you can pass just about any certification and still have no idea how to resolve a real-life problem.
I work with CCIE people at work every day - some of them are really good at configuring and faulting networks and routers, others have no idea.
I'm an RHCE also (in the UK) and I found the testing process the most brain-melting thing I ever did! I'd happily volunteer my time also to assist in UK programs of this nature, if only because I object to my money, as a British tax payer, lining Microsoft's pockets when government and civil organisations enlist Microsoft for their IT infrastructure - they should all be forced to assess free alternatives first, it's ridiculous that our National Health Service hasn't enough hospital beds to treat people but can pay money to Microsoft for software. Many people in the Linux community look down on Red Hat as our equivalent of Microsoft but they have been superb ambassadors for Linux and they do give back as much as they take from the Linux community. I did my RHCE on Red Hat 6.2 and have no interest in updating it because I've moved on to "build your own" distros like Gentoo and Linux From Scratch. But I work for a telecoms company where Linux is forming the base OS for many of our new platforms and I've done a lot of internal training with people on IP and Linux - those same people now dual-boot Red Hat with their existing Windows OSes and I have nothing but favourable comments about Red Hat - they love the Red Hat 8.0 desktop! As a final note, my girlfriend is an MCSE and deserves nothing but credit for having migrated from being a qualified accountant to a Siebel analyst in the space of 4 years or so - but I cannot believe she managed to get an MCSE in Windows 2000 without *ONCE* having to do any learning or testing in TCP/IP!!! This, to me, does not say much for the MCSE testing process...
Do you reckon that it's always the crap programmers who know they're crap programmers that always raise the "OSS = Communism" argument?
i.e. "If my boss ever finds out how crap my programs are, I'll never get another job as a paid for programmer".
What you talk about is the original Unix Way. If every program is a simple single minded program, and somebodt else would like to borrow a snippet of code, why not? And no, selling software is NOT a new idea. It's just another way to pay the programmers on code. And of course, if they open that code up, why buy their product (enter vicious circle)
Sorry, I don't see the point you are arguing. OSS software originates from the geek/MIT hacker/hippie (delete where applicable) mentality where by keeping code open, you allow it to be improved upon. That mentality was carried on by Stallman (love him ot hate him) with the FSF and GPL. I was just defining that to less informed people in this discussion.
If programming pays your mortgage, great - and if the software you create is useful, usable and good value for money, I'll buy it! As long as you support it, you keep the code as closed as you want.
I think you misunderstand standards documents. Standards can be wrote in plain language that describe how something happens. Code is just an implementation of that standard.
Yeah, fine but I knew how to "suck eggs" before you very kindly told me how to. What point are you making here?
There's plenty of reasons why you would use Linux, rather than Microsoft stuff that would not be "I hate MS" topic.
Yes, I just covered them also if you'd have read it properly rather than jumping in all emotional... bad software, illicit business practices, "cool factor", all reasons why people might choose Linux over Windows. I admitted I hate Microsoft but I'm no martyr - I've been around UNIX (and Windows/DOS) for about 15 years and found Linux a relatively easy transition. But I never forced myself to use it simply because of a personal MS backlash.
If I could develop Windows stuff (and see basic windows programming like seeing the source for notepad and calc), I'd probably wouldnt have went to Linux.
Erm, why do you equate OSS directly to Linux? There's a heap of Open Source Software on Windows and free compilers / programming tools also.
I cant afford a Legit copy of MS programming suite, so I use GCC.
Ahhh, so Microsoft didn't support you properly as a Windows developer so you moved to Linux. I'll add that to my list of reasons...
What? So you wanna stick Gates' head to a pole which will speed up Open source?
It's called "humour". A flippant, throwaway comment to cover all the bases - namely, it doesn't matter what gestures Microsoft makes, it won't damage OSS. It might slow down migrations but why does the OSS movement care anyway? It survived for years with a handful of hackers...
Apologies for offending the pedantic amongst the Slashdot readership...
Oh, just the dead horse getting beat.
It'd be nice if you joined the same race I'm in first...
How about some rational argument first, then we'll decide who won if that's important to you.
Surely OSS, as a three letter acronym, could only stand for "Obscenely Slowass Shit" or "Obese Slow Software"... I hate to see how it can stand for "pile-of-shit slowass crap" outside of the grammar of somebody born of coital union between his father and his sister...
...and the dinosaurs died when the meteorite hit and they couldn't cope with the climatic changes - except those that already evolved into mammals of course...
1) Go read a history of UNIX / M.I.T / Stephen Levy's "Hackers" book. Then you'll understand people were giving away software long before they had any ideas before making money out of it. Selling software is a newer idea... 2) OSS/FSF/GPL exist purely to protect the rights of those who *choose* to distribute software freely to continue to do that, to allow them (and anyone else) the ability to use and modify that software and to ensure that nothing is hidden behind proprietary standards. 3) Microsoft *sell* software. They are not innovaters, just damn good at repackaging the ideas of others and marketing it - or just buying the company that innovated it in the first place. They can, and have, used Open Source software ideas in their own products but, then, that's what it's designed for. (Yes, when you Windows people venture to the command line on your Windows boxes, whenever you "ping" something, you're using software that originated from the dirty, disgusting free software movement.) 4) OSS does not give a damn about Microsoft "competition". OSS/Linux/FreeBSD users, who probably have experience with Windows, might hate Microsoft (yes, I'm one of them) because of their business methods, rubbish software or simply because it's "cool". But OSS was there long before Microsoft as a defence against predatory practices from UNIX vendors and will be there long after. 5) Microsoft reducing the cost of their products / turning Windows into an operating system / sticking Gates' head on a pole outside 1 Microsoft Way might slow down the migration from Windows to OSS but it probably won't do anything whatsoever to those already using / developing OSS software. 6) Microsoft cannot buy OSS because there's nothing tangible to own, they can't stamp on OSS because it's too widespread, they can just continue to spread FUD as they've always done. End of OSS lesson...
We Linux geeks are *always* ugly and short-sighted... It's as a result of having to screw up our faces and really *CONCENTRATE HARD* trying to remember when our machines last crashed...
You really must give up that Micro$oft spell checker - Bill Gates is "evil" not "evile"...
Yeah, but Bill will come up with a BETTER NAME for it than boring "ReiserFS". It'll be "ActiveSys" or "HyperFile"...
Yeah, first time I've been called a "troll" also. :-)
I guess I owe you an apology for misreading your place in the thread...
However, the "sewage pipe" comment still applies to a lot of the other jerks here!
Good one! :-)
Oooh, it's a really BRAVE person with a "Linux_Users_Suck" nym!!!! I'm so scared I'm going to go wrap my ass up in some nice coloured paper and go sell it to M$ in exchange for Windoze! Buddy, if you ain't tried an alternative to Windoze, you're the loser, not me...
>Why? Because some of us choose to reach our full potentials and not clamp our mouths over the Micro$oft sewage outlet pipe, mindlessly consuming the buggy, bloated cr*p being expelled from it? Some us think for ourselves???
Yes! Let's all be born into the plastic world of Microsoft's Central Computer Core (that still needs rebooting every week) where Bill Gates and his gang of friendly clowns do all our thinking for us. We can get our brains removed and use the spaces inside our skulls to store our MicroSoft CDs... Hey, Gates!!! I don't want your crummy gang of crooks doing my thinking for me. I'll trust my information to myself using an OS I can rely on. You can stick LONGHORN up your LONGASS!