"... that evolutionary theory, a theory that has been shown to explain the origins of life..."
While I believe in evolution, evolutionary theory does not explain the origins of life. It does explain the state of current life forms in existance today and how they may have gotten that way.
We can demonstrate evolution in numerous experiments today, with plant life and animal life. So we know evolution is a viable theory. However, the theory of evolution does not address, nor does it try to address the origins of life. It only tries to describe what happened to the life after it existed.
To those of Judeo-Christian Faith out there, evolution does not preclude God's act of Creation. It only describes how the process progressed after that initial creative force.
The biggest hangup with evolution and faith is with the origin of man. Evolution does not state that man evolved from monkeys. It does observe that there are a lot of similarities with other primates and we do share a lot of DNA.
But, evolution also allows for the similar traits to be caused by the environment. For instance, if an opposable thumb is advantagouss to grasping or standing upright in the brush is advantagous, then it is resonable from an evolutionary perspective that both humans and primates share these traits.
DNA sharing is also used to show by some who misunderstand evolution that we came from monkeys. It is true we share something like 96% of our DNA with chimpanzees. But we also share something like 91% with dogs and over half with sea cucumbers. Evolution theory does imply that we would share DNA, but it doesn't comment on whether it comes from inheritance or adaptation. Obviously, using the thumbs thing, from above, there are only so many ways for DNA to create a thumb. Furthermore, the majority of shared DNA between all species has to do with cellular function and basic tenets of live. Evolution does not disallow for that and as a matter of fact predicts that it would happen.
Even if it were somehow proven that man evolved from lower primates, it would not negate God's creation of man, but only further explain the how. At some point in time a pre-human gave birth to another pre-human that was a little bit closer to a human, that gave birth to another pre-human a little closer again, and on and on, until eventually a human is born and at which point God created man.
Back to the original comment though. Evolution, in simplified terms, states that things evolve and adapt to their environment and those traits which give an advantage tend to win out and thrive, becoming new species. It does not, however, say how life began (it's origins, so to speak). That debate is left to the philosophers and theologians.
As you stated, your office bought an expensive system because a consulting company told them they needed it and management bought it.
Our horror story is that our COO ordered all new computers for the company because a consultant told her that those celerons would never work, we need full blown pentium IVs.
Well, most of the celerons were 1.8ghz or greater and all of the software is run remotely using terminal services over DSL)
But, somehow, we have all new computers, running the same business apps just as slowly as before. But hey, at least they boot quicker and I must admit that solitaire is a lot faster!
The real problem isn't bogus surveys, it's management that buys whatever the consultant is selling, without stopping to verify the data.
When you are not feeling well and go to the doctor and he/she gives you a prescription. Are you paying for the doctor's office for a service or a solution?
When your business has problems and you call in a consultant, are you paying for a service or a solution?
If said consultant happens to be a computer consultant, you are still paying for a service.
Specifically, in the case you state about organizing records. Either the vendor is giving a canned package to the customer and training them on how to change the way they do business to accomodate the canned package or they are writing a custom package (or customizing one) so the software works with the way the customer does business.
Training is a service. Software programming is a service. They may provide the solution to the customer's problem (just like the doctor visit for the patient) but they are still a service.
Whether those are old versions or not aren't the issue. I don't know too many people who run out and buy a new office suite, firewall or antivirus just because a new version is released. It's only when the old version is no longer supported by the manufacturer (well for firewalls and AV programs). Businesses and government agencies upgrade even less frequently.
BTW, doesn't the Norton AV scheduled tasks at bootup also check for new updates of virus signatures? That's probably a pretty important task to break.
The problem is that the company your wife works for provides a solution based on keeping their Microsoft Reseller status. They would no more sell a non-Microsoft solution than the local Ford dealer would sell me a Toyota.
You state that "The product they sell is not a piece of software, it is an integrated package to solve a real world problem." I would guess that the company also makes a lot of money customizing said package to meat the customer's needs, since very few customers would need the exact same solution.
If so, then what the company is selling is not the solution at all. It is the software customization, a service, that is solving the real world problem. And the all Microsoft solution only provides the lockin to the real bread and butter of the company - the customized software.
As such, since what is really being sold is a service, Mac, Linux, mainframes, etc., all have the same equivalent available. Just different structures on what to build it on.
Of course there are some IT professionals who don't want a database, firewall, commerce development system that are so linked that compromising one compromises the all.
Personally, I would think that you would want the best tools for the job at hand. The Microsoft solution is like the old all in one console stereos (turntable, radio, 8track, speakers, etc. in a big wooden case). They didn't last, because the convienence of having it all seemlessly linked together was fine for some, but most people would have made and ultimately did make different choices on the various components.
Microsoft's or anyone else's approach of one size fits all, usually means that one size fits no one.
All of those servers you listed are just that, but not too many people run them on their desktop.
Even for servers, there are other options besides the Microsoft provided solutions. Besides, if you are relying on Windows Server 2003 or 2000 and Exchange, then you really aren't talking about enterprise-level capabilities.
Of course, maybe those things do run on a S/390 and are really enterprise class applications.
While cable is faster than DSL, cable broadband is not universally available, nor is cable available everywhere.
This ruling isn't necessarily bad. The local cable company allows broadband without a cable subscription, but if you have a subscription, you get a large discount.
The same is/would be true for DSL if not required to be bundled. With such and such package, your DSL only costs $x amount. Without that package, it costs $xx. Most phone companies are already doing this, so this ruling is a non-issue.
Community wireless has a long way to go to be viable, sure a few cities offer it in select areas, but it's hardly universal.
Broadband via the power grid is much more likely. Every house has electricity, so the utility companies are already connected. You could have internet wherever you have an outlet. The technology is available and in use in some areas with more coming online. The only real downside is for the shortwave users. Evidently, it wrecks havock with reception.
As for the phone companies hurting in a few years because of low cable pricing, once the phone companies aren't a factor in broadband and assuming wireless or powergrid don't step up, the cable pricing won't be low, anymore. It's Econ 101.
I use it all the time. Well, everytime I share files with my secretary. Keep in mind that P2P is more than napster and the like. If you've ever set up Windows file sharing (or the Apple equivalent), you've used P2P.
If P2P is found to be illegal, then what does that mean for Microsoft? Doesn't Windows support P2P out of the box with it's netbios and workgroup networking?
I think he probably wanted them to rewrite things to be crossplatform. Java isn't a thin wrapper around the Solaris API, it's a completely redone API which uses Solaris as just one of many backends. It's not noticeably more Solaris-based than win32-based or anything else-based. By contrast.net is clearly completely based around windows, making it harder to port to other platforms, and arguably harder to use.
That will ultimately be the problem/downfall of.Net. It is so tied into the current Window's API that either a) new versions of Windows will need to limit what they do for backwards compatability or b).Net will morph into an unsightly mess of add-on features to keep up with Windows or c) future.Net will not be backwards compatable (or forwards, for that matter).
Based on Microsoft's past track record with development languages and APIs, I'd say option c is most likely to prevail.
I'm curious as to why you think win32 apps will still run on Longhorn? There were/are many win32 apps that failed to run on XP. Microsoft blamed the programmers. But if the compatability layer is actually compatable, then shouldn't they have worked?
Maybe Microsoft can grab a copy of Wine and use it for their compatability layer.
How exactly does being a "journalist" allow one to legally be an accessory after-the-fact to the commission of a crime?
Because the law in question that was violated states that it is illegal to publish the information if it violates a non-disclosure agreement.
This is not a freedom of the press issue and does not require the kid who runs the site to be officially declared a journalist or his site a member of the press. Whether he is or not, is mute, because the law specifically prohibits anybody, journalist or not, for publishing it.
Now, whether, he can be forced to divulge his informant depends on whether he is truly a journalist or not. My guess, is that running a web site where people can post comments and views does not make one a journalist (unless everyone registered at slashdot is now a journalist, too).
Besides, the kid might be better off if he weren't a journalist. As one, he must use due dilligence in the content he provides. As a kid, the courts might not say he needs that due dilligence as a professional journalist, he can persoanally be sued for damages caused by his story.
So, he might take the high, noble ground and win the battle by not divulging his source, but he may loose the war by being sued for a personally violating the law and causing damage to Apple.
If you make more noise about the grandparent post doing this than any other post on Slashdot that does this exact thing, then you are a hypocrit.
I haven't seen any other post on Slashdot about another company doing this. The article in question was about Microsoft doing this, so the posts are in reply to Microsoft doing it. (I know, it also mentions Philips in the article).
As I stated in my original post, on this subject, it's wrong for whomever to be doing it, whether they are Microsoft or not. But, the fact that others may be doing it does not diminish Microsoft's "lowliness" in anyway.
The sources are the ones that are breaking the confidentiality agreements and leaking the information to the media. The journalists are then doing their job and reporting the information to the world.
Well, if it is a crime to leak the information and the journalist, by receiving the leaked information is now participating in that crime by publishing it, then wouldn't they be an accomplice?
Don't get me wrong, I am all for freedom of the press, but if a crime is committed in getting the story, does that still apply?
If the journalist was doing a story on child pornography or rape and cooperated with the perpatrator in obtaining live footage, would people still be saying the source should be protected?
I would think that most people would say no. So, what's the difference? In both cases, a crime is committed in the process of getting a story. Granted, the severity of crime might be different, but the fact of the matter is that the law has been broken in both cases. Severity of the crime usually only impacts the punishment phase, not the findings themselves.
Journalism, like everything else has become so competivite, that people will do all kinds of things, legal or not, ethical or not, to be the first to break the story.
Let me ask this final question to the slashdot readers. If it had been Microsoft who directly got the leaked information and then published it, would people still be saying they (Microsoft) shouldn't have to reveal their source?
So you are saying that since some other companies may do this, too, that it's not low of Microsoft to do so?
No matter how many companies may or may not do this, doesn't make it right and Microsoft should be slammed for attempting it (along with any other company).
Since Bill Gates calls himself the Chief Architect at Microsoft, then any wrong-doings, evil or not, most definately are on his shoulders.
It's not that the 100 million isn't a lot of money, it just not a good return on investment. Assuming they get their asking price, after taxes, that's only around a 4%-6% return on investment. That's probably below IBM's threshhold and as the article states, it doesn't look like it's going to get better.
For any system as large as this is, it seems that they would be running a thin-client (whether java or.net). As such, the UI is going to be browser based and the design of such interface has nothing to do with Open Source development.
If, for instance, they used java on the back end (I know it's not open source) with websphere (neither is that), or even if they used jboss, the technology for building the interfaces is very well documented and tested.
I hear this argument all the time, but it doesn't hold water unless the enterprise is already using Windows XP (and then why the upgrade).
Going from any previous version of Windows (2000 on back) is going to require retraining and the older the version of Windows, the more training required. Being a government agency, they're probably not already running the greatest and the latest. So, regardless, with a platform switch, they will require new training. Then there is the new application. It will require the bulk of the new training, or at least the bulk of the costs associated with the training.
Any new enterprise wide system from the pc to the mainframe requires retraining, although I don't know if that includes of hundreds of I.T. staff. It's the application that drives the retraining, not the underlying operating system.
In the real world, stability, functionality and quality of the actual products are significantly more important than the initial cost of deployment.
Case in point, at my previous employment, in just one of the smaller "main" systems, a two hour outage would create a two week backlog in work if it occured during peak production seasons. 500 data entry employees sitting around without work and then playing catchup by paying overtime is far more costly than any retraining of IT staff. Besides, not every IT staff person has to be trained initially, just enough to keep the systems up and going (and their backup people, too). The training of the rest of the staff can proceed at a more orderly pace and at a reduced cost.
Anyway, that's my experience in managing IT for a large government organization.
Gentoo has it's advantages, but I'm not sure it can break out of it's current techie niche. Even if the process is pretty much automated, the average user is not going to want to wait to compile everything. Sure, a couple minutes here or there isn't a big thing, but compiling KDE is!
Granted, the big advantage to Gentoo, even if one doesn't want to tweak everything, is that with emerge, you can have the latest and greatest of whatever you want, without having to wait for someone else to package and distribute it.
I'm just not sure that the average user will see that as big of an advantage as it truly is. And for Gentoo to really be a contender on the desktop, it needs to grab the average user (Gentoo or any distro, for that matter).
Of course, someone with dial-up only as their connection to the internet, is probably less vulnerable to many of the exploits on the internet, because a) they aren't on-line most of the time and b) their IP address changes from connection to connection. The risk isn't eliminated, just reduced.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a KDE fan and decided to try Ubuntu. The jury is still out as to whether I will stick with gnome or install KDE. I haven't even yet made the decision to stick with Ubuntu, but thought I would give it a look and see what all the discussion is about. MEPIS is on my list to try, too.
But, not having a high speed internet connection would mean that any of the single CD distributions would be inadequate for your needs. Since, to get everything to fit on one single CD, something (and actually quite a few somethings) have to be left out.
The best bet for someone in that situation would be to look at one of the full featured distributions (Mandrake, Redhat/Fedora, Suse, etc.) that can ship a four or five CD set that would minimize the amount of software that you would need to download.
Ubuntu, Yoper, Gnoppix, etc. aren't really practical without a high speed connection, unless your sole purpose is to use them only as a live CD, in which case, you only get the applications that are pre-installed (Yoper at least offered different versions with different windowmanagers, but I'm not sure that's still the case).
Ubuntu and the other single CD distros might still be a better choice for someone on dial-up, if you are planning on downloading an ISO. At least with them, you only have to download one ISO image to have a completely working system, instead of four or five. The decision, then would be which one has the windowmanager/software selections that meet your needs?
Slashdot Mirror
"... that evolutionary theory, a theory that has been shown to explain the origins of life..."
While I believe in evolution, evolutionary theory does not explain the origins of life. It does explain the state of current life forms in existance today and how they may have gotten that way.
We can demonstrate evolution in numerous experiments today, with plant life and animal life. So we know evolution is a viable theory. However, the theory of evolution does not address, nor does it try to address the origins of life. It only tries to describe what happened to the life after it existed.
To those of Judeo-Christian Faith out there, evolution does not preclude God's act of Creation. It only describes how the process progressed after that initial creative force.
The biggest hangup with evolution and faith is with the origin of man. Evolution does not state that man evolved from monkeys. It does observe that there are a lot of similarities with other primates and we do share a lot of DNA.
But, evolution also allows for the similar traits to be caused by the environment. For instance, if an opposable thumb is advantagouss to grasping or standing upright in the brush is advantagous, then it is resonable from an evolutionary perspective that both humans and primates share these traits.
DNA sharing is also used to show by some who misunderstand evolution that we came from monkeys. It is true we share something like 96% of our DNA with chimpanzees. But we also share something like 91% with dogs and over half with sea cucumbers. Evolution theory does imply that we would share DNA, but it doesn't comment on whether it comes from inheritance or adaptation. Obviously, using the thumbs thing, from above, there are only so many ways for DNA to create a thumb. Furthermore, the majority of shared DNA between all species has to do with cellular function and basic tenets of live. Evolution does not disallow for that and as a matter of fact predicts that it would happen.
Even if it were somehow proven that man evolved from lower primates, it would not negate God's creation of man, but only further explain the how. At some point in time a pre-human gave birth to another pre-human that was a little bit closer to a human, that gave birth to another pre-human a little closer again, and on and on, until eventually a human is born and at which point God created man.
Back to the original comment though. Evolution, in simplified terms, states that things evolve and adapt to their environment and those traits which give an advantage tend to win out and thrive, becoming new species. It does not, however, say how life began (it's origins, so to speak). That debate is left to the philosophers and theologians.
As you stated, your office bought an expensive system because a consulting company told them they needed it and management bought it.
Our horror story is that our COO ordered all new computers for the company because a consultant told her that those celerons would never work, we need full blown pentium IVs.
Well, most of the celerons were 1.8ghz or greater and all of the software is run remotely using terminal services over DSL)
But, somehow, we have all new computers, running the same business apps just as slowly as before. But hey, at least they boot quicker and I must admit that solitaire is a lot faster!
The real problem isn't bogus surveys, it's management that buys whatever the consultant is selling, without stopping to verify the data.
When you are not feeling well and go to the doctor and he/she gives you a prescription. Are you paying for the doctor's office for a service or a solution?
When your business has problems and you call in a consultant, are you paying for a service or a solution?
If said consultant happens to be a computer consultant, you are still paying for a service.
Specifically, in the case you state about organizing records. Either the vendor is giving a canned package to the customer and training them on how to change the way they do business to accomodate the canned package or they are writing a custom package (or customizing one) so the software works with the way the customer does business.
Training is a service. Software programming is a service. They may provide the solution to the customer's problem (just like the doctor visit for the patient) but they are still a service.
Whether those are old versions or not aren't the issue. I don't know too many people who run out and buy a new office suite, firewall or antivirus just because a new version is released. It's only when the old version is no longer supported by the manufacturer (well for firewalls and AV programs). Businesses and government agencies upgrade even less frequently.
BTW, doesn't the Norton AV scheduled tasks at bootup also check for new updates of virus signatures? That's probably a pretty important task to break.
The problem is that the company your wife works for provides a solution based on keeping their Microsoft Reseller status. They would no more sell a non-Microsoft solution than the local Ford dealer would sell me a Toyota.
You state that "The product they sell is not a piece of software, it is an integrated package to solve a real world problem." I would guess that the company also makes a lot of money customizing said package to meat the customer's needs, since very few customers would need the exact same solution.
If so, then what the company is selling is not the solution at all. It is the software customization, a service, that is solving the real world problem. And the all Microsoft solution only provides the lockin to the real bread and butter of the company - the customized software.
As such, since what is really being sold is a service, Mac, Linux, mainframes, etc., all have the same equivalent available. Just different structures on what to build it on.
Of course there are some IT professionals who don't want a database, firewall, commerce development system that are so linked that compromising one compromises the all.
Personally, I would think that you would want the best tools for the job at hand. The Microsoft solution is like the old all in one console stereos (turntable, radio, 8track, speakers, etc. in a big wooden case). They didn't last, because the convienence of having it all seemlessly linked together was fine for some, but most people would have made and ultimately did make different choices on the various components.
Microsoft's or anyone else's approach of one size fits all, usually means that one size fits no one.
All of those servers you listed are just that, but not too many people run them on their desktop.
Even for servers, there are other options besides the Microsoft provided solutions. Besides, if you are relying on Windows Server 2003 or 2000 and Exchange, then you really aren't talking about enterprise-level capabilities.
Of course, maybe those things do run on a S/390 and are really enterprise class applications.
While cable is faster than DSL, cable broadband is not universally available, nor is cable available everywhere.
This ruling isn't necessarily bad. The local cable company allows broadband without a cable subscription, but if you have a subscription, you get a large discount.
The same is/would be true for DSL if not required to be bundled. With such and such package, your DSL only costs $x amount. Without that package, it costs $xx. Most phone companies are already doing this, so this ruling is a non-issue.
Community wireless has a long way to go to be viable, sure a few cities offer it in select areas, but it's hardly universal.
Broadband via the power grid is much more likely. Every house has electricity, so the utility companies are already connected. You could have internet wherever you have an outlet. The technology is available and in use in some areas with more coming online. The only real downside is for the shortwave users. Evidently, it wrecks havock with reception.
As for the phone companies hurting in a few years because of low cable pricing, once the phone companies aren't a factor in broadband and assuming wireless or powergrid don't step up, the cable pricing won't be low, anymore. It's Econ 101.
I use it all the time. Well, everytime I share files with my secretary. Keep in mind that P2P is more than napster and the like. If you've ever set up Windows file sharing (or the Apple equivalent), you've used P2P.
If P2P is found to be illegal, then what does that mean for Microsoft? Doesn't Windows support P2P out of the box with it's netbios and workgroup networking?
Must not have been doing much database work between 4,5 and 6 because it changed quite a bit between releases and service packs.
I think he probably wanted them to rewrite things to be crossplatform. Java isn't a thin wrapper around the Solaris API, it's a completely redone API which uses Solaris as just one of many backends. It's not noticeably more Solaris-based than win32-based or anything else-based. By contrast .net is clearly completely based around windows, making it harder to port to other platforms, and arguably harder to use.
.Net. It is so tied into the current Window's API that either a) new versions of Windows will need to limit what they do for backwards compatability or b) .Net will morph into an unsightly mess of add-on features to keep up with Windows or c) future .Net will not be backwards compatable (or forwards, for that matter).
That will ultimately be the problem/downfall of
Based on Microsoft's past track record with development languages and APIs, I'd say option c is most likely to prevail.
I'm curious as to why you think win32 apps will still run on Longhorn? There were/are many win32 apps that failed to run on XP. Microsoft blamed the programmers. But if the compatability layer is actually compatable, then shouldn't they have worked?
Maybe Microsoft can grab a copy of Wine and use it for their compatability layer.
.NET allows me to not have to worry that my API will change too much during development, and I can take advantages of patches.
That's what VB developers thought about VB3,4,5 and 6, too.
How exactly does being a "journalist" allow one to legally be an accessory after-the-fact to the commission of a crime?
Because the law in question that was violated states that it is illegal to publish the information if it violates a non-disclosure agreement.
This is not a freedom of the press issue and does not require the kid who runs the site to be officially declared a journalist or his site a member of the press. Whether he is or not, is mute, because the law specifically prohibits anybody, journalist or not, for publishing it.
Now, whether, he can be forced to divulge his informant depends on whether he is truly a journalist or not. My guess, is that running a web site where people can post comments and views does not make one a journalist (unless everyone registered at slashdot is now a journalist, too).
Besides, the kid might be better off if he weren't a journalist. As one, he must use due dilligence in the content he provides. As a kid, the courts might not say he needs that due dilligence as a professional journalist, he can persoanally be sued for damages caused by his story.
So, he might take the high, noble ground and win the battle by not divulging his source, but he may loose the war by being sued for a personally violating the law and causing damage to Apple.
If you make more noise about the grandparent post doing this than any other post on Slashdot that does this exact thing, then you are a hypocrit.
I haven't seen any other post on Slashdot about another company doing this. The article in question was about Microsoft doing this, so the posts are in reply to Microsoft doing it. (I know, it also mentions Philips in the article).
As I stated in my original post, on this subject, it's wrong for whomever to be doing it, whether they are Microsoft or not. But, the fact that others may be doing it does not diminish Microsoft's "lowliness" in anyway.
The sources are the ones that are breaking the confidentiality agreements and leaking the information to the media. The journalists are then doing their job and reporting the information to the world.
Well, if it is a crime to leak the information and the journalist, by receiving the leaked information is now participating in that crime by publishing it, then wouldn't they be an accomplice?
Don't get me wrong, I am all for freedom of the press, but if a crime is committed in getting the story, does that still apply?
If the journalist was doing a story on child pornography or rape and cooperated with the perpatrator in obtaining live footage, would people still be saying the source should be protected?
I would think that most people would say no. So, what's the difference? In both cases, a crime is committed in the process of getting a story. Granted, the severity of crime might be different, but the fact of the matter is that the law has been broken in both cases. Severity of the crime usually only impacts the punishment phase, not the findings themselves.
Journalism, like everything else has become so competivite, that people will do all kinds of things, legal or not, ethical or not, to be the first to break the story.
Let me ask this final question to the slashdot readers. If it had been Microsoft who directly got the leaked information and then published it, would people still be saying they (Microsoft) shouldn't have to reveal their source?
So you are saying that since some other companies may do this, too, that it's not low of Microsoft to do so? No matter how many companies may or may not do this, doesn't make it right and Microsoft should be slammed for attempting it (along with any other company). Since Bill Gates calls himself the Chief Architect at Microsoft, then any wrong-doings, evil or not, most definately are on his shoulders.
It's not that the 100 million isn't a lot of money, it just not a good return on investment. Assuming they get their asking price, after taxes, that's only around a 4%-6% return on investment. That's probably below IBM's threshhold and as the article states, it doesn't look like it's going to get better.
For any system as large as this is, it seems that they would be running a thin-client (whether java or .net). As such, the UI is going to be browser based and the design of such interface has nothing to do with Open Source development.
If, for instance, they used java on the back end (I know it's not open source) with websphere (neither is that), or even if they used jboss, the technology for building the interfaces is very well documented and tested.
I hear this argument all the time, but it doesn't hold water unless the enterprise is already using Windows XP (and then why the upgrade).
Going from any previous version of Windows (2000 on back) is going to require retraining and the older the version of Windows, the more training required. Being a government agency, they're probably not already running the greatest and the latest. So, regardless, with a platform switch, they will require new training. Then there is the new application. It will require the bulk of the new training, or at least the bulk of the costs associated with the training.
Any new enterprise wide system from the pc to the mainframe requires retraining, although I don't know if that includes of hundreds of I.T. staff. It's the application that drives the retraining, not the underlying operating system.
In the real world, stability, functionality and quality of the actual products are significantly more important than the initial cost of deployment.
Case in point, at my previous employment, in just one of the smaller "main" systems, a two hour outage would create a two week backlog in work if it occured during peak production seasons. 500 data entry employees sitting around without work and then playing catchup by paying overtime is far more costly than any retraining of IT staff. Besides, not every IT staff person has to be trained initially, just enough to keep the systems up and going (and their backup people, too). The training of the rest of the staff can proceed at a more orderly pace and at a reduced cost.
Anyway, that's my experience in managing IT for a large government organization.
Gentoo has it's advantages, but I'm not sure it can break out of it's current techie niche. Even if the process is pretty much automated, the average user is not going to want to wait to compile everything. Sure, a couple minutes here or there isn't a big thing, but compiling KDE is!
Granted, the big advantage to Gentoo, even if one doesn't want to tweak everything, is that with emerge, you can have the latest and greatest of whatever you want, without having to wait for someone else to package and distribute it.
I'm just not sure that the average user will see that as big of an advantage as it truly is. And for Gentoo to really be a contender on the desktop, it needs to grab the average user (Gentoo or any distro, for that matter).
Of course, someone with dial-up only as their connection to the internet, is probably less vulnerable to many of the exploits on the internet, because a) they aren't on-line most of the time and b) their IP address changes from connection to connection. The risk isn't eliminated, just reduced.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a KDE fan and decided to try Ubuntu. The jury is still out as to whether I will stick with gnome or install KDE. I haven't even yet made the decision to stick with Ubuntu, but thought I would give it a look and see what all the discussion is about. MEPIS is on my list to try, too.
But, not having a high speed internet connection would mean that any of the single CD distributions would be inadequate for your needs. Since, to get everything to fit on one single CD, something (and actually quite a few somethings) have to be left out.
The best bet for someone in that situation would be to look at one of the full featured distributions (Mandrake, Redhat/Fedora, Suse, etc.) that can ship a four or five CD set that would minimize the amount of software that you would need to download.
Ubuntu, Yoper, Gnoppix, etc. aren't really practical without a high speed connection, unless your sole purpose is to use them only as a live CD, in which case, you only get the applications that are pre-installed (Yoper at least offered different versions with different windowmanagers, but I'm not sure that's still the case).
Ubuntu and the other single CD distros might still be a better choice for someone on dial-up, if you are planning on downloading an ISO. At least with them, you only have to download one ISO image to have a completely working system, instead of four or five. The decision, then would be which one has the windowmanager/software selections that meet your needs?