"if you use an OSS, you may *never* wait for the patch. You can do it yourself or, if you don't have the time, you can pay someone to do it before the developers fix the bug."
I know you realize this answer is useless to about 95% of all computers users, right? This means nothing to me because I don't code, nor do I want to. It means nothing to my customers who I manage Windows PCs for, they want to know if the manufacturer has a patch for a showstopper bug, but they don't want to hire programmers for minor annoyances. Your contention that since I am patching more on Linux there are fewer bugs afterwards is just bunk, overall my Win XP box is less buggy and has fewer operating quirks/things I have to workaround than my Linux box. I'm not trying to start a holy war, just stating a fact, a fact I'll bet is true for many people who post here.
This goes back to my last closing statement, Open Source rhetoric like your statement does nothing to help the cause. Telling someone that thinks KDE or Gnome has usability issues that they need to learn to program and fix it themselves is not an answer. Telling someone that has a wireless card without driver support that they need to research as much as they can and then submit that research to the driver/kernel devs (and it still won't work in 6 months) just isn't going to cut it. If you really think Linux can take over the desktop then it has to work as seamlessly as most XP fucntions and programs do, has to have just as many features (one mans bloat is another mans selling point) and be just as well supported without telling the user to learn to code or do the research.
post this statment at least every couple days on Slashdot.
I'm not enamored with everything MS does, but I spend far more time patching my Linux box and updating apps on my Linux box than I do my Win XP boxes. Of course part of that is "release early, release often" and part of it is adding new features to catch up with much of the usability that XP has. But anyone who post on this thread about MS products having more bugs isn't eally being honest with themselves or the community.
And in closing, OSS will never sucees until supporterd drop the "Anything But Microsoft" rhetoric and point out what Linux and OSS in general do better.
bullshit headline grab from PC Mag/Ziff Davis/Cnet that Slashdotters love to sieze on. If Windows is so damn insecure why haven't I had any issues professionally or personally in the last 10 years? Patch it when called for, keep your anti virus software up to date (come to think of it, I only scan incoming mail on my personal workstations), get a decent router with (an even marginal) built in firewall/NAT and don't click on every pop up you see at www.pussy-u-will-never-get.com and you are pretty much safe.
I love my Linux box but I expend far more effort keeping it locked down with constant updates than I do my Windows boxes.
I'll say it again, OSS will never suceed with end users as long as so many in this community take an "Anything But Microsoft" stance.
refute some of the standard Slashdot replies already popping up on this thread...
Microsoft already missed out on the web, they have no Internet strategy
Right, that's why the FireFox team did a collective happy dance when their browser actually registered a whole percentage point in user base a few weeks ago. And why 98% of the world uses IE, Outlook and MS Messenger. FireFox is clearly better, too bad no one has heard of it.
If they really want to improve Office they should make it cross platform and open up the file formats
Why? If you own a market and make money from it why would you give it away? Also see Apple and iTunes for additional reference.
This is vaporware, just marketing spin designed to confuse and befuddle PHBs like all MS products. Or, this is a distraction so you can't see how much trouble they are in becuase Longhorn is delayed.
Right, that's why MS has products in virutally every category available for sale right now, many considered best of breed from a user stand point (notice I said user, not technical). As for the myth that they have to release all these interim products to keep revenue high until Longhorn ships; someone tell me why? Like people won't be replacing or upgrading PCs over the next 3 years? My company (and we are small) performs a Server/Exchange 2003 migration almost weekly. Only on planet/. or lame industry "pundits/consultants" does anyone believe MS is in any real trouble. Hell, we can't keep our own house in order, trying to sell ourselves insurance just in case we really have stepped on some copyrights.
As for end users switching to Linux, why? I use Mandrake 10, Gentoo and Red Hat on assorted boxes. To install Quake II on any of my Linux boxes I have to copy files from the CD, delete the Windows debris it copies over, download a number of Linux files/patches, symlink to some OGl libs, create another link with a ridiculous command line/option string behind it so my nVidia card doesn't crash the X server on startup, etc... Or on my XP box I can insert the CD and click install? Yea, I see consumers flocking to Linux right now
This is just more bloat, 90% or users only use 10% or the features in Office right now. Also a favorite in this category, you can do anything in Open Office that you can do in Office XP.
The whole 90/10 thing needs to go away, 90% of Windows XP might be bloat buy my dad figured out how to burn a CD without calling me first. Same goes for successive versions of Office, some of that bloat is usability, ICEWM and OOo might work for you, not for everyone. And as for the OO is just as good, it is if you only use 10% of the Office XP/2003 feature set, get beyond that and OO can't even open some of those files correclty.
I don't post this to defend MS, I don't revile them on the level of some here, but I don't care for much of what they do either. They don't get everything right, but they do get usability and accessability right far more often than Linux. But Linux isn't really a threat, nor is OpenOffice until you actually get some level of mindshare. That mindshare won't come by bashing MS, who is still a pretty decent company in the eyes of most users. It won't come by calling for everything to be "OPEN" and "FREE" as most users don't care, don't know or care what the "Microsoft tax" is and would think what OEMs pay for a Windows seat is a "good deal".
Open Source advocates have to decide to be something besides "anything but Microsoft" advocates if they hope to have any chance appealing to less technical users.
And just to be on topic, I think a web based Office suite sounds good, I've installed SharePoint for a company and they love it. A web based Office would leverage some of the ideas/benefits that LiveMeeting and SharePoint have at a more user tangible level. Might be cool.
"You are an asshole!" bob670, 12:45 p.m. Aug, 2004
While I don't agree with everything that is going on for you to compare the current climate of terrorism with Nazi Germanies subtle but rapid shift to facism is an F'ing joke.
This seems to be the latest issue with/. posters, it's gone from technoid geeks in mom's basement to "liberal" technoid geeks in mom's basement. I'd post as an AC if I were you too.
And to the ass biscuit who wants to mod this guy up, F you too! Mod me down, I've go Karma to burn when people post garbage like this.
How does this get modded as informative? I'll be the first to burn MS as the stake, but IBM isn't rolling out because they failed to udpate thier OWN INTERNAL APPS, not becaue there is something wrong with SP2.
Ummm, no, Mac hasn't budged in marketshare and I'm sure you could stand on any corner and ask 99.999% of the people who walk by "What is Linux?" and they'll keep walking. If you don't think MS will be able to spin even a machine that SP2 kills as good and a necessary pain while they move toward "trusted computing" then you have missed/ignored the last 10 years of computing and willful consumer ignorance.
that IBM was prepping their own Linux distro, codenamed (not surprisingly) BlueLinux or something? That is would shortly be their only internal desktop OS and eventually server side as well? I know there wasn't a ton of proof but it hardly sounds farfetched. And then there's that whole GPL playing in IBMs favor, so who cares except Sun grasping at straws?
so I may have to dodge out to the cafeteria and make a new one on the fly, but I just don't buy this. This reads too much like a press release for my taste, kind of a "See, we aren't really that insecure, it's this one bad apple who created 70% of our problems, it's not an inherent issue with the way Windows was built of how Norton/McAffee/et al... attemtpt to prevent virus activity. Really, you can trust us, no need to look for alternatives, and whatever you do, don't look behind that curtain where the penguin is sitting".
Maybe it's true, but it just smacks of a comforting message to sooth those PHBs out there. Regardless if some/all of the code is based on this guys work, the fact that is spread so far, so fast says it's about way more than one guy.
I think this might be what you are asking for? It might not be "geek" pure but it fits your criteria, as do several OEM built Mandrake PCs from HP and Shuttle.
true, but I know that 99 times out of 100 when I patch a Linux box or app that...
a) I don't have to reboot and hope the whole machine comes back up
b) I won't be patchng for the exact same issue several times in the same year
I cut MS a break for years, always giving the benefit of th doubt, but the shoddy quality of XP, 2000 and 2003 has ended that cycle. I'm quite happy to see Linux on the rise at work, I love it when a superior product wins in the marketplace...
Oh my god, we work in the same place? Where do you sit?
My last in house job we were 90% done with a RedHat/Star Office desktop (everything else was a proprietary flat-file database hosted on a Sun box) and the owner shot it down becuase he felt Star Office didn't have the goods if they couldn't charge more for it.
I had to convince my I.T. director not to take a baseball bat to him, it was the funniest and saddest thing I had ever seen. It was also my last month there, had to get out. Want to stop MS, make the PHBs understand that software is a service industry and not a factory industry (where are you Obi Wan Raymond, you are my only hope...).
exercise in branding and pricepointing aimed not so much at benefitting the consumer as hurting the compeition?
While I am quite happy that things have gotten as fast as they have, the short release/upgrade cycles and numerous paper releases::cough::ATI::cough:: are starting to bore me. I happened to be on the other side of town Tuesday night where I was in a shopping district that had both a CompUSA and a MicroCenter, neither of which I had visited in a while since I prefer to use Newegg for most purchases. Apparently I'm not the only one who is bored since both locations were virtually empty and the product assortment was nothing short of yawn inducing.
I know my deep, dark geek side should only want the fastest and the newest yet my wallet only allows the slighly older and cheaper. Therein lies the issue that Intel, AMD and their brood can't break. If you aren't a gamer or scientific user then any PC built in the last 24-36 months is more than adequate for most users. Take away Windows XP and substitute the GUIest Linux install and an Athlon XP 1800+ with a GeForce4 MX440 is still peppy and responsive, and will probably run Doom 3 at lowest settings.
I'm torn by this apparent plateau the industry has reached. On one hand it proves that software has greatly matured and that commercial software makers clearly can't provide the next "killer app". Of course I believe OSS can provide such and app and as MS seems to be mired in assorted issues the probability of this kind of breakthrough seems imminent (with a rekindling of the browser wars leading the way). And on the other hand this should be an exciting time as the possiblity of commodity boxes at low price points (and hopefully free of the Microsoft tax) can put PCs within price reach of everyone.
I think that would mean Slate was protected under some kind of "whistle blower" law since they work for a company who knowingly distributes a defective and hazardous product. What's funny is that anyone who works for MS probably can't recomend IE with a straight face any longer...
I'm going to agree with you on all points. I bought a Shuttle SK41G, GeForce4, Athlon XP 2000+ and 2x256 DDR a few weeks ago. From out of the box, assembly time and then OS install was about one hour 15 minutes with all hardware recognized correctly, all updates installed and a usable desktop, office suite, Internet tools, etc... A quick install of the nVidia driver updates and some extra software gooodness via urpmi and I was off and running in about 90 minutes.
Compared to a couple days to get the same results with Gentoo, which is an outstanding distro, but not the distro to break Linux onto the mainstream desktop. Any casual PC user who has built a gaming PC or even tinkered around with his Dell could get Mandrake up and usable in less than an hour, Gentoo however is another story. Of course Gentoo wasn't aimed at that market, but the parent poster can't possibly paint Gentoo as easy to install and not expect some rebuttals.
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I know you realize this answer is useless to about 95% of all computers users, right? This means nothing to me because I don't code, nor do I want to. It means nothing to my customers who I manage Windows PCs for, they want to know if the manufacturer has a patch for a showstopper bug, but they don't want to hire programmers for minor annoyances. Your contention that since I am patching more on Linux there are fewer bugs afterwards is just bunk, overall my Win XP box is less buggy and has fewer operating quirks/things I have to workaround than my Linux box. I'm not trying to start a holy war, just stating a fact, a fact I'll bet is true for many people who post here.
This goes back to my last closing statement, Open Source rhetoric like your statement does nothing to help the cause. Telling someone that thinks KDE or Gnome has usability issues that they need to learn to program and fix it themselves is not an answer. Telling someone that has a wireless card without driver support that they need to research as much as they can and then submit that research to the driver/kernel devs (and it still won't work in 6 months) just isn't going to cut it. If you really think Linux can take over the desktop then it has to work as seamlessly as most XP fucntions and programs do, has to have just as many features (one mans bloat is another mans selling point) and be just as well supported without telling the user to learn to code or do the research.
I'm not enamored with everything MS does, but I spend far more time patching my Linux box and updating apps on my Linux box than I do my Win XP boxes. Of course part of that is "release early, release often" and part of it is adding new features to catch up with much of the usability that XP has. But anyone who post on this thread about MS products having more bugs isn't eally being honest with themselves or the community.
And in closing, OSS will never sucees until supporterd drop the "Anything But Microsoft" rhetoric and point out what Linux and OSS in general do better.
Hmmm, I am a sysadmin, then perhaps I am God? Oh crap, I don't believe in my own existance...so I am really typing this post?
steal little, steal big, you are still stealing. But please, carry on with the usual justifications.
I love my Linux box but I expend far more effort keeping it locked down with constant updates than I do my Windows boxes.
I'll say it again, OSS will never suceed with end users as long as so many in this community take an "Anything But Microsoft" stance.
Microsoft already missed out on the web, they have no Internet strategy
Right, that's why the FireFox team did a collective happy dance when their browser actually registered a whole percentage point in user base a few weeks ago. And why 98% of the world uses IE, Outlook and MS Messenger. FireFox is clearly better, too bad no one has heard of it.
If they really want to improve Office they should make it cross platform and open up the file formats
Why? If you own a market and make money from it why would you give it away? Also see Apple and iTunes for additional reference.
This is vaporware, just marketing spin designed to confuse and befuddle PHBs like all MS products. Or, this is a distraction so you can't see how much trouble they are in becuase Longhorn is delayed.
Right, that's why MS has products in virutally every category available for sale right now, many considered best of breed from a user stand point (notice I said user, not technical). As for the myth that they have to release all these interim products to keep revenue high until Longhorn ships; someone tell me why? Like people won't be replacing or upgrading PCs over the next 3 years? My company (and we are small) performs a Server/Exchange 2003 migration almost weekly. Only on planet /. or lame industry "pundits/consultants" does anyone believe MS is in any real trouble. Hell, we can't keep our own house in order, trying to sell ourselves insurance just in case we really have stepped on some copyrights.
As for end users switching to Linux, why? I use Mandrake 10, Gentoo and Red Hat on assorted boxes. To install Quake II on any of my Linux boxes I have to copy files from the CD, delete the Windows debris it copies over, download a number of Linux files/patches, symlink to some OGl libs, create another link with a ridiculous command line/option string behind it so my nVidia card doesn't crash the X server on startup, etc... Or on my XP box I can insert the CD and click install? Yea, I see consumers flocking to Linux right now
This is just more bloat, 90% or users only use 10% or the features in Office right now. Also a favorite in this category, you can do anything in Open Office that you can do in Office XP.
The whole 90/10 thing needs to go away, 90% of Windows XP might be bloat buy my dad figured out how to burn a CD without calling me first. Same goes for successive versions of Office, some of that bloat is usability, ICEWM and OOo might work for you, not for everyone. And as for the OO is just as good, it is if you only use 10% of the Office XP/2003 feature set, get beyond that and OO can't even open some of those files correclty.
I don't post this to defend MS, I don't revile them on the level of some here, but I don't care for much of what they do either. They don't get everything right, but they do get usability and accessability right far more often than Linux. But Linux isn't really a threat, nor is OpenOffice until you actually get some level of mindshare. That mindshare won't come by bashing MS, who is still a pretty decent company in the eyes of most users. It won't come by calling for everything to be "OPEN" and "FREE" as most users don't care, don't know or care what the "Microsoft tax" is and would think what OEMs pay for a Windows seat is a "good deal".
Open Source advocates have to decide to be something besides "anything but Microsoft" advocates if they hope to have any chance appealing to less technical users.
And just to be on topic, I think a web based Office suite sounds good, I've installed SharePoint for a company and they love it. A web based Office would leverage some of the ideas/benefits that LiveMeeting and SharePoint have at a more user tangible level. Might be cool.
choke out the cheap Linspire/Lindows boxes now? Damn, another year with no Linux on the desktop!
While I don't agree with everything that is going on for you to compare the current climate of terrorism with Nazi Germanies subtle but rapid shift to facism is an F'ing joke.
This seems to be the latest issue with
And to the ass biscuit who wants to mod this guy up, F you too! Mod me down, I've go Karma to burn when people post garbage like this.
Microsoft will buy Ahead/Nero and integrate it into Windows we can call that category dead as well. Roxio - EZCD = t3h b4nkRup+ soonly.
How does this get modded as informative? I'll be the first to burn MS as the stake, but IBM isn't rolling out because they failed to udpate thier OWN INTERNAL APPS, not becaue there is something wrong with SP2.
Ummm, no, Mac hasn't budged in marketshare and I'm sure you could stand on any corner and ask 99.999% of the people who walk by "What is Linux?" and they'll keep walking. If you don't think MS will be able to spin even a machine that SP2 kills as good and a necessary pain while they move toward "trusted computing" then you have missed/ignored the last 10 years of computing and willful consumer ignorance.
that IBM was prepping their own Linux distro, codenamed (not surprisingly) BlueLinux or something? That is would shortly be their only internal desktop OS and eventually server side as well? I know there wasn't a ton of proof but it hardly sounds farfetched. And then there's that whole GPL playing in IBMs favor, so who cares except Sun grasping at straws?
Maybe it's true, but it just smacks of a comforting message to sooth those PHBs out there. Regardless if some/all of the code is based on this guys work, the fact that is spread so far, so fast says it's about way more than one guy.
okay, how long?
From what I have heard that should hit the $1 theaters next week and DVD Sept. 1st.
the Linux client ships? Hopefully a few days so I can upgrade my video card.
ahhh, much better, now what were we discussing?
Bittorrent, free, no ethics to breech, Open Source and spam free, problem solved.
I think this might be what you are asking for? It might not be "geek" pure but it fits your criteria, as do several OEM built Mandrake PCs from HP and Shuttle.
a) I don't have to reboot and hope the whole machine comes back up
b) I won't be patchng for the exact same issue several times in the same year
I cut MS a break for years, always giving the benefit of th doubt, but the shoddy quality of XP, 2000 and 2003 has ended that cycle. I'm quite happy to see Linux on the rise at work, I love it when a superior product wins in the marketplace...
and alloting several hours every week to download, test and roll out patches for severe security flaws. I'm going to assume you are just joking...
My last in house job we were 90% done with a RedHat/Star Office desktop (everything else was a proprietary flat-file database hosted on a Sun box) and the owner shot it down becuase he felt Star Office didn't have the goods if they couldn't charge more for it.
I had to convince my I.T. director not to take a baseball bat to him, it was the funniest and saddest thing I had ever seen. It was also my last month there, had to get out. Want to stop MS, make the PHBs understand that software is a service industry and not a factory industry (where are you Obi Wan Raymond, you are my only hope...).
While I am quite happy that things have gotten as fast as they have, the short release/upgrade cycles and numerous paper releases
I know my deep, dark geek side should only want the fastest and the newest yet my wallet only allows the slighly older and cheaper. Therein lies the issue that Intel, AMD and their brood can't break. If you aren't a gamer or scientific user then any PC built in the last 24-36 months is more than adequate for most users. Take away Windows XP and substitute the GUIest Linux install and an Athlon XP 1800+ with a GeForce4 MX440 is still peppy and responsive, and will probably run Doom 3 at lowest settings.
I'm torn by this apparent plateau the industry has reached. On one hand it proves that software has greatly matured and that commercial software makers clearly can't provide the next "killer app". Of course I believe OSS can provide such and app and as MS seems to be mired in assorted issues the probability of this kind of breakthrough seems imminent (with a rekindling of the browser wars leading the way). And on the other hand this should be an exciting time as the possiblity of commodity boxes at low price points (and hopefully free of the Microsoft tax) can put PCs within price reach of everyone.
I think that would mean Slate was protected under some kind of "whistle blower" law since they work for a company who knowingly distributes a defective and hazardous product. What's funny is that anyone who works for MS probably can't recomend IE with a straight face any longer...
Compared to a couple days to get the same results with Gentoo, which is an outstanding distro, but not the distro to break Linux onto the mainstream desktop. Any casual PC user who has built a gaming PC or even tinkered around with his Dell could get Mandrake up and usable in less than an hour, Gentoo however is another story. Of course Gentoo wasn't aimed at that market, but the parent poster can't possibly paint Gentoo as easy to install and not expect some rebuttals.