Why Norway and others will sell to US in dollars? This is because of 2 reasons; It is more profitable to sell it to US dollar because the price is higher and another reason that is more important, which is not to antagonize USA (like what Saudi Arabia is doing at the recent OPEC summit - even the kingdom is not that stupid to do so).
Norway and others can do it because oil contracts are signed in length measured in months, not years, to take into account of fluctuating oil prices? Did you ever seen oil contracts signed in terms of years?
You apparently do not understand how the oil market works. If OPEC switch currencies, do you think non-members will follow suit? Why would they if they (non-members) can keep oil price high by staying with US dollars? Norway (and others non-members) will be scrambling to sell to US and China (who will buy in US dollars too because yuan is tied with US dollars) leaving OPEC members who just seen their reserve plummets with Vietnam Dong. Norway and others will make sure USA at least will be served even if this means that they have to reduce shipments to other countries.
And Vietnam will not like it that their currency is used as denomination for oil. They will surely do it like China and tied it to the US dollar or a basket of currencies such as the mix of US dollar and Japanese yen etc if that happen.
If OPEC elects to sell in Vietnam Dongs (which is highly unlikely to happen), USA will simply buy from non-OPEC members such as Norway, Malaysia, Brunei etc. There are shitload of oil producers out there that are not members of OPEC. If OPEC switch to Dongs while non-members oil producers sells in US dollars, OPEC members will be priced out by non-members and their revenue will drop because of the decreasing oil price caused by competition between OPEC and non-OPEC members.
OPEC is not that stupid if you ask me. There is no way they will make the oil market to be sold in 2 different currencies (in your scenario, US dollars vs Vietnam Dong). This will cause competition between the 2 and oil prices will heavily drops.
You are the one who does not know how the oil industry works.
I assume you are talking about oil, right? No, US dollar will not be replaced with other currencies anytime soon. The 2 biggest oil consumers in the world is still USA (the currency which oil is traded with) and China (who tied their currency with US dollars - thus what happened to US dollars also affect theirs). So no, you are the one who doesn't know how reality really works.
If US practice hardcore isolationism, the China Prime Minister will quickly comes to the White House and kiss whoever in charge' asses just to ask him/her to reverse that decision. US is powerful enough to retaliate and kill China economically if pushed to the corner. This can even be done without sending a single soldier for an invasion.
If USA practices isolation, the rest of the world will panic, not relieved.
The thing that is patent-encumbered is the.NET thing, not the language. If C# has problems with submarine patents, it will not be approved as an ISO standard.
Now, you are right; as I have already said, Writer isn't clearly better - it is also subject to bizarre glitches where bullet points want to change their formatting, unasked non-deletable blank lines insert themselves between tables, page breaks seemingly have more memory than they have control interface, and so on. But as I say, Open Office isn't more expensive to use, and it is much cheaper to buy. So until someone figures out how to make a product that uses what we learned from Emacs and TeX and package it for the end user (and, please note, the attempts to make LaTeX-based word processors are the exact opposite of what I mean - it's the power, not the lameness, of previous research that should be preserved!), it's still Writer for me. While O.O is not expensive to buy, it is more expensive to use. Unless of course you can demonstrate that people can switch without being trained. Even switching from Office 2003 to 2007 need some kind of retraining, don't get me started on Office --> O.O migration. Just like someone else says in this article comments, it is the users that are most expensive, not the software.
There are plenty of people out there that are more proficient in Office suite compared to those that is good at O.O suite, to the point they do not have to struggle with paragraphs for a whole afternoon. This by itself gives an advantage over O.O when it comes to the PHB CIO deciding which suite he/she wants to deploy.
The problems with that are it is not feasible for high-volume of documents to be rewritten, especially those written by extinct software and most importantly, spreadsheets. And if you can find the author of the spreadsheets to rewrite them again (usually, auditors/accountants who wrote them are hired on contractual basis).
I think ODF is already set in stone after being approved by ISO. Why would extensions to that is needed just to support bells and whistles in the myriads of text document/spreadsheet/graphic/formula/presentation formats out there? Those extensions must be ISO-approved too or else using ODF is pointless.
The best way to do this is to have a silver-bullet converter than can seamlessly convert all formats (Microsoft or non-Microsoft) to ODF, 100% fidelity, no loss of formatting and features. This is even more important especially for spreadsheets. Spreadsheets conversion must be reliable 100% of the time, with no margin of error.
Stop using Office 95 and upgrade. Word 2003 (didn't have 2007) do not have the problem, and if you need a fracking after noon to solve it (assuming it exists) I doubt your skills in using a word processor. Using Writer will probably not help you.
For completeness, here's the ODF approach one more time: Adopt ODF. Use existing FOSS to convert documents to ODF for archival purposes. If the documents don't convert properly, tell the author to rewrite them in good form, without the stupid bells and whistles. Use existing FOSS and slack time to convert old archived material to ODF for long term storage. 2 issues with the above:- Where is this existing FOSS apps/converter that can convert other documents format to ODF? Open Office?
And why must authors waste their time rewriting documents (that can be years old) properly so that the afore-mentioned FOSS program/converter can convert them? Speadsheets (like Quattro and Excel) are the culprit here. So are complex Word documents. Bells and whistles, contrary to what you may think, is important. There is no way authors will do away with their VB scripts and/or nested bullets/comments/annotations etc.
Flash in its current incarnation is not a good enough environment for a DESKTOP application. I think what you want can be more easily archived with Java instead.
Multiforest Active Directory support is important, unless you have to manage 2 separate identity databases. If someone from Europe comes to our regional office here in Malaysia, he/she better be able to see all his/her e-mail/calendar/contacts (they are still using Exchange) as if he/she in their native workplace. Integration with AD and other Exchange servers is important.
At last, someone who has migrated away from Exchange Server!
Can you give some insight on how well integrated it is with multi-forest Active Directory setup, how well it interacts with Exchange servers from other offices around the globe that is part of the same WAN and whether it can replace Office Communication Server (important)?
There are alternatives for all Microsoft Office ecosystem components out there. The trick is to integrate them. Which no one has figured out how to do yet.
Your opinion may be correct a few years ago, but not now. Now Microsoft Office interfaces with not only Exchange Server, but also SharePoint Server, Live Communication Server, Groove Server etc. Exchange Server is not only a small part of a tightly-knit Microsoft Office ecosystem that Microsoft has created in the past few years. Not only that, the ecosystem works very well with other parts of Microsoft products such as their server products and of course, Microsoft Windows.
Steven Sinofsky is not that stupid, he already sees the threat of alternative FOSS to his former division and he changed the game. Alternatives may exists for components in the Microsoft Office world, but having them work together the way Microsoft Office ecosystem does is impossible.
FOSS main advantages for those PHBs, more often than not, is the cost. They did not give an ass whether the software is open-source or not, unless they have their own developers. If they found out that they are not saving money, closed-source will still be chosen despite being inferior as long as they are cheaper.
Microsoft will not turn off activation servers if Vista is EOL 10 years from now or so. And BTW, using Vista is not a crime in any country, whatever you think.
Basically what you are saying that there are plenty of hacks out there that can do both remote code execution AND privilege elevation on Windows, right?
Can you show me one of those hacks at Secunia or something?
Microsoft Outlook is not an e-mail client, it does much more than that. Tight intergration with that SharePoint Server is one thing Thunderbird can't really do. Calendaring, RSS aggregation, ability to use enterprise search appliances etc.
One thing OpenOffice can really do is intergration with services like WSS/MOSS or other non-Microsoft alternatives from IBM etc.
Releasing codes to public domain is harder with more paperwork. For example, just because I release my code to public domain in USA, it does not mean the codes will be public domain across the world. Need more paperworks to ensures that will happen. With BSD, copyright laws can be used to essentially made codes almost public domain.
Apple does not do what you have described. What Apple has done is taking some BSD-licensed code then put their own proprietary shit (things that are not open in the first place) on top of it. When Apple makes changes to any BSD codes, they usually return the changes upstream. Just look at Webkit for an example.
Do you really think Apple will release codes that are closed-sourced in the first place? Apple has almost always released their changes back to the developers.
If China is pushed to the edge, it is certainly will put USA in some kind of recession. But that recession will not last forever. And when it is over, retaliation by USA towards China will be harsh to say the least. This is even more possible with Democrats-controlled Capitol Hill and later with a (highly probable) Democrat president. And everyone knows Democrats representatives hates China more than Republicans do.
If the second person made the software better and then closed it without returning modification to the source, basically the second person has just forked the original software.
Now the question is, will the second person continues to take further enhancements made by the first person or went on improving the code he/she has just forked by him/herself without taking improvements made by the original author made after the fork?
If it was the former, the second person software will always be behind the first person software, and he/she has to fight potential interference made by the first person that will conflict with the enhancements made by the second person. The second person reputation will be lower too because everyone will view him/her as leeching bastard or something. This may or may not force second person to contribute back to first person.
If it was the latter, the 2 projects will eventually diverged into different directions as the first person does not bothered to reverse-engineer enhancements made by the second person and instead make his/her own enhancements (and also may reimplementing second person enhancements). In this case, the second person software will not necessarily become a de facto software, after all, there is a different alternative that will be free in freedom and cost.
The only scenario where your speculation comes true is if the first person did not want to improve his/her software.
Slashdot Mirror
Why Norway and others will sell to US in dollars? This is because of 2 reasons; It is more profitable to sell it to US dollar because the price is higher and another reason that is more important, which is not to antagonize USA (like what Saudi Arabia is doing at the recent OPEC summit - even the kingdom is not that stupid to do so).
Norway and others can do it because oil contracts are signed in length measured in months, not years, to take into account of fluctuating oil prices? Did you ever seen oil contracts signed in terms of years?
You apparently do not understand how the oil market works. If OPEC switch currencies, do you think non-members will follow suit? Why would they if they (non-members) can keep oil price high by staying with US dollars? Norway (and others non-members) will be scrambling to sell to US and China (who will buy in US dollars too because yuan is tied with US dollars) leaving OPEC members who just seen their reserve plummets with Vietnam Dong. Norway and others will make sure USA at least will be served even if this means that they have to reduce shipments to other countries.
And Vietnam will not like it that their currency is used as denomination for oil. They will surely do it like China and tied it to the US dollar or a basket of currencies such as the mix of US dollar and Japanese yen etc if that happen.
If OPEC elects to sell in Vietnam Dongs (which is highly unlikely to happen), USA will simply buy from non-OPEC members such as Norway, Malaysia, Brunei etc. There are shitload of oil producers out there that are not members of OPEC. If OPEC switch to Dongs while non-members oil producers sells in US dollars, OPEC members will be priced out by non-members and their revenue will drop because of the decreasing oil price caused by competition between OPEC and non-OPEC members.
OPEC is not that stupid if you ask me. There is no way they will make the oil market to be sold in 2 different currencies (in your scenario, US dollars vs Vietnam Dong). This will cause competition between the 2 and oil prices will heavily drops.
You are the one who does not know how the oil industry works.
I assume you are talking about oil, right? No, US dollar will not be replaced with other currencies anytime soon. The 2 biggest oil consumers in the world is still USA (the currency which oil is traded with) and China (who tied their currency with US dollars - thus what happened to US dollars also affect theirs). So no, you are the one who doesn't know how reality really works.
If US practice hardcore isolationism, the China Prime Minister will quickly comes to the White House and kiss whoever in charge' asses just to ask him/her to reverse that decision. US is powerful enough to retaliate and kill China economically if pushed to the corner. This can even be done without sending a single soldier for an invasion.
If USA practices isolation, the rest of the world will panic, not relieved.
The thing that is patent-encumbered is the .NET thing, not the language. If C# has problems with submarine patents, it will not be approved as an ISO standard.
C# is an ISO standard, so your claim that it is PATENT encumbered is FUD to the max!
There are plenty of people out there that are more proficient in Office suite compared to those that is good at O.O suite, to the point they do not have to struggle with paragraphs for a whole afternoon. This by itself gives an advantage over O.O when it comes to the PHB CIO deciding which suite he/she wants to deploy.
The problems with that are it is not feasible for high-volume of documents to be rewritten, especially those written by extinct software and most importantly, spreadsheets. And if you can find the author of the spreadsheets to rewrite them again (usually, auditors/accountants who wrote them are hired on contractual basis).
I think ODF is already set in stone after being approved by ISO. Why would extensions to that is needed just to support bells and whistles in the myriads of text document/spreadsheet/graphic/formula/presentation formats out there? Those extensions must be ISO-approved too or else using ODF is pointless.
The best way to do this is to have a silver-bullet converter than can seamlessly convert all formats (Microsoft or non-Microsoft) to ODF, 100% fidelity, no loss of formatting and features. This is even more important especially for spreadsheets. Spreadsheets conversion must be reliable 100% of the time, with no margin of error.
Stop using Office 95 and upgrade. Word 2003 (didn't have 2007) do not have the problem, and if you need a fracking after noon to solve it (assuming it exists) I doubt your skills in using a word processor. Using Writer will probably not help you.
Where is this existing FOSS apps/converter that can convert other documents format to ODF? Open Office?
And why must authors waste their time rewriting documents (that can be years old) properly so that the afore-mentioned FOSS program/converter can convert them? Speadsheets (like Quattro and Excel) are the culprit here. So are complex Word documents. Bells and whistles, contrary to what you may think, is important. There is no way authors will do away with their VB scripts and/or nested bullets/comments/annotations etc.
Flash in its current incarnation is not a good enough environment for a DESKTOP application. I think what you want can be more easily archived with Java instead.
Multiforest Active Directory support is important, unless you have to manage 2 separate identity databases. If someone from Europe comes to our regional office here in Malaysia, he/she better be able to see all his/her e-mail/calendar/contacts (they are still using Exchange) as if he/she in their native workplace. Integration with AD and other Exchange servers is important.
At last, someone who has migrated away from Exchange Server!
Can you give some insight on how well integrated it is with multi-forest Active Directory setup, how well it interacts with Exchange servers from other offices around the globe that is part of the same WAN and whether it can replace Office Communication Server (important)?
There are alternatives for all Microsoft Office ecosystem components out there. The trick is to integrate them. Which no one has figured out how to do yet.
Your opinion may be correct a few years ago, but not now. Now Microsoft Office interfaces with not only Exchange Server, but also SharePoint Server, Live Communication Server, Groove Server etc. Exchange Server is not only a small part of a tightly-knit Microsoft Office ecosystem that Microsoft has created in the past few years. Not only that, the ecosystem works very well with other parts of Microsoft products such as their server products and of course, Microsoft Windows.
Steven Sinofsky is not that stupid, he already sees the threat of alternative FOSS to his former division and he changed the game. Alternatives may exists for components in the Microsoft Office world, but having them work together the way Microsoft Office ecosystem does is impossible.
FOSS main advantages for those PHBs, more often than not, is the cost. They did not give an ass whether the software is open-source or not, unless they have their own developers. If they found out that they are not saving money, closed-source will still be chosen despite being inferior as long as they are cheaper.
Microsoft will not turn off activation servers if Vista is EOL 10 years from now or so. And BTW, using Vista is not a crime in any country, whatever you think.
Basically what you are saying that there are plenty of hacks out there that can do both remote code execution AND privilege elevation on Windows, right? Can you show me one of those hacks at Secunia or something?
Microsoft Outlook is not an e-mail client, it does much more than that. Tight intergration with that SharePoint Server is one thing Thunderbird can't really do. Calendaring, RSS aggregation, ability to use enterprise search appliances etc.
One thing OpenOffice can really do is intergration with services like WSS/MOSS or other non-Microsoft alternatives from IBM etc.
BSD license is not a "do what you will" license, more like a "do what you will, but put our names on your software too" license.
Releasing codes to public domain is harder with more paperwork. For example, just because I release my code to public domain in USA, it does not mean the codes will be public domain across the world. Need more paperworks to ensures that will happen. With BSD, copyright laws can be used to essentially made codes almost public domain.
Apple does not do what you have described. What Apple has done is taking some BSD-licensed code then put their own proprietary shit (things that are not open in the first place) on top of it. When Apple makes changes to any BSD codes, they usually return the changes upstream. Just look at Webkit for an example.
Do you really think Apple will release codes that are closed-sourced in the first place? Apple has almost always released their changes back to the developers.
If China is pushed to the edge, it is certainly will put USA in some kind of recession. But that recession will not last forever. And when it is over, retaliation by USA towards China will be harsh to say the least. This is even more possible with Democrats-controlled Capitol Hill and later with a (highly probable) Democrat president. And everyone knows Democrats representatives hates China more than Republicans do.
If the second person made the software better and then closed it without returning modification to the source, basically the second person has just forked the original software.
Now the question is, will the second person continues to take further enhancements made by the first person or went on improving the code he/she has just forked by him/herself without taking improvements made by the original author made after the fork?
If it was the former, the second person software will always be behind the first person software, and he/she has to fight potential interference made by the first person that will conflict with the enhancements made by the second person. The second person reputation will be lower too because everyone will view him/her as leeching bastard or something. This may or may not force second person to contribute back to first person.
If it was the latter, the 2 projects will eventually diverged into different directions as the first person does not bothered to reverse-engineer enhancements made by the second person and instead make his/her own enhancements (and also may reimplementing second person enhancements). In this case, the second person software will not necessarily become a de facto software, after all, there is a different alternative that will be free in freedom and cost.
The only scenario where your speculation comes true is if the first person did not want to improve his/her software.