No. They get criticized for not doing features properly. My iBook with a lowly 1.33GHz proc, a mere gig of RAM, and nothing more than a ATI Mobility Radeon 9550 with 32 megs of video memory looks *stunning* and does things that from what we have seen so far Vista can only dream about.
What's more impressive is that my wife's school gave her a 3 year old iBook, that I bet isn't even 1 GHz, and it's running OSX with all the shinyness and cool animations. They actually run smoothly on the old machine!!
Of course, when I fill out comments on forums and on slashdot, I can finish my sentence before the iBook catches up to the 4th or 5th word. I then move back to my AMD64 widescreen laptop with dual layer dvd burner etc. that only cost $1,000 USD and happily do 3d rendering, programming, and forum posting without worrying about delays in visuals or processing. (of course, I also use Ubuntu Linux rather than Windows, but that's because, once again, I choose performance over popularity.)
With that said, I hope this works out for Windows, it looks like a smart move, and could potentially bring heightened levels of GUI customization if 3rd parties can get a peek at some Kernel APIs and whatnot. (note to readers: I know nothing of kernel development and video processing, so I'm just saying what I think might sound smart, but probably isn't true. I also think Apple is cool for giving back to the BSD community, but still like Ubuntu since that's what I'm running, and whatever I'm running is obviously the best, otherwise why would I run it?)
I spent 3 days learning the differences between Linux web serving and Windows web serving. I have been using linux for a few years, and the Windows 2003 webserver was the only Windows server in the server room. Everything else was linux based or Netware based. The IT Professional was a Microsoft fanatic, and refused to learn anything new, and left me with a bitter taste because she ignored the reccomendations of myself, other staff members, the previous person in her position, and the department that shared the server room with us. Because she was officially our LAN Administrator, our department listened to her. Now we are left with a server with nobody knowing how to fully support it, and she did not document what she had done to get it working.
I was exaggerating, yes, about getting the webserver up and running, but it did take 2 weeks to have the software mailed to us, because we are a not-for-profit university and we had problems with getting the software from our vendor without paying taxes. The IT Professional I was talking about then spent an extra 2 weeks getting the server up and running because it was not as simple as she thought. I have gotten IIS servers up within an hour just fine, but she was learning how to have multiple IPs on the same machine, and was trying to learn ASP so she could make the applications herself.
The point of the post was that there are 2 very common types of IT Professionals, and 1 very rare type:
Common Types:
1. Very intelligent, but ignored by their manager.
2. Very gullible/opinionated, and listened to by their manager.
Rare Type:
1. Very intelligent, and listened to by their manager.
So the point is, to avoid fanatics (both Open Source and Closed source), it sometimes helps if your organization gets together and chooses a standard to follow.
I think that more than one person should be involved in the research of what document format to choose, and that it should be opened to the public forum. I find it amusing that a non-IT individual is saying a bureaucrat should not make the decision for 2000 IT professionals, but by blocking this decision, the non-IT bureaucrat is doing just that. Unless, of course, all IT departments in the government offices in MA are using whatever each individual IT Professional feels like, in which case there could be any number of file formats floating around.
All in all, I think a decision should be made, and IT Professionals and the general public should be involved in the decision. IT Professionals, who have a $430 copy of Office 2003 Professional handed to them free-of-charge, should not be enforcing that as a standard that individuals who clip coupons for a $0.30 can of chicken noodle soup are going to have to follow.
The last time I was in an IT position as a developer/data analyst at a fortune 100 company, myself and the other memebers of the team kept saying, "Hey ******, things are technilogically bad here, and the IT department agrees, we really need to step things up and make the following 5 changes: ", (then we listed 5 boring, but neccessary changes).
So after that, ****** decided to hire a team of IBM consultants to determine what the real problem was. They promptly had a meeting with us, where we shared our 5 changes that needed to be made, and were told a week later that IBM came up with 5 amazing outside-the-box changes to turn the company around.
A year and a half later, I'm at a different job where I make the decisions, and ****** is in the same position they were before, with more and more money being poured into consultants while the IT professionals remain unheard.
And, just another warning about IT professionals: I had a boss once that refused to allow me to install a Linux-based webserver, and instead poured over $800 into software simply to run IIS. It took a few weeks to get the software in, another week to get it configured, and yet another week to lock it down tight and get the file permissions to run properly. (keep in mind IIS kindly ignores windows file permissions on a fairly random basis, at least from my experience.) Now that that IT Professional has left to do ASP development elsewhere, I spent 3 days learning how to set up a linux webserver and lock it down, and 1 day actually carrying out what I learned. It has thus far cost us nothing, and we have yet to get a virus.
IT professionals are the #1 target it seems for Microsoft donations, so its no wonder most are drooling over Microsoft Office software. Most individuals I've worked with (even the Microsoft Certified Developers) have chosen Open Source solutions this past year because of how much they've developed, and how easy they are to work with. Maybe we need a bureaucratic geek to make the decisions anyway, since the self proclaimed IT Professionals either aren't doing such a hot job, or don't have the power to make these decisions anyway.
One last bit of info: forcing the use of non-proprietary software for developing publically available documents should be federal law by now, IMO, and using proprietary software should be considered obstructing access to the public domain. Why not tear down the wheelchair ramps while we're at it? And if Microsoft is truly non-proprietary in their new XML format, then let's use that too, but don't side with a single vendor when a globally available standard is sitting there, free of charge, easy to implement, waiting to be taken advantage of.
Most for-profit vendors have always been just that, For Profit. Most Open Source solutions and free-domain solutions set forth by not-for-profit organizations have been just that, Not For Profit. If something isn't for profit, and isn't for political gain, then odds are it is strictly being developed for the betterment of society. I guess the honest question now, when confronted with accepting the logically obvious decision, is "Why start now?", to which I say, "To make up for lost times."
Way to be a closed minded zealot. This just in: Christianity wants to ruin our fun! If something seems bad, but is fun, let's jump the gun and blame all of Christianity before anything even happens.
It's like when I went to the store and I couldn't buy alchohol before noon one Sunday. I was told it was because those crazy Christians are so stubborn. Rubbish! I'm a Christian and I want a beer now! I'm a Christian and I want.xxx domains! Stop blaming an entire religion just because their standards are different than yours. Should a soccer player hate football players because football players use their hands? No, and a non-Christian should not hate/blame Christians just because Christians have different standards.
Most slashdot readers like Open Source, so their standards are different than capitalistic America. Does that mean when Windows Vista doesn't have a media player built in all the capitalists should ignorantly say, "No matter what we do, those slashdotters extremist groups keep screwing things up. Stupid Open Source hippies.".
I do respect the fact that you narrowed it down to "Christian Extremist groups" and not just Christians, but very few Christian Extremist groups meet the critera of being a Christian. If someone says "God hates fags" (like they do around my university), those people are not Christians. If I said "I'm a Marxist, I hate science and love capitalism!" would I really be a marxist, or just someone who fools himself into thinking he is one?
As a Christian, I can honestly say, I don't know who is going to Hell and who isn't, other than the fact that I believe I will not go to hell, because I know where my heart is. I have no idea where your heart is, and a stupid.xxx domain is not going to change anything. On the other hand, because of my beliefs, I would love to ban all porn except for.xxx domains. Porn is a fact, it is part of today's society, and if we made it easier to avoid for those of us who want to avoid it, and easier to obtain for those who want to obtain it, then go for it. I personally don't agree with porn, but what's that got to do with other peoples rights?
I am a Christian Extremist, if I could, I would quit my job and work for my Church. I would love to say I made a difference for the cause of Christ. I am trying to devote my entire life to God, although I know I'm not perfect and am not doing a good job of it. I also would not vote against the.xxx domain, and I'd prefer if you'd use something along the lines of "hypocrits who think they are Christians" instead of "Christian Extreemists" a Christian extremist would probably be giving all his money to the poor and letting homeless people live in his house, and stuff like that. hypocrits who think they are christians would go on crusades, be loud, obnoxious, and vote against stupid stuff that doesn't matter anyway.
(and yes, I'm also an opinionated christian who can be obnoxious at times as well, but this is slashdot, and flaming and being flamed is part of posting.)
Sounds like it would be more the MPAA to me, but I agree with the first post, there isn't much of a mention of any assosication targeting Linux as an opponent needing to be overcome.
I think the only thing that stands in the way of watching DVDs on Linux is the obvious difference in opinions on how Intelectual Property rights should be handled, which was briefly touched upon in the article.
If only end-users didn't copy so many DVDs, Movie studios wouldn't feel the need to encrypt their movies. Of course, I also feel that by purchasing the DVD, I should also be purchasing the rights to view the DVD, which would include decoders for whatever operating system I use, but that's from an end-user standpoint, not a developer/legal standpoint.
At the very least, DVDs should list system requirements if they are going to require more than just the hardware that reads data from the DVD in order to play them.
Sounds like a plan, but until Sunbird is enterprise-worthy, what about other enterprise applications? If we are comparing Open Source Software solutions to Proprietary Software Solutions, then that's one thing, but if we are comparing Linux to Windows, we need to include all possibilities.
My Linux box at work has Thunderbird for email (our previous "full featured" email client, mulberry, filed bankruptcy, I guess full-featured/bloated isn't the way to go for something as simple as email.), and I use Oracle Calendar for calendaring.
As usual, the client is a small application that provides me with an interface into my schedule, which is housed on the server. Clients should be short, sweet, and to the point. Too much controll means too much that can go wrong. I have enough controll to reserve equipment and rooms, and to reserve time on other people's calendars. While I don't have clippy the helpful paper clip telling me that it capitalized Board room for me, I do have everything I need.
The key to Linux Desktop Success is nothing more than vendor support. As soon as hardware vendors start supporting Linux, people will start switching, software companies will get in the support business and not the programming business, and we'll start moving in a much more positive direction. (...that or more proprietary software will be offered for linux, which would still be fine by me, I prefer open source, but sometimes photoshop beats out the Gimp 100 times over, and sometimes Apache beats out IIS 100 times over.)
Once again, enter the opinion. I would choose X11/xorg over the OSX interface any day. I spend a week really trying my hardest at OSX, but it just wouldn't click. I am much more productive on my Ubuntu box than I am Windows or OSX.
I've got a Mac Fanatic friend who can work much faster on OSX than X11 or explorer.exe. I've also met people who find the explorer interface to be easier than OSX or X11. So, apparently the end user's comfort level with the OS/interface matters more than opinions about the code behind the scenes.
Apple did do a great job at making a smooth interface. I could minimize/maximize screens with full animation and it ran smoothly and looked cool. However, when responding to a slashdot article, I would finish typing my sentence long before it appeared on the screen, because Apple seems to have invested more in the interface than in other areas, such as processing data I put into it. (once again, merely opinion)
What we need to realize, is this article is coming from a guy who uses butt-plugs to make political statements against airlines and just felt like ranting about the airline service, and needed to throw something geeky in to get it posted on the register. I'm sure he is very well spoken and has written nice articles in the past, but this is not one of them.
If you want to complain about OSS, then state the development methods that do not work, and maybe offer a better way of doing things. Citing an argument about colour schemes as one of your two major points on what is wrong with an operating system is rather weak.
I'm typing this from a windows machine, and I have a windows machine at home. Unfortunately my vinyl cutter's manufacturer decided to support Windows and OSX, but not linux. That's their decision, and I won't complain, because I bought the product knowing it would only work with Windows for me. If I seriously cared, I could probably find a way to write an application that would send an SVG file to the plotter via the serial port, but I'm lazy and find it hard to point the finger when I know its my own laziness/unwillingness/lack of knowledge and experience that is keeping me from having working hardware.
In short, the best OS is the one you work the best with. If that's Windows XP, then go for it. If that's OSX, fine. If that's Linux, BSD, or Unix, then who am I to judge? Linux will survive not on technological advances, but on business model advances. While Vendor lock-in is crippling some businesses, low hardware support will be crippling others. As Linux gains in popularity, hardware manufacturers will listen and start developing linux drivers. But linux still won't have vendor lock in =).
For some reason it won't work on my linux box either, but then again my windows box doesn't allow javascript unless I tell it to. For some reason I also lock my car doors at night... Something about avoiding the obvious pitfalls of life keeps me from using IE...
If Microsoft is opening the document format, then they are doing the exact same thing Open Document Format has done. Neither offer source code, neither provide official applications required to use the format, but both allow you to use the format in whatever application on whatever operating system you choose.
Unless, as the article's author wrote, Microsoft finds ways to sue based on partial implementation, I don't think we will have any reason to critisize Microsoft. In fact, this will be the very reason I am able to completely switch my office to OpenOffice.org, because I highly doubt they will miss out on the opportunity to take hold of this XML Schema and write even better converters to ODF, or at least fully support the Microsoft Office file format. This removes any reason to use MS Office other than interface, and have you seen the new office interface? OOo here I come!
Microsoft is taking a giant first step in the right direction, I say we encourage it. ODF is still my own business' choice, but that may change depending on what the schema really does look like, and what software will be required to create and open the new Microsoft XML office format.
New versions of linux are obviously inferior to Windows, I mean, just look at all the companies that refuse to upgrade linux, while their Windows servers get upgraded every few years...
For the MSCD's out there, and the blind troll-hunters, that was sarcasm. I run security updates, but other than that haven't found the need for too many OS reinstalls, whereas my only windows server that isn't running the latest version is on its last leg and about to be converted to a linux server. (I guess I should go mark that on the linux server tally somewhere)
In other news: Slashdot readers bash another pro-Microsoft FUD article and give examples of their favorite Linux victory. Potential abilities to get girlfriends drop dramatically among the FOSS enthusiasts. (fortunately I got married before getting into Open Source!)
The Background: View the end of this post for the question, but please read the background before responding.
I have installed Ubuntu Linux and have found it easier to install and run everyday applications than in Windows XP Pro. I have also experienced fewer lockups and random application failures when using OSS than I have when using Microsoft products. The Windows users we have switched to Linux and OSS have had fewer tech support issues, and the few they have had were remedied quicker and easier than those on a Windows based sytem. Not a single day had to be spent in training, due to the ease of use of Linux, and the similarities between most all Office suites, Open or Closed Source.
I have also noticed that migrating my Thunderbird email from a Windows machine to Linux is easier than migrating my Outlook email settings from one Windows machine to another. I have had no adware, spyware, or viruses on my Linux machine, but consistently get viruses on my Windows machine despite the enterprise virus scanner that I update daily.
As a small business owner I have switched to linux, and have already installed my operating system, vector/raster/architectural drawing applications, 3d modelling and rendering applications, multiple web browsers, an email client, audio/video editing software, CD/DVD burning software, DVD authoring software, complex accounting software, and a very functional office suite. All of these applications have cost me zero dollars, and most are easier to use than closed source alternatives traditionally provided by Microsoft.
I have also set up servers with Ubuntu Linux, and have installed a webserver, various popular scripting languages, enterprise level database applications (read: ACID compliant, standard SQL, triggers, stored procedures, views, tablespaces, etc.), and an FTP server. All of these were installed within about one hour and did not cost me any money whatsoever.
I have not had to use Microsoft support, nor have I had to use any Linux support, but from what I have been told from businesses that have requested Microsoft support, it was much more expensive than the Linux support available today.
Despite having nearly 15 years of experience with Microsoft Operating Systems and less than one year of experience with the GNU/Linux Operating System, I have not lost any data, have not run into any problems that weren't easily solved, and have gotten more work done since switching to Linux. I have also found connecting to network devices, whether they be Windows file servers, Netware File Servers, FTP servers, or printers, it is consistently easier and more trouble-free in Linux than in Windows.
By using OSS, the only people who are incapable of using the files/media I produce, are individuals who refuse to install freely available software from a variety of vendors they can choose from. The reason I cannot use files/media other individuals give me.... well, I haven't run into any of those yet, so nevermind.
I would also like to shoot down the hardware support myth by stating this is being posted on a widescreen laptop over a wireless network connection, and that the 64 bit version of linux supports more hardware on this laptop than the 64 bit version of Windows XP Pro.
The Question:
Considering the ease of use, quality of work I have produced, quantity of work I have produced, and absolute zero cost for software and training for Linux and OSS why would I choose Microsoft products over Open Source Software?
Microsoft's Anti-Spyware and Adware-removal tool's license agreement:
Microsoft (MS) provides personal computer users with a winning proposition: the ability to remove adware and spyware software free-of-charge or at a reduced cost in exchange for users' agreement to accept advertising and other promotional messages delivered by the Microsoft Network to users' personal computers based on information that is recorded while normal use of the computer and sent back to the Microsoft Network.
In a surprising turn of events, Microsoft has adopted some Open Source habits, and will be searching the spyware it removes for improvements on their own spyware removal tools and operating system itself.
I also wonder if they will sell their marketing research to the authors of spyware...
To answer the question, no. I would not use Ad-supported windows. While targeting ads may be better than untargeted ads, no-ads are even better. I have never purchased anything from a banner ad, and I never will. How will Microsoft pitch this to advertisers anyway? "We've located a huge market of people so cheap they are willing to accept advertisements to cheapen the cost of Windows, would you like to target these cheap individuals with your expensive products?"... sadly, it will probably work... hmmm... maybe open source advertisements will have a greater impact since we can target our audience! Cheap people who don't want to pay full price for opearating systems, and who by the time they see our ads are probably annoyed with windows because of all the advertisements!
As others have mentioned, switching to a more open file format has nothing to do with accessibility. Now, if they choose to outlaw accessible applications which read this software, then I agree, MA is doing something wrong there, but how long will it be until someone writes a standards compliant web page that can read OpenDocument? A lot quicker than someone making one that can read a word document.
And another important factor is, are you saying all Americans with Disabilities should be forced to purchase Microsoft Office and run a Windows based PC before giving them the right to view documents that are supposedly released in the public domain? The number of Linux users, disabled or not, is increasing, and if you are so passionate about this, feel free to join mailing lists and tell OpenOffice.org to focus on Accessibility. The turnaround time in the [professional] Open Source community is much quicker than at Microsoft.
Microsoft avidly opposes global standards that are intended to make viewing websites as easy and painless to the visually impaired as possible. The only reason I have heard from Microsoft's camp is "we don't like that standard", not why they don't like it, or why it is good for the rest of the world but not for them, just that they don't like it. More likely their marketing department realized if they made it too difficult to design for their browser and standards compliant browsers, people would ultimately stick with IE. Instead, people are developing pages with more table layouts, flash animations, and things of that nature because IE doesn't support some of the advanced formatting techniqes that other browsers, and the web standards, do. Which makes the web a much less accessable place.
From everything I've seen, Open Source is doing more for accessibility than Microsoft is, and OpenDocument is a file format, not an application. Microsoft is free to use OpenDocument, but they won't, because they would have to share the market with all of the other OpenDocument editors/readers.
Microsoft Gives Daum $30Million, South Korea switches to Ubuntu. $30Mil would buy what, 60,000 computers that could run Ubuntu smoothly? (monitor included) And they could choose whether or not to install an instant messenger application!
A Skit:
MSFT: Here, have an OS with all sorts of non-OS software packaged in.
Daum: But we don't want non-OS software, it's against our laws to force us.
MSFT: Freedom is overrated, too bad.
Daum:/me files lawsuit.
MSFT/me plays a violin.
Linspire: Here is a free OS I'd be willing to sell for cheap, and it looks like Windows but doesn't violate any of your laws.
{{BEGIN SARCASM}}
But I really do need to backup my X-Box games!! And I use P2P to share family photos with my grandma, isn't that what it was made for?
{{END SARCASM}}
I definitely agree with you on this one, P2P is by nature a file-sharing/content-stealing platform. If everyone just used Bittorrent for legit files (which they pretty much do) and didn't install P2P software then we'd pretty much be in a good place right now, but instead people still feel the weird desire to download the horrible crap that is RIAA labeled music without paying the band.
If a movie/song is worth stealing, then it is certainly worth buying. I mean, c'mon, just watch TV and listen to the radio if you are that dependent on the media. I used to download tons of crap, then I had something as simple as my taillights on my truck stolen, and realized how crappy it feels. I'd love for someone defending the downloading of movies and music to have something small stolen every day or two and see how they like it.
But yes, BitTorrent is P2P done right, and from my experience, it works much better than any P2P client ever has, and it is harder to download illegal content without someone getting into trouble. No wonder we don't hear as much about it in the news, other than to hear another moron got caught hosting torrents for someone else's intellectual property.
Wolf also said a larger than expected percentage of Windows to Mac converts appear to be purchasing Apple's higher-end systems and that their transition is fueled by the epidemic of viruses and malware on the Windows platform.
This was also my reason for trying out OSX! Although, the OSX "experience"/interface is my reason for switching to linux. Unlike 3 years ago, Linux feels like the most user-friendly OS to me. While I would not tell someone not to switch to Apple, I'd probably reccomend Linux first, then OSX, then Windows.
While Microsoft is very efficiently locking in all of its users to their software, OSX by default locks users into specific hardware. Why people still enjoy being locked into hardware and software is beyond me, but my guess is, the second Adobe targets the linux market is the second we see a slashdot post about Windows and OSX users switching to linux.
I also must admit the other factors to my switching from OSX to linux:
My Fanboy-ness got so big it was just barely too much for OSX, and just right for linux
I couldn't afford an iPOD so I got an MP3 player for $30 and realized white plastic wasn't worth the $$
CD trays that snap on ugly laptops doesn't bother me as much as I thought it would
The black turtleneck sweater was itching my neck
I got so into vector art that I wanted an OS that accepted it as a background image
and.. the main reason: my wife took her iBook back from me, since she needs it for work.
we'll also throw in the fact that I love OpenOffice.org 2.0 and couldn't get it to run, and while all the OS animations ran super-smooth, I could finish a 20 word sentence before word 10 was displayed on the screen as I typed.... so the imagined speed of these things were definitely based on the fact that the OS runs super smooth even on slow hardware, giving the impression of speed.... kind of like racing stripes on a slow car.
Okay, keep in mind that I do not disagree with microsoft bundling software, but Internet Explorer is not bundled, it is a part of the operating system.
Here's a test, uninstall Internet Explorer via add-remove programs/windows components, then open up my computer and in the address bar, type http://slashdot.org/ and hit enter. Ooops, there's the web browser we just uninstalled.
I use Ubuntu, which comes prepackaged with firefox and a few others, so all I do is install the operating system and use the bundled software, which happens to be firefox. (It used to be evolution, and KDE was konquror or something like that.) On a side note, I could also use the "wget" command to grab a file from a web site easily.
What Microsoft is doing is first: creating a security risk because even if someone uninstalls Internet Explorer, they are still vulnerable to the security risks associated with Internet Explorer, and second: they only give the ability to package a browser to run along side IE, not as a replacement.
According to somefakewebsite.com, which was created just a few moments ago as an imaginary source of invalid figures for the entertainment of others (or isifeo, as we like to call it here at randomslashdotcomments inc.), The number of windows viruses has decreased by another 1% due in part to the decreased use of web browsers that let websites install software on your computer, and also due to Norton's virus writing labs not keeping up with their anti-virus labs. (but marketing is right on schedule!)
It is also interesting to note that the linux virus ratio has increased to an estimated 0.01% this month, which is partly due to the windows users that recently switched to linux and installed the Bonzai Buddy via Wine, and the number of pop-tarts in my office has just decreased by 1 serving.... make that 2 servings.
On a more serious note, I wonder what the market share ratio would be like if Internet Explorer wasn't part of the windows operating system.
Unfortunately I still won't be migrating over to Oracle. I am currently running an Open Source server, and would like to keep it that way. I am happy for the non-closed-minded-zealots out there who can take advantage of this and utilize the code they've written on the free development version, but I'm too closed minded to use closed-source just yet.
This will hopefully push OS DBs such as PostgreSQL to work even harder at competing with Oracle, but for my applications I haven't needed anything more than PostgreSQL anyway. Now the question is, if users donated half the cost of oracle each time they installed PostgreSQL, how advanced would it be by now? (that's directed to the Oracle fanatics, who don't seem to be as annoying as us open source fanatics)
Either way, more free software is available, and I'm hoping this will at least squash some of the vendor lock-in caused by Microsoft's SQL server, since businesses can move smaller tasks to Oracle, and use whatever tools they like to interface with it. (as opposed to the insane urging from MSFT to use MSFT products to work with MS SQL data... or at least that's the impression I was given the last time we used it)
I'll reserve my judgement for when I find out if the Adobe Creative Suite (preferrably version 2) will run on it. Personally I don't need to run Office 2003, OpenOffice.org works just fine (crashes less on windows too).
Adobe products are the only software I've found worth running that don't already run on linux. Hopefully someone will team up with Adobe and find some form of a solution. (preferrably ignoring microsoft products, if I wanted to run Microsoft products I'd install windows)
I think Red Hat is doing a lot for the Open Source community, but I think there are enough of us lazy geeks that just want to download a CD.ISO of open source software and be able to freely distribute it without having to change the name just to appease a license agreement.
Once again, this impression is caused by lazy people like myself, who simply download Ubuntu ISOs, burn it to CD, give/sell it with all of the logos in tact to whoever I want, then if they want support, the company sponsoring Ubuntu offers it for an additional fee on an annual basis. This is more OS-Community friendly because it is not only open source and free as in freedom, but it is also easy and free as in beer. Too often people associate Open Source with easy and free as in beer.
Also, let's keep in mind that the Novell is more than likely not pushing their free SUSE Linux, but is pushing the Novell network compelete with Open Enterprise Server and the Novell Linux Desktop. None of which is free. I had it installed on my machine here at work, and the registration process was a pain, they had 5 different license numbers refered to by 10 different names, making me try all 5 numbers until I finally found the one that was tied to their update service. (otherwise I would not have been able to upgrade or patch any software on my system) They are basically doing what Gentoo, Debian, Ubuntu, and others are already doing, but are charging for it. This turns a lot of us cheap and lazy geeks off, so the "of course" is warranted considering the audience here at slashdot.
Novell is doing what Red Hat and other "enterprise linuxes" do, which is create a service that already exists and is freely available, then charge for it pretending theirs is better quality because they put their logo on the box. While their money and manpower helps, I still see no need to pay to upgrade to OOo 2.0 on my Novell Linux Desktop (through the registration fees when initially installing the OS) when Ubuntu does the same thing and offers cheaper support on a wider array of software.
If anyone can tell which side I'm on, please let me know, because I bounced around a bit too much this post, but I still agree with it all. This is too long anyway so nobody will read it anyway!
Can someone explain to me why the gang at OpenOffice can't create a printer for windows ala Adobe Acrobat in order to "Print to OpenDocument"?
This seems like the answer to all of the issues.
OpenOffice.org creates office software that saves to OpenDocument, but they did not create the OpenDocument standard. The real question is why isn't Microsoft creating a plug-in to save to OpenDocument?
Microsoft is just as entitled to the OpenDocument format as OOo is.
And my post wouldn't be complete without saying: Finally! I was using Beta myself up til now, but now I can take MS Office off my wife's laptop and use OOo 2.0 instead!
In other news, Microsoft claims nobody needs free software, and that they are offering a bundle package combining Windows Vista and Office 12 for the price of a small air-conditioned car.
Obvious Man Says: Microsoft claims someone does not need free software, and adds in a quip about the end user's lack of experience neccessary to use it anyway. If the salvation army or goodwill was saying this, I'd understand the confusion, but this is Microsoft. The company that ignores web standards that make it easier for blind people to view the web.
While microsoft has some good and functional software, they have always been known for having the worst business tactics, so I don't see the impact of their statment reguarding Africa. Africa is much smarter and better off than we think they are (they still have problems, like most countries, but they aren't in the dark ages like National Geographic portrays them as during Sunday afternoon specials). In fact, they would probably choose Open Source solutions over Microsoft if they needed free software, and maybe MSFT doesn't feel threatened by that. Arrogance breeds ignorance, and Bill has the biggest head I've ever seen.
With web based applications becoming more and more important to everyday life (buying movie tickets, checking the weather, news, even gas prices, online maps, etc.) Microsoft will still have to find some way to show the world that their web browser is different than the other alternatives. When new windows machines are made, it is much simpler to leave IE on them, rather than installing an alternative on every computer your manufacturer makes, which creates an incintive for developers to write for IE, which in turn creates a reason for end users not to switch from IE to something like Firefox, Opera, or something similar. By individuals relying more on IE, the web will hopefully (for Microsoft) swing to an IE only platform like it was a few years ago, and almost still is, preventing linux users from receiving the full benefit of the web. And if you cut something that large out, why not just switch to Windows and call it a day?
Simple tactics such as creating your own standards for html rendering and javascript interpreting can actually increase and protect your market share in the desktop environment. So if they loose money on Office, my prediction is Windows itself will go up in price, and IE will be even more integrated in the system.
After massachusetts shows the US that core functions such as MS Office were not as important to stick with as we thought they were, I'm sure developers and even end users will realize that the same goes for the web. I do not care if we all switch to linux, OSX, or stay with windows. What I do care about is being offered a choice, and if Microsoft adopts globally available standards, that is exactly what they will be offering. In which case, there will be a much smaller reason to jump from Windows to another OS, but at the same time it will be easier as well.
I think Microsoft has instilled FUD in their own decision making process, and that will probably prevent them from adopting more standards than they are forced to. These next few years will really determine what type of corporation Microsoft is, and will show us if they really are after converting everyone to their product with no hope of working with other applications, or if they are willing to loose on some fronts to provide a better, more useable product.
Here's hoping, but I wouldn't hold your breath for W3C compliance any time soon.
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What's more impressive is that my wife's school gave her a 3 year old iBook, that I bet isn't even 1 GHz, and it's running OSX with all the shinyness and cool animations. They actually run smoothly on the old machine!!
Of course, when I fill out comments on forums and on slashdot, I can finish my sentence before the iBook catches up to the 4th or 5th word. I then move back to my AMD64 widescreen laptop with dual layer dvd burner etc. that only cost $1,000 USD and happily do 3d rendering, programming, and forum posting without worrying about delays in visuals or processing. (of course, I also use Ubuntu Linux rather than Windows, but that's because, once again, I choose performance over popularity.)
With that said, I hope this works out for Windows, it looks like a smart move, and could potentially bring heightened levels of GUI customization if 3rd parties can get a peek at some Kernel APIs and whatnot. (note to readers: I know nothing of kernel development and video processing, so I'm just saying what I think might sound smart, but probably isn't true. I also think Apple is cool for giving back to the BSD community, but still like Ubuntu since that's what I'm running, and whatever I'm running is obviously the best, otherwise why would I run it?)
I'd just like to point out the fact that Microsoft fixing a 6 month old problem was newsworthy...
And, the gratuitous open-source post:
There was a browser security issue and Sony could install a root-kit? Weird, never even noticed.
I spent 3 days learning the differences between Linux web serving and Windows web serving. I have been using linux for a few years, and the Windows 2003 webserver was the only Windows server in the server room. Everything else was linux based or Netware based. The IT Professional was a Microsoft fanatic, and refused to learn anything new, and left me with a bitter taste because she ignored the reccomendations of myself, other staff members, the previous person in her position, and the department that shared the server room with us. Because she was officially our LAN Administrator, our department listened to her. Now we are left with a server with nobody knowing how to fully support it, and she did not document what she had done to get it working.
I was exaggerating, yes, about getting the webserver up and running, but it did take 2 weeks to have the software mailed to us, because we are a not-for-profit university and we had problems with getting the software from our vendor without paying taxes. The IT Professional I was talking about then spent an extra 2 weeks getting the server up and running because it was not as simple as she thought. I have gotten IIS servers up within an hour just fine, but she was learning how to have multiple IPs on the same machine, and was trying to learn ASP so she could make the applications herself.
The point of the post was that there are 2 very common types of IT Professionals, and 1 very rare type:
Common Types:
1. Very intelligent, but ignored by their manager.
2. Very gullible/opinionated, and listened to by their manager.
Rare Type:
1. Very intelligent, and listened to by their manager.
So the point is, to avoid fanatics (both Open Source and Closed source), it sometimes helps if your organization gets together and chooses a standard to follow.
I think that more than one person should be involved in the research of what document format to choose, and that it should be opened to the public forum. I find it amusing that a non-IT individual is saying a bureaucrat should not make the decision for 2000 IT professionals, but by blocking this decision, the non-IT bureaucrat is doing just that. Unless, of course, all IT departments in the government offices in MA are using whatever each individual IT Professional feels like, in which case there could be any number of file formats floating around.
All in all, I think a decision should be made, and IT Professionals and the general public should be involved in the decision. IT Professionals, who have a $430 copy of Office 2003 Professional handed to them free-of-charge, should not be enforcing that as a standard that individuals who clip coupons for a $0.30 can of chicken noodle soup are going to have to follow.
The last time I was in an IT position as a developer/data analyst at a fortune 100 company, myself and the other memebers of the team kept saying, "Hey ******, things are technilogically bad here, and the IT department agrees, we really need to step things up and make the following 5 changes: ", (then we listed 5 boring, but neccessary changes).
So after that, ****** decided to hire a team of IBM consultants to determine what the real problem was. They promptly had a meeting with us, where we shared our 5 changes that needed to be made, and were told a week later that IBM came up with 5 amazing outside-the-box changes to turn the company around.
A year and a half later, I'm at a different job where I make the decisions, and ****** is in the same position they were before, with more and more money being poured into consultants while the IT professionals remain unheard.
And, just another warning about IT professionals: I had a boss once that refused to allow me to install a Linux-based webserver, and instead poured over $800 into software simply to run IIS. It took a few weeks to get the software in, another week to get it configured, and yet another week to lock it down tight and get the file permissions to run properly. (keep in mind IIS kindly ignores windows file permissions on a fairly random basis, at least from my experience.) Now that that IT Professional has left to do ASP development elsewhere, I spent 3 days learning how to set up a linux webserver and lock it down, and 1 day actually carrying out what I learned. It has thus far cost us nothing, and we have yet to get a virus.
IT professionals are the #1 target it seems for Microsoft donations, so its no wonder most are drooling over Microsoft Office software. Most individuals I've worked with (even the Microsoft Certified Developers) have chosen Open Source solutions this past year because of how much they've developed, and how easy they are to work with. Maybe we need a bureaucratic geek to make the decisions anyway, since the self proclaimed IT Professionals either aren't doing such a hot job, or don't have the power to make these decisions anyway.
One last bit of info: forcing the use of non-proprietary software for developing publically available documents should be federal law by now, IMO, and using proprietary software should be considered obstructing access to the public domain. Why not tear down the wheelchair ramps while we're at it? And if Microsoft is truly non-proprietary in their new XML format, then let's use that too, but don't side with a single vendor when a globally available standard is sitting there, free of charge, easy to implement, waiting to be taken advantage of.
Most for-profit vendors have always been just that, For Profit. Most Open Source solutions and free-domain solutions set forth by not-for-profit organizations have been just that, Not For Profit. If something isn't for profit, and isn't for political gain, then odds are it is strictly being developed for the betterment of society. I guess the honest question now, when confronted with accepting the logically obvious decision, is "Why start now?", to which I say, "To make up for lost times."
Way to be a closed minded zealot. This just in: Christianity wants to ruin our fun! If something seems bad, but is fun, let's jump the gun and blame all of Christianity before anything even happens.
It's like when I went to the store and I couldn't buy alchohol before noon one Sunday. I was told it was because those crazy Christians are so stubborn. Rubbish! I'm a Christian and I want a beer now! I'm a Christian and I want .xxx domains! Stop blaming an entire religion just because their standards are different than yours. Should a soccer player hate football players because football players use their hands? No, and a non-Christian should not hate/blame Christians just because Christians have different standards.
Most slashdot readers like Open Source, so their standards are different than capitalistic America. Does that mean when Windows Vista doesn't have a media player built in all the capitalists should ignorantly say, "No matter what we do, those slashdotters extremist groups keep screwing things up. Stupid Open Source hippies.".
I do respect the fact that you narrowed it down to "Christian Extremist groups" and not just Christians, but very few Christian Extremist groups meet the critera of being a Christian. If someone says "God hates fags" (like they do around my university), those people are not Christians. If I said "I'm a Marxist, I hate science and love capitalism!" would I really be a marxist, or just someone who fools himself into thinking he is one?
As a Christian, I can honestly say, I don't know who is going to Hell and who isn't, other than the fact that I believe I will not go to hell, because I know where my heart is. I have no idea where your heart is, and a stupid .xxx domain is not going to change anything. On the other hand, because of my beliefs, I would love to ban all porn except for .xxx domains. Porn is a fact, it is part of today's society, and if we made it easier to avoid for those of us who want to avoid it, and easier to obtain for those who want to obtain it, then go for it. I personally don't agree with porn, but what's that got to do with other peoples rights?
I am a Christian Extremist, if I could, I would quit my job and work for my Church. I would love to say I made a difference for the cause of Christ. I am trying to devote my entire life to God, although I know I'm not perfect and am not doing a good job of it. I also would not vote against the .xxx domain, and I'd prefer if you'd use something along the lines of "hypocrits who think they are Christians" instead of "Christian Extreemists" a Christian extremist would probably be giving all his money to the poor and letting homeless people live in his house, and stuff like that. hypocrits who think they are christians would go on crusades, be loud, obnoxious, and vote against stupid stuff that doesn't matter anyway.
(and yes, I'm also an opinionated christian who can be obnoxious at times as well, but this is slashdot, and flaming and being flamed is part of posting.)
Sounds like it would be more the MPAA to me, but I agree with the first post, there isn't much of a mention of any assosication targeting Linux as an opponent needing to be overcome.
I think the only thing that stands in the way of watching DVDs on Linux is the obvious difference in opinions on how Intelectual Property rights should be handled, which was briefly touched upon in the article.
If only end-users didn't copy so many DVDs, Movie studios wouldn't feel the need to encrypt their movies. Of course, I also feel that by purchasing the DVD, I should also be purchasing the rights to view the DVD, which would include decoders for whatever operating system I use, but that's from an end-user standpoint, not a developer/legal standpoint.
At the very least, DVDs should list system requirements if they are going to require more than just the hardware that reads data from the DVD in order to play them.
Sounds like a plan, but until Sunbird is enterprise-worthy, what about other enterprise applications? If we are comparing Open Source Software solutions to Proprietary Software Solutions, then that's one thing, but if we are comparing Linux to Windows, we need to include all possibilities.
My Linux box at work has Thunderbird for email (our previous "full featured" email client, mulberry, filed bankruptcy, I guess full-featured/bloated isn't the way to go for something as simple as email.), and I use Oracle Calendar for calendaring.
As usual, the client is a small application that provides me with an interface into my schedule, which is housed on the server. Clients should be short, sweet, and to the point. Too much controll means too much that can go wrong. I have enough controll to reserve equipment and rooms, and to reserve time on other people's calendars. While I don't have clippy the helpful paper clip telling me that it capitalized Board room for me, I do have everything I need.
The key to Linux Desktop Success is nothing more than vendor support. As soon as hardware vendors start supporting Linux, people will start switching, software companies will get in the support business and not the programming business, and we'll start moving in a much more positive direction. (...that or more proprietary software will be offered for linux, which would still be fine by me, I prefer open source, but sometimes photoshop beats out the Gimp 100 times over, and sometimes Apache beats out IIS 100 times over.)
Once again, enter the opinion. I would choose X11/xorg over the OSX interface any day. I spend a week really trying my hardest at OSX, but it just wouldn't click. I am much more productive on my Ubuntu box than I am Windows or OSX.
I've got a Mac Fanatic friend who can work much faster on OSX than X11 or explorer.exe. I've also met people who find the explorer interface to be easier than OSX or X11. So, apparently the end user's comfort level with the OS/interface matters more than opinions about the code behind the scenes.
Apple did do a great job at making a smooth interface. I could minimize/maximize screens with full animation and it ran smoothly and looked cool. However, when responding to a slashdot article, I would finish typing my sentence long before it appeared on the screen, because Apple seems to have invested more in the interface than in other areas, such as processing data I put into it. (once again, merely opinion)
What we need to realize, is this article is coming from a guy who uses butt-plugs to make political statements against airlines and just felt like ranting about the airline service, and needed to throw something geeky in to get it posted on the register. I'm sure he is very well spoken and has written nice articles in the past, but this is not one of them.
If you want to complain about OSS, then state the development methods that do not work, and maybe offer a better way of doing things. Citing an argument about colour schemes as one of your two major points on what is wrong with an operating system is rather weak.
I'm typing this from a windows machine, and I have a windows machine at home. Unfortunately my vinyl cutter's manufacturer decided to support Windows and OSX, but not linux. That's their decision, and I won't complain, because I bought the product knowing it would only work with Windows for me. If I seriously cared, I could probably find a way to write an application that would send an SVG file to the plotter via the serial port, but I'm lazy and find it hard to point the finger when I know its my own laziness/unwillingness/lack of knowledge and experience that is keeping me from having working hardware.
In short, the best OS is the one you work the best with. If that's Windows XP, then go for it. If that's OSX, fine. If that's Linux, BSD, or Unix, then who am I to judge? Linux will survive not on technological advances, but on business model advances. While Vendor lock-in is crippling some businesses, low hardware support will be crippling others. As Linux gains in popularity, hardware manufacturers will listen and start developing linux drivers. But linux still won't have vendor lock in =).
For some reason it won't work on my linux box either, but then again my windows box doesn't allow javascript unless I tell it to. For some reason I also lock my car doors at night... Something about avoiding the obvious pitfalls of life keeps me from using IE...
If Microsoft is opening the document format, then they are doing the exact same thing Open Document Format has done. Neither offer source code, neither provide official applications required to use the format, but both allow you to use the format in whatever application on whatever operating system you choose.
Unless, as the article's author wrote, Microsoft finds ways to sue based on partial implementation, I don't think we will have any reason to critisize Microsoft. In fact, this will be the very reason I am able to completely switch my office to OpenOffice.org, because I highly doubt they will miss out on the opportunity to take hold of this XML Schema and write even better converters to ODF, or at least fully support the Microsoft Office file format. This removes any reason to use MS Office other than interface, and have you seen the new office interface? OOo here I come!
Microsoft is taking a giant first step in the right direction, I say we encourage it. ODF is still my own business' choice, but that may change depending on what the schema really does look like, and what software will be required to create and open the new Microsoft XML office format.
New versions of linux are obviously inferior to Windows, I mean, just look at all the companies that refuse to upgrade linux, while their Windows servers get upgraded every few years...
For the MSCD's out there, and the blind troll-hunters, that was sarcasm. I run security updates, but other than that haven't found the need for too many OS reinstalls, whereas my only windows server that isn't running the latest version is on its last leg and about to be converted to a linux server. (I guess I should go mark that on the linux server tally somewhere)
In other news: Slashdot readers bash another pro-Microsoft FUD article and give examples of their favorite Linux victory. Potential abilities to get girlfriends drop dramatically among the FOSS enthusiasts. (fortunately I got married before getting into Open Source!)
The Background:
View the end of this post for the question, but please read the background before responding.
I have installed Ubuntu Linux and have found it easier to install and run everyday applications than in Windows XP Pro. I have also experienced fewer lockups and random application failures when using OSS than I have when using Microsoft products. The Windows users we have switched to Linux and OSS have had fewer tech support issues, and the few they have had were remedied quicker and easier than those on a Windows based sytem. Not a single day had to be spent in training, due to the ease of use of Linux, and the similarities between most all Office suites, Open or Closed Source.
I have also noticed that migrating my Thunderbird email from a Windows machine to Linux is easier than migrating my Outlook email settings from one Windows machine to another. I have had no adware, spyware, or viruses on my Linux machine, but consistently get viruses on my Windows machine despite the enterprise virus scanner that I update daily.
As a small business owner I have switched to linux, and have already installed my operating system, vector/raster/architectural drawing applications, 3d modelling and rendering applications, multiple web browsers, an email client, audio/video editing software, CD/DVD burning software, DVD authoring software, complex accounting software, and a very functional office suite. All of these applications have cost me zero dollars, and most are easier to use than closed source alternatives traditionally provided by Microsoft.
I have also set up servers with Ubuntu Linux, and have installed a webserver, various popular scripting languages, enterprise level database applications (read: ACID compliant, standard SQL, triggers, stored procedures, views, tablespaces, etc.), and an FTP server. All of these were installed within about one hour and did not cost me any money whatsoever.
I have not had to use Microsoft support, nor have I had to use any Linux support, but from what I have been told from businesses that have requested Microsoft support, it was much more expensive than the Linux support available today.
Despite having nearly 15 years of experience with Microsoft Operating Systems and less than one year of experience with the GNU/Linux Operating System, I have not lost any data, have not run into any problems that weren't easily solved, and have gotten more work done since switching to Linux. I have also found connecting to network devices, whether they be Windows file servers, Netware File Servers, FTP servers, or printers, it is consistently easier and more trouble-free in Linux than in Windows.
By using OSS, the only people who are incapable of using the files/media I produce, are individuals who refuse to install freely available software from a variety of vendors they can choose from. The reason I cannot use files/media other individuals give me.... well, I haven't run into any of those yet, so nevermind.
I would also like to shoot down the hardware support myth by stating this is being posted on a widescreen laptop over a wireless network connection, and that the 64 bit version of linux supports more hardware on this laptop than the 64 bit version of Windows XP Pro.
The Question:
Microsoft's Anti-Spyware and Adware-removal tool's license agreement:
In a surprising turn of events, Microsoft has adopted some Open Source habits, and will be searching the spyware it removes for improvements on their own spyware removal tools and operating system itself.
I also wonder if they will sell their marketing research to the authors of spyware...
To answer the question, no. I would not use Ad-supported windows. While targeting ads may be better than untargeted ads, no-ads are even better. I have never purchased anything from a banner ad, and I never will. How will Microsoft pitch this to advertisers anyway? "We've located a huge market of people so cheap they are willing to accept advertisements to cheapen the cost of Windows, would you like to target these cheap individuals with your expensive products?"... sadly, it will probably work... hmmm... maybe open source advertisements will have a greater impact since we can target our audience! Cheap people who don't want to pay full price for opearating systems, and who by the time they see our ads are probably annoyed with windows because of all the advertisements!
As others have mentioned, switching to a more open file format has nothing to do with accessibility. Now, if they choose to outlaw accessible applications which read this software, then I agree, MA is doing something wrong there, but how long will it be until someone writes a standards compliant web page that can read OpenDocument? A lot quicker than someone making one that can read a word document.
And another important factor is, are you saying all Americans with Disabilities should be forced to purchase Microsoft Office and run a Windows based PC before giving them the right to view documents that are supposedly released in the public domain? The number of Linux users, disabled or not, is increasing, and if you are so passionate about this, feel free to join mailing lists and tell OpenOffice.org to focus on Accessibility. The turnaround time in the [professional] Open Source community is much quicker than at Microsoft.
Microsoft avidly opposes global standards that are intended to make viewing websites as easy and painless to the visually impaired as possible. The only reason I have heard from Microsoft's camp is "we don't like that standard", not why they don't like it, or why it is good for the rest of the world but not for them, just that they don't like it. More likely their marketing department realized if they made it too difficult to design for their browser and standards compliant browsers, people would ultimately stick with IE. Instead, people are developing pages with more table layouts, flash animations, and things of that nature because IE doesn't support some of the advanced formatting techniqes that other browsers, and the web standards, do. Which makes the web a much less accessable place.
From everything I've seen, Open Source is doing more for accessibility than Microsoft is, and OpenDocument is a file format, not an application. Microsoft is free to use OpenDocument, but they won't, because they would have to share the market with all of the other OpenDocument editors/readers.
Microsoft Gives Daum $30Million, South Korea switches to Ubuntu. $30Mil would buy what, 60,000 computers that could run Ubuntu smoothly? (monitor included) And they could choose whether or not to install an instant messenger application!
A Skit:
{{BEGIN SARCASM}}
But I really do need to backup my X-Box games!! And I use P2P to share family photos with my grandma, isn't that what it was made for?
{{END SARCASM}}
I definitely agree with you on this one, P2P is by nature a file-sharing/content-stealing platform. If everyone just used Bittorrent for legit files (which they pretty much do) and didn't install P2P software then we'd pretty much be in a good place right now, but instead people still feel the weird desire to download the horrible crap that is RIAA labeled music without paying the band.
If a movie/song is worth stealing, then it is certainly worth buying. I mean, c'mon, just watch TV and listen to the radio if you are that dependent on the media. I used to download tons of crap, then I had something as simple as my taillights on my truck stolen, and realized how crappy it feels. I'd love for someone defending the downloading of movies and music to have something small stolen every day or two and see how they like it.
But yes, BitTorrent is P2P done right, and from my experience, it works much better than any P2P client ever has, and it is harder to download illegal content without someone getting into trouble. No wonder we don't hear as much about it in the news, other than to hear another moron got caught hosting torrents for someone else's intellectual property.
This was also my reason for trying out OSX! Although, the OSX "experience"/interface is my reason for switching to linux. Unlike 3 years ago, Linux feels like the most user-friendly OS to me. While I would not tell someone not to switch to Apple, I'd probably reccomend Linux first, then OSX, then Windows.
While Microsoft is very efficiently locking in all of its users to their software, OSX by default locks users into specific hardware. Why people still enjoy being locked into hardware and software is beyond me, but my guess is, the second Adobe targets the linux market is the second we see a slashdot post about Windows and OSX users switching to linux.
I also must admit the other factors to my switching from OSX to linux:
we'll also throw in the fact that I love OpenOffice.org 2.0 and couldn't get it to run, and while all the OS animations ran super-smooth, I could finish a 20 word sentence before word 10 was displayed on the screen as I typed.... so the imagined speed of these things were definitely based on the fact that the OS runs super smooth even on slow hardware, giving the impression of speed.... kind of like racing stripes on a slow car.
Okay, keep in mind that I do not disagree with microsoft bundling software, but Internet Explorer is not bundled, it is a part of the operating system.
Here's a test, uninstall Internet Explorer via add-remove programs/windows components, then open up my computer and in the address bar, type http://slashdot.org/ and hit enter. Ooops, there's the web browser we just uninstalled.
I use Ubuntu, which comes prepackaged with firefox and a few others, so all I do is install the operating system and use the bundled software, which happens to be firefox. (It used to be evolution, and KDE was konquror or something like that.) On a side note, I could also use the "wget" command to grab a file from a web site easily.
What Microsoft is doing is first: creating a security risk because even if someone uninstalls Internet Explorer, they are still vulnerable to the security risks associated with Internet Explorer, and second: they only give the ability to package a browser to run along side IE, not as a replacement.
According to somefakewebsite.com, which was created just a few moments ago as an imaginary source of invalid figures for the entertainment of others (or isifeo, as we like to call it here at randomslashdotcomments inc.), The number of windows viruses has decreased by another 1% due in part to the decreased use of web browsers that let websites install software on your computer, and also due to Norton's virus writing labs not keeping up with their anti-virus labs. (but marketing is right on schedule!)
It is also interesting to note that the linux virus ratio has increased to an estimated 0.01% this month, which is partly due to the windows users that recently switched to linux and installed the Bonzai Buddy via Wine, and the number of pop-tarts in my office has just decreased by 1 serving. ... make that 2 servings.
On a more serious note, I wonder what the market share ratio would be like if Internet Explorer wasn't part of the windows operating system.
Unfortunately I still won't be migrating over to Oracle. I am currently running an Open Source server, and would like to keep it that way. I am happy for the non-closed-minded-zealots out there who can take advantage of this and utilize the code they've written on the free development version, but I'm too closed minded to use closed-source just yet.
This will hopefully push OS DBs such as PostgreSQL to work even harder at competing with Oracle, but for my applications I haven't needed anything more than PostgreSQL anyway. Now the question is, if users donated half the cost of oracle each time they installed PostgreSQL, how advanced would it be by now? (that's directed to the Oracle fanatics, who don't seem to be as annoying as us open source fanatics)
Either way, more free software is available, and I'm hoping this will at least squash some of the vendor lock-in caused by Microsoft's SQL server, since businesses can move smaller tasks to Oracle, and use whatever tools they like to interface with it. (as opposed to the insane urging from MSFT to use MSFT products to work with MS SQL data... or at least that's the impression I was given the last time we used it)
I'll reserve my judgement for when I find out if the Adobe Creative Suite (preferrably version 2) will run on it. Personally I don't need to run Office 2003, OpenOffice.org works just fine (crashes less on windows too). Adobe products are the only software I've found worth running that don't already run on linux. Hopefully someone will team up with Adobe and find some form of a solution. (preferrably ignoring microsoft products, if I wanted to run Microsoft products I'd install windows)
I think Red Hat is doing a lot for the Open Source community, but I think there are enough of us lazy geeks that just want to download a CD .ISO of open source software and be able to freely distribute it without having to change the name just to appease a license agreement.
Once again, this impression is caused by lazy people like myself, who simply download Ubuntu ISOs, burn it to CD, give/sell it with all of the logos in tact to whoever I want, then if they want support, the company sponsoring Ubuntu offers it for an additional fee on an annual basis. This is more OS-Community friendly because it is not only open source and free as in freedom, but it is also easy and free as in beer. Too often people associate Open Source with easy and free as in beer.
Also, let's keep in mind that the Novell is more than likely not pushing their free SUSE Linux, but is pushing the Novell network compelete with Open Enterprise Server and the Novell Linux Desktop. None of which is free. I had it installed on my machine here at work, and the registration process was a pain, they had 5 different license numbers refered to by 10 different names, making me try all 5 numbers until I finally found the one that was tied to their update service. (otherwise I would not have been able to upgrade or patch any software on my system) They are basically doing what Gentoo, Debian, Ubuntu, and others are already doing, but are charging for it. This turns a lot of us cheap and lazy geeks off, so the "of course" is warranted considering the audience here at slashdot.
Novell is doing what Red Hat and other "enterprise linuxes" do, which is create a service that already exists and is freely available, then charge for it pretending theirs is better quality because they put their logo on the box. While their money and manpower helps, I still see no need to pay to upgrade to OOo 2.0 on my Novell Linux Desktop (through the registration fees when initially installing the OS) when Ubuntu does the same thing and offers cheaper support on a wider array of software.
If anyone can tell which side I'm on, please let me know, because I bounced around a bit too much this post, but I still agree with it all. This is too long anyway so nobody will read it anyway!
OpenOffice.org creates office software that saves to OpenDocument, but they did not create the OpenDocument standard. The real question is why isn't Microsoft creating a plug-in to save to OpenDocument?
Microsoft is just as entitled to the OpenDocument format as OOo is.
And my post wouldn't be complete without saying: Finally ! I was using Beta myself up til now, but now I can take MS Office off my wife's laptop and use OOo 2.0 instead!
In other news, Microsoft claims nobody needs free software, and that they are offering a bundle package combining Windows Vista and Office 12 for the price of a small air-conditioned car.
Obvious Man Says: Microsoft claims someone does not need free software, and adds in a quip about the end user's lack of experience neccessary to use it anyway. If the salvation army or goodwill was saying this, I'd understand the confusion, but this is Microsoft. The company that ignores web standards that make it easier for blind people to view the web.
While microsoft has some good and functional software, they have always been known for having the worst business tactics, so I don't see the impact of their statment reguarding Africa. Africa is much smarter and better off than we think they are (they still have problems, like most countries, but they aren't in the dark ages like National Geographic portrays them as during Sunday afternoon specials). In fact, they would probably choose Open Source solutions over Microsoft if they needed free software, and maybe MSFT doesn't feel threatened by that. Arrogance breeds ignorance, and Bill has the biggest head I've ever seen.
With web based applications becoming more and more important to everyday life (buying movie tickets, checking the weather, news, even gas prices, online maps, etc.) Microsoft will still have to find some way to show the world that their web browser is different than the other alternatives. When new windows machines are made, it is much simpler to leave IE on them, rather than installing an alternative on every computer your manufacturer makes, which creates an incintive for developers to write for IE, which in turn creates a reason for end users not to switch from IE to something like Firefox, Opera, or something similar. By individuals relying more on IE, the web will hopefully (for Microsoft) swing to an IE only platform like it was a few years ago, and almost still is, preventing linux users from receiving the full benefit of the web. And if you cut something that large out, why not just switch to Windows and call it a day?
Simple tactics such as creating your own standards for html rendering and javascript interpreting can actually increase and protect your market share in the desktop environment. So if they loose money on Office, my prediction is Windows itself will go up in price, and IE will be even more integrated in the system.
After massachusetts shows the US that core functions such as MS Office were not as important to stick with as we thought they were, I'm sure developers and even end users will realize that the same goes for the web. I do not care if we all switch to linux, OSX, or stay with windows. What I do care about is being offered a choice, and if Microsoft adopts globally available standards, that is exactly what they will be offering. In which case, there will be a much smaller reason to jump from Windows to another OS, but at the same time it will be easier as well.
I think Microsoft has instilled FUD in their own decision making process, and that will probably prevent them from adopting more standards than they are forced to. These next few years will really determine what type of corporation Microsoft is, and will show us if they really are after converting everyone to their product with no hope of working with other applications, or if they are willing to loose on some fronts to provide a better, more useable product.
Here's hoping, but I wouldn't hold your breath for W3C compliance any time soon.