Do remember that in the XIXth century WASPS crossed the border in to mexico and slowly but surely occupied half of the country. So I guess WASP Texans used to be illegal aliens. Borders are ridicuolous and history goes beyond them. Remember de Monroe doctrine? The Manifest Destiny? All forms of rationalization, but now WASP Americans are seeing the reverse trend, and like mexicans before them they don't like it either.
I have this theory: it is due to american isolationism. Americans would rather believe (from 1950-2001) that their biggest threat came from outer space. The goverment was happy with that belief; it let them do as they pleased in other parts of the world ---guatemala, iran, cuba, chile, vietnam, grenada, panama, etc---while the american people speculated on alien abductions. It all ended the 11th of september of 2001. Now it is all a nostalgia of a better time.
You know what? I completely disagree with you. You are assuming that once you learn ONE os at an early age it is set in stone. As if you couldn't learn to use another. Or even two or three. You underestimate kids. People who grew up in the 80s know for a fact that this isn't true. My school's computer lab had 3 NEC with some kind of propietary os that we all learned to make BASIC programs. Then came the Apple IIe's and we had to learn DOS 3.2 and 3.3. My mother bought me my first computer, an Apple//c, and then I had to learn ProDOS. Next there was a Mac plus on which I ran MAC-OS 4 thru 6. Then a Mac quadra 605 (system 7-8). As soon as I started working it was MS-DOS, and all the windows. Three years ago I switched to linux. It wasn't so hard mainly because I was used to switching OS's. In fact the most difficult switch was from mac to windows 3.11. I now find myself costumizing gnome to match a lot of the original mac-os functionality (although not the windows decorations). But you know it isn't that difficult for me to figure out how to make gtk and metacity themes, had it not been for those BASIC programs I made in the NEC's and the apples.
I hate that they teach children today to use powerpoint and word. The argument that it is what they will need when working is absurd. If that where true I would have been terribly hindered by my lack of knowledge of wordstar, lotus and dbase when I got my high-school degree. I learned to use computers. And I can adapt myself to computers. I think this project aims at that type of experience that will make children better computer users and not merely software consumers. By the way this I'm describing happened to me in Colombia. So the preconceived notion some of you have about the third world use some updating.
1. Computer users from 20 years ago were very different from computer users today. In a way their profession WAS to USE a computer. That is a huge difference. And that difference explains why it would be a good idea to have open software. Because professionals would obviously want to have absolute control over their tools.
2. Today's user couldn't care less about this computer tool. And that explains why closed source software is in facto more popular than open source software, as the parent has explained.
3. BUT, free and open source software CAN help its users establish a different relationship with technology. That is very important. Not in pragmatic sense, but in a political and, more importantly in a philosophical way. And although most computer users of today don't care about these issues it doesn't make them unimportant.
4. Apart from the software released by the FSF (which is an enormous contribution), the GPL and the political and philosophical issues that are implied in it have opened to a large amount of people a discussion that may have been restricted to a small circle of academics. That is very important because the debate on intellectual property will be very important all along this century.
5. FOSS have provided an very viable option to rethink a tool that most people ignore.
Remember: it's not just religion, it is religion + money. it is religion plus money from oil. and it is an explosive cocktail on both sides (the USA and Islamic fundamentalism). DON'T forget OIL.
but you miss the point. they don't switch for technical reasons. they switch because the got tired of DRM (something that few people dare to discuss about osX). to them percieved technical advantages (and that is open to discussion specially since these are power users who can tweak both operating systems), are not worth it when compared to DRM hindraces. Although this may sound political in the end taking a firm stand against it by switching will send a message. of course two users aren't much of a statement. but if it does get to the news probably more people can switch to free alternatives. in other words, RTFA.
a name is a name. software names have always been arbitrary. Even so since the seventies. As everyone has pointed out MS names and i names are equally arbitrary. Perhaps backed up by a more efficient marketing machine. But there is something I particularily enjoy in GNU/linux and Unix names: humor. Something that even people in att/bell labs afforded (for example: more and less). This humorous approach to naming relates to the way you name your tools, and speaks of coding as a loving craft. I might sound a little hippie, but I feel sometimes the attitude towards computer software gets too serious in areas where it doesn't need to be serious. Tex error messages are sometimes very funny + intelligent.
You can always use a live cd and test things.
I did this with my hp pavilion dv1000. no problem whatsoever. runs ubuntu. 100% free open source software. everything supported. just pop in a live cd and check it yourself.
once you have total failure there is no turning back. electronic information is useless. even paper information is useless. you will be on your own. perhaps it is a good idea to have a plan for the future and forget the past. forget new york, forget everything every man and woman for themselves. or perhaps constitute new tribes based upon mutual colaborations. if you take these things with you you are expecting to come back. but what if there isn't anything to return to.
I used to think the same myself. But just yesterday I gave UBUNTU Breezy a try. It works perfectly. Recognized all my hardware (HP Pavillion dv1000 laptop) and since I used OSS only in windows all my data is working smoothly. I do think that cross-platform OSS is the way to lure non-techie users out of windows. It worked for me (philosopher)
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Do remember that in the XIXth century WASPS crossed the border in to mexico and slowly but surely occupied half of the country. So I guess WASP Texans used to be illegal aliens. Borders are ridicuolous and history goes beyond them. Remember de Monroe doctrine? The Manifest Destiny? All forms of rationalization, but now WASP Americans are seeing the reverse trend, and like mexicans before them they don't like it either.
I have this theory: it is due to american isolationism. Americans would rather believe (from 1950-2001) that their biggest threat came from outer space. The goverment was happy with that belief; it let them do as they pleased in other parts of the world ---guatemala, iran, cuba, chile, vietnam, grenada, panama, etc---while the american people speculated on alien abductions. It all ended the 11th of september of 2001. Now it is all a nostalgia of a better time.
You know what? I completely disagree with you. You are assuming that once you learn ONE os at an early age it is set in stone. As if you couldn't learn to use another. Or even two or three. You underestimate kids. People who grew up in the 80s know for a fact that this isn't true. My school's computer lab had 3 NEC with some kind of propietary os that we all learned to make BASIC programs. Then came the Apple IIe's and we had to learn DOS 3.2 and 3.3. My mother bought me my first computer, an Apple //c, and then I had to learn ProDOS. Next there was a Mac plus on which I ran MAC-OS 4 thru 6. Then a Mac quadra 605 (system 7-8). As soon as I started working it was MS-DOS, and all the windows. Three years ago I switched to linux. It wasn't so hard mainly because I was used to switching OS's. In fact the most difficult switch was from mac to windows 3.11. I now find myself costumizing gnome to match a lot of the original mac-os functionality (although not the windows decorations). But you know it isn't that difficult for me to figure out how to make gtk and metacity themes, had it not been for those BASIC programs I made in the NEC's and the apples.
I hate that they teach children today to use powerpoint and word. The argument that it is what they will need when working is absurd. If that where true I would have been terribly hindered by my lack of knowledge of wordstar, lotus and dbase when I got my high-school degree. I learned to use computers. And I can adapt myself to computers. I think this project aims at that type of experience that will make children better computer users and not merely software consumers. By the way this I'm describing happened to me in Colombia. So the preconceived notion some of you have about the third world use some updating.
there were tabs in AppleWorks for the apple //. I remember because I worked all the way thru highscool using AppleWorks.
1. Computer users from 20 years ago were very different from computer users today. In a way their profession WAS to USE a computer. That is a huge difference. And that difference explains why it would be a good idea to have open software. Because professionals would obviously want to have absolute control over their tools. 2. Today's user couldn't care less about this computer tool. And that explains why closed source software is in facto more popular than open source software, as the parent has explained. 3. BUT, free and open source software CAN help its users establish a different relationship with technology. That is very important. Not in pragmatic sense, but in a political and, more importantly in a philosophical way. And although most computer users of today don't care about these issues it doesn't make them unimportant. 4. Apart from the software released by the FSF (which is an enormous contribution), the GPL and the political and philosophical issues that are implied in it have opened to a large amount of people a discussion that may have been restricted to a small circle of academics. That is very important because the debate on intellectual property will be very important all along this century. 5. FOSS have provided an very viable option to rethink a tool that most people ignore.
Remember:
it's not just religion, it is religion + money.
it is religion plus money from oil.
and it is an explosive cocktail on both sides (the USA and Islamic fundamentalism).
DON'T forget OIL.
but you miss the point.
they don't switch for technical reasons. they switch because the got tired of DRM (something that few people dare to discuss about osX). to them percieved technical advantages (and that is open to discussion specially since these are power users who can tweak both operating systems), are not worth it when compared to DRM hindraces.
Although this may sound political in the end taking a firm stand against it by switching will send a message.
of course two users aren't much of a statement. but if it does get to the news probably more people can switch to free alternatives.
in other words, RTFA.
a name is a name.
software names have always been arbitrary. Even so since the seventies. As everyone has pointed out MS names and i names are equally arbitrary. Perhaps backed up by a more efficient marketing machine. But there is something I particularily enjoy in GNU/linux and Unix names: humor. Something that even people in att/bell labs afforded (for example: more and less). This humorous approach to naming relates to the way you name your tools, and speaks of coding as a loving craft. I might sound a little hippie, but I feel sometimes the attitude towards computer software gets too serious in areas where it doesn't need to be serious. Tex error messages are sometimes very funny + intelligent.
You can always use a live cd and test things. I did this with my hp pavilion dv1000. no problem whatsoever. runs ubuntu. 100% free open source software. everything supported. just pop in a live cd and check it yourself.
once you have total failure there is no turning back. electronic information is useless. even paper information is useless. you will be on your own. perhaps it is a good idea to have a plan for the future and forget the past. forget new york, forget everything every man and woman for themselves. or perhaps constitute new tribes based upon mutual colaborations. if you take these things with you you are expecting to come back. but what if there isn't anything to return to.
I used to think the same myself. But just yesterday I gave UBUNTU Breezy a try. It works perfectly. Recognized all my hardware (HP Pavillion dv1000 laptop) and since I used OSS only in windows all my data is working smoothly. I do think that cross-platform OSS is the way to lure non-techie users out of windows. It worked for me (philosopher)