Hmm based on the tip of another user elsewhere in this thread I'm revisiting Scalix - and not only is the cost more reasonable now, it appears to be free for organizations requiring fewer than 25 users (e.g., free 25 enterprise seats with community edition)
Innnnteresting, I just may download it and try it out - if there is a reasonable data migration path, I will be definitely punting Exchange by year's end.
parent posted What the hell do any of those things have to do with email?!
Well, let's see:
Centralized management of user accounts
Centralized licensing for groupware needs
Meeting invites can be sent to local or remote email recipients
Clients (read: users) can access all company correspondance, tasks, etc. from one single application
Decreased workload for IT staff
Easy assignment and tracking of tasks
Easy taking and tracking of notes
If you still don't "get it" you haven't had to deal with any kind of corporate office where there are non-geeks employed. Microsoft Exchange/Outlook didn't succeed because it sucks, and it didn't succeed because centralizing information flow and collaboration was unnecessary. It met a demand and unfortunately open-source alternatives to Exchange/Outlook (usable ones, that is) are lacking.
I'll second that, only I'd like to toss DriveImage into the mix. God, that program was awesome for creating disk images and backups. Now I use a Linux boot CD and dd instead when I have to create or restore a Windows image.
But Evolution is weak when it comes to Exchange connectivity. It connects using the Ximian Exchange connector, which emulates a web browser against OWA. Not only that, Novell shipped an extremely broken build of Evolution and the Exchange connector with SuSE 10 and has yet to offer a fix that works consistently.
Even when Evolution is working fine, it's dog-slow against Exchange, contacts are weak, public folder support is weak (if one creates a task folder or calendar folder in public folder, it's not recognized as such), and, well. . . it's the best option one has in Linux for Exchange interoperability, with the possible exception of wine/M$ Office.
With that said, if only Novell would fix Evolution and shove an update to the broken packages (Evolution, the connector, and libsoup) I'll be happy, even with the slow performance and poor public folder support.
Why does Microsoft insist on proposing a new "open" document format when there is already an established one accepted by several official standards bodies as well as endorsed by practically every other office suite producer? Why can't Microsoft for ONCE accept someone else's standard and stick to it? I know there's the whole "it's not from here" ego thing, but sheesh.
If Microsoft learned to play well with others, they'd not have a black eye right now. Microsoft is like the kid who was bigger than everyone else in 3rd grade and a bit of a bully, only everyone else has caught up to them in size and are now starting to fight back and hit the punk where it hurts. Linux on the server end and the OOo suite on the deskop are really hurting, and with several Linux distros' being ready for prime time - for real now - they're scared shitless.
Microsoft could continue to dominate the market through offering integration services plus value-added development and extension of open source projects, but again, it's the whole "it's not from here" thing getting in the way.
Whatever it is, he's definitely all geek, and old-school at that - CLI all the way, no X or any other windowing system for him. He doesn't even use pine, it looks like something more like good old "mail" Maybe he's running some variant of CPM?:)
I think it is already happening. Microsoft introduced the "Windows Starter Edition" in developing countries, and has introduced "Windows Server 2003 Web Server Edition" worldwide, at price points seemingly intent to continuing to offer a commercial, proprietary server product (which they certainly have a right to do as anyone except Richard Stallman would agree with) but with some chance of competing with Linux's price point (free to a couple hundred dollars, depending on which distribution an organization's IT staff prefers).
It hasn't happened so much in first-world countries (Web Server Edition aside) but I expect as Linux continues to enjoy deployment in more fortune-500 companies, and as the OOo suite grows in popularity, you will see Microsoft reexamine their pricing structure across the board.
They're already trying other avenues, such as the upcoming hosted Office offering, Windows Live, and so forth, but after the first year's subscription is up and time for renewal has come, or the first time a company's ISP goes under and it takes 20 to 60 days for a new ISP to provision a T1 and get Verizon|Bellsouth|SBC\{enter phone company here} to actually connect the line, they'll realize just how bad a 100% hosted/subscription offering is. Yes, it's convenient when one is on the road and needs to get that fooPresentation.doc file he forgot, but when C*O is getting his ass reamed because the entire company went down because of the decision to save $20K to $40K in licensing per year cost weeks of downtime when the T1 provider died and all savings were more than offset by lost business due to the downtime, you'll see the thin client model die.
Hosted offerings came about five years too late. During the dot-com boom it'd have sold well (companies bought into many things they shouldn't have) but it'd also have shown the failings then as well.
Anyway, I doubt Linux will spell Microsoft's demise. It will just force Microsoft to change the way they do business at some level, and it has already affected their dealings to some extent.
WORM (CD-R) media once sold for almost that much. Look how quickly the prices came down as defect rates decreased and production increased. Now a CD-R disc can be had for a tiny fraction of the cost of a floppy disk, which has remained at pretty much the same price level for nearly 15 years.
Yes, back up a single unreliable 300GB hard drive to another single unreliable 300GB hard drive. Why doesn't everyone do that?
There are plenty of consumer uses for 300GB media, and system backup is only one such use. Other uses include timeshifted television shows (Windows Media Center, MythTV, etc.), photo albums (consumer digital cameras are already up to 12 megapixels, professional at 17.1, and consumer 17.1megapixel cameras are just around the corner), home videos, and heck, why not massively complex video games with truly photorealistic gameplay? It'd be like CD-I (remember those?) on steroids. With the vast amount of storage available you could intermix actual film footage with photorealistic CGI (with proper shading and blending this time around) and have really realistic gaming environments without the CPU hit of having to render the entire environment, and without the restrictive environments one had with the old CD-I games.
Plus; with 300GB media, HDTV films could be shipped with either no compression or very minimal compression - or lossless compression, with headroom to spare for extras. You wouldn't necessarily have to provide 300 hours of footage to fill up the media.
This could also open up a whole new avenue of media distribution, especially for independent music artists. Subscribe to free 300GB sample discs where the samples could be available in (uncompressed) PCM format, and the full content could be unlocked with a key, downloaded into a client app where it could be given to the customer in an unencumbered format of the customer's choice. Perhaps ALL of the content could be delivered and played at a low bitrate as a teaser sort of format (a true try before you buy music medium), from a variety of artists in practically every genre.
Don't limit your imagination with how you currently use 300GB storage devices.
The only problem with this media I see (aside from **AA entanglement destroying it before it gets to market - see Blu-Ray, HD-DVD) is this: By the time it ships, 3TB drives will likely be on the market. How the heck does one back up those suckers?
Regarding Snow White> Wasn't Snow White produced in the 1930s? (checks IMDB) Yep, 1937 (and I've never actually seen it. I tend to avoid Disney flicks). Can't it's ROI be attributed to several factors?
* Every few years it hits the theater again * Every few years they release it on video, then recall remaining stock from the shelves * lock it in the vault for 7 years * Re-release (repeat again and again)
I avoid Disney flicks because of the way they do this. Once they release it to video, they should make it available all the time. I know they have a brilliant marketing plan but it's a good way to alienate some customers.
And of course, the reason it won't ship in 2013 is because the MPAA and RIAA will complain because the media will actually allow for exercise of Fair Use as outlined in Copyright Law, despite other legitimate uses for the media as well. That is, of course, assuming that the **AA organizations still exist then and haven't given up the ghost due to their not having embraced modern technology.
How each of the thousands of deployed Linux servers at Google's and Akamai's data centers are counted? Each company has thousands upon thousands of Linux boxes, all identically configured, and were they Windows deployments certainly the licensing would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, easily, and Microsoft would be trumpeting those specific clients were that the case.
Of course, because each uses home-brewed "distributions" built from source downloads and in-house contributions, each deployment is not counted as a sale- heck, the original box at each company probably was based on Slackware and not counted as a sale from the very beginning.
Google and Akamai are not the only large data houses or hosts turning to Linux by a long shot, and yet every solution where the distribution is downloaded and deployed from an image (particularly from in in-house distribution) is not counted as a sale. This is because Linux (and BSD) make this possible - both due to licensing and due to technology.
Is it possible to build your own Windows distribution tailor-designed? Sure, but the custom licensing and paperwork (including NDAs) make the cost prohibitive if not obscene, and those certainly would count for sales - each deployed instance. There is certainly some of that going on with Windows, and those are tallied in the sales, but nowhere on the level that Linux and BSD are.
It's well-known that Daimler-Chrysler and AutoZone are migrating to (or have completed migration to) Linux - is each system deployed tallied as Linux sales? Doubtful, because each instance was likely deployed from a single downloaded image, or a single image purchase.
The solution?
Microsoft should build a better product, price it in accordance with its true value, and market it to compete with Linux. Sell it based on its merits/benefits and not based on what FUD they can contrive.
So, how does one tally Windows vs. Linux deployments? Self-reporting? Doubtful. People/organizations which pirate Windows will under-report deployments. Organizations which are Microsoft partners will over-report deployments and sales. Linux zealots will over-report.
It's easy for a commercial server to outsell a server which is free for download by anyone.
Not only that, some of the "commercial" distributions which while not being marketed as server platforms are perfectly usable as servers, just as reliable and scalable (especially after recompiling the kernel), and explicitly allow for use and redistribution of unlimited copies within the organization.
So: By counting sales of Microsoft Windows vs. single downloads or even sales of a single copy of say, Novell Linux, or even SuSE Linux or CentOS, you're (probably intentionally) skewing the stats. Sure, you may be "outselling" Linux, but are you really being deployed more than Linux? Doubtful. How many people download CentOS 10 different times for installation on 10 different servers?
How much more likely is that downloaded image going to be burned to DVDs and handed out and installed on separate boxes? Not only that, because imaging Linux is easier than it is to image Windows servers, how much more likely that servers are being deployed using Partimage and being set up in clusters for web or email servers?
The other day I posted that Microsoft is in the third stage of grief (http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169359& cid=14117183) but it seems they're still in the first (denial). Eventually they will come to accept open source, quit spreading the FUD and come to terms with it and actually offer not only apps which run on *nux or *BSD, but offer consulting for deploying OSS solutions - and when that time comes, I'm sure that Microsoft will excel at it, as well. Oops, made a pun there (excel) and I assure you it was unintentional.
{begin quote} Definition: Elisabeth Kübler-Ross M.D. developed the five-stage grief model that we use today. It is a guide to the stages that a dying or grieving person goes through while accepting death.
The five stages are:
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
{end quote}
Microsoft in the Denial stage: "Get the facts"
Microdoft in the Anger stage: Microsoft sues Taxachusetts, Finland, etc. - large customers who begin to seek alternatives
Microsoft in the Bargaining stage: Microsoft offers the Office XML format as a standard, submits it to committees
Microsoft in the Depression stage: I don't know what they'll do but you'll see their stock tank and Ballmer lose his hair (oops, too late!)!
Microsoft in the Acceptance stage: Microsoft offers Windows under a dual-licensing scheme: Commercial and GPL. Continues plans to port to a Linux-like kernel and proclaims that open source is the best thing since sliced bread. Continues to exist through consulting, support, and related services. Microsoft is now the Good Guy!
(note to n00b mods: this is a funny, not a troll. If you don't get it, or you disagree, just ignore and move past. If you get it, chuckle. If you agree, chuckle. This is merely an attempt at humor and not an attempt to ignite a flame war. Thank you for your kind understanding, and use your mod points wisely!)
Angry Toad, are you still using OpenOffice 1.1.x/1.2.x? If so you need to download 2.0 right away.
Aside from a few performance issues (e.g., problems reading formatted or hyperlinked spreadsheets with >1100 rows per sheet) OpenOffice can fulfill most users' needs. In fact I've rolled it out for several customers in networked office environments (one with ~12 users, one with ~30 users, and one with close to 50 users across a WAN). Users range in experience to totally clueless "Where's the any key" types to typical office users who can just barely grasp the concept of what a "template" is or what a mapped drive is - and yet they've all discovered templates, label printing capabilities, charting, and even Impress (e.g., OOo's answer to PowerPoint)! They use Firefox (I no longer have to clean up spyware every week for them, thank God. Billable work is great, but I'd rather they spend their time improving things rather than maintaining status quo).
IMHO a user interface like the "ribbon bar" in Office 12/office 2005^H6^H7^H^H21 is destined to confuse users and frustrat people for taking up way too much desk estate, and while it's easy to turn off the ribbon bar for the legacy business look and save screen estate, how likely are people going to be able to find the ability to turn it off?
In the Windows world: OOo is one of the exceptions as of the OOo 1.9 beta and now OOo 2.0 release. Firefox as you mention is one of the exceptions. Thunderbird is another exception.
Gimp? Definitely not. Photoshop is easier to use(!). Gimpshop is only slightly more intuitive than The Gimp, and only because it mimics the counter-intuitive-yet-easy-due-to-familiarity Photoshop.
In the Linux world: OOo is one of the exceptions as of the OOo 1.9 beta and now OOo 2.0 release. Firefox as you mention is one of the exceptions. Thunderbird is another exception.
KDE is an easy-to-use desktop environment I've sat total novices at (familiar with Windows and sometimes MacOS) and yet they find the web browser, Writer, and other basic stuff quite easily. Gnome desktop? Not so much. I know my way around gnome but hate sitting novices down at it because I have to hold their hands too much.
Evolution? Aside from current bugs with the Exchange connector, it's easily as easy to use as M$ Outlook (although that is not saying much; it's easy due to familiarity).
Konqueror? Eh, I'm of mixed opinions about it. Easy (downright powerful) for advanced users, but for novices? Depends on which profile/view one loads, I suppose.
Since when is gaming all about eye candy? Commander Keen is still a ton of fun to this very day. It'd be nice if Id or Apogee were to update those games with newer graphics, but that wouldn't make the game any more fun. Heck once in a while I boot up C64 games in VICE and a lot of games for the commie blow away nearly any modern PC or PS2 games for pure fun and playability, even with its lowly 2bpp graphics.
Since I make effort to not get exposed to new material to avoid temptation of becoming an RIAA-label customer again, I wouldn't notice if Eminem disappears off the face of the Earth. Since I started avoiding modern RIAA material I've rediscovered classic rock stations, talk radio, classical, oldies stations, Jazz stations, and even Christian talk radio (yes, I listen to both uber-liberal NPR and to Christian stations. Sue me.)
So, unless No Doubt or Pink Floyd or Weird Al comes out with new work (the only way I'd know is because I check their web sites regularly - and that's how I found No Doubt ended their "hiatus" (e.g., reformed the band) and is going back to the studio in January), I won't be buying new material from a big label.
Oh, and when I do discover a so-called "independent" artist, yes, I do check the record label family tree ( http://www.arancidamoeba.com/mrr/whoownswho.html ) to find out if the label is really independent or not.
BTW a friend of mine recently got suckered in by a so-called "independent" label. He released some old material that was previously unreleased and rather than going through Rhino (who f'd him out of an estimated $2.5mil in royalties) he went through SunDazed - only to find after he signed that it is owned by Capitol. He was PISSED but at least he's friendly with the "owner" (e.g., General Manager, pawn of Capitol) of SunDazed. Because of this "indie" scamming that is going on that even he got suckered into (after getting burnt twice by two big labels, he's definitely not naive), he's starting the process of forming a true independent label (it's not easy, he's hoping his name still carries some weight) to help his son's band not get f'd over and being a slave of one of the big six labels. One thing they're going to encourage is online distribution - the tracks will likely be 64kbps for the full free tracks (NO DRM), 128 or 192kbps 30-second clip samples of highlights, some free live shows (video and audio).
I've tried Subversion with small "hello world" projects but haven't used it in production, so I can comment on it. It was bad enough that I didn't want to put time into configuring it. However I was unaware of the TortoiseSVN front end for it. I've checked out some other front ends I found months ago and they sucked. The new KDE one seems okay so I'm going to do some testing again but I don't think it'd match VSS, nor do I think it'll come close to M$'s new source control. Keep in mind I'm going to be having both Windows and *nix clients, which is why I was considering VSS under wine as a solution.
But thanks for the info, I'll check it out and hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised.:)
And that is untrue of Visual SourceSafe, Rational ClearCase, CVS, or any other source control system how, exactly? If it stores in a DBMS of any sort (be it directories/files, a single monolithic file, or any other storage medium not composed of Magic Pixie Dust(tm) it can become corrupt. Heck, you could simply go old-school and tar up your project each day and run into corruption, causing you to have to roll back to a days-or-weeks-old backup.
So let's take your statement and s/Subersion/SourceSafe:
Source Safe is great, until it corrupts your repository so, that it cannot be recovered with the tools provided.
Then you're glad you made daily backups of the repository, revert and continue as usual.
I mean, Source Safe IS great, and I am thinking of trying it under WINE and if it works roll it out, but it is not immune to corruption. If anything it is more prone to corruption given the higher risk of viruses/worms/etc. under Windows, not to mention NTFS flakiness. I haven't tried Subversion yet but do plan to but for a front end, unless you go all CLI, the GUI has a long way to go to catch up with Microsoft's VSS. Even Rational ClearCase couldn't match VSS for ease of use (at least not back when I used and administered it around 1999/2000), and ClearCase costs several^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hmany magnitudes more than VSS.
Not only are they adding a new splash screen, but they're giving away a free copy of the software to anyone who submits an entry! How can you beat that?
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm based on the tip of another user elsewhere in this thread I'm revisiting Scalix - and not only is the cost more reasonable now, it appears to be free for organizations requiring fewer than 25 users (e.g., free 25 enterprise seats with community edition)
Innnnteresting, I just may download it and try it out - if there is a reasonable data migration path, I will be definitely punting Exchange by year's end.
Well, let's see:
If you still don't "get it" you haven't had to deal with any kind of corporate office where there are non-geeks employed. Microsoft Exchange/Outlook didn't succeed because it sucks, and it didn't succeed because centralizing information flow and collaboration was unnecessary. It met a demand and unfortunately open-source alternatives to Exchange/Outlook (usable ones, that is) are lacking.
I'll second that, only I'd like to toss DriveImage into the mix. God, that program was awesome for creating disk images and backups. Now I use a Linux boot CD and dd instead when I have to create or restore a Windows image.
. . . and that's been holding me back from punting Windows completely off all our servers. :(
Whether or not you want to admit it, Microsoft has a great offering where groupware is concerned.
But Evolution is weak when it comes to Exchange connectivity. It connects using the Ximian Exchange connector, which emulates a web browser against OWA. Not only that, Novell shipped an extremely broken build of Evolution and the Exchange connector with SuSE 10 and has yet to offer a fix that works consistently.
Even when Evolution is working fine, it's dog-slow against Exchange, contacts are weak, public folder support is weak (if one creates a task folder or calendar folder in public folder, it's not recognized as such), and, well. . . it's the best option one has in Linux for Exchange interoperability, with the possible exception of wine/M$ Office.
With that said, if only Novell would fix Evolution and shove an update to the broken packages (Evolution, the connector, and libsoup) I'll be happy, even with the slow performance and poor public folder support.
You mean Windows provides thousands of free programs that install without having to download them? Really?
Wow, I should boot up Windows more often. Maybe DOOM3 installed itself while I wasn't looking!
Never fear! Just kick off the compile job for 3.5 now and you'll be ready to install 3.5 when KDE 4.0 arrives!
(Kidding, only kidding. I *heart* KDE)
Why does Microsoft insist on proposing a new "open" document format when there is already an established one accepted by several official standards bodies as well as endorsed by practically every other office suite producer? Why can't Microsoft for ONCE accept someone else's standard and stick to it? I know there's the whole "it's not from here" ego thing, but sheesh.
If Microsoft learned to play well with others, they'd not have a black eye right now. Microsoft is like the kid who was bigger than everyone else in 3rd grade and a bit of a bully, only everyone else has caught up to them in size and are now starting to fight back and hit the punk where it hurts. Linux on the server end and the OOo suite on the deskop are really hurting, and with several Linux distros' being ready for prime time - for real now - they're scared shitless.
Microsoft could continue to dominate the market through offering integration services plus value-added development and extension of open source projects, but again, it's the whole "it's not from here" thing getting in the way.
Whatever it is, he's definitely all geek, and old-school at that - CLI all the way, no X or any other windowing system for him. He doesn't even use pine, it looks like something more like good old "mail" Maybe he's running some variant of CPM? :)
I think it is already happening. Microsoft introduced the "Windows Starter Edition" in developing countries, and has introduced "Windows Server 2003 Web Server Edition" worldwide, at price points seemingly intent to continuing to offer a commercial, proprietary server product (which they certainly have a right to do as anyone except Richard Stallman would agree with) but with some chance of competing with Linux's price point (free to a couple hundred dollars, depending on which distribution an organization's IT staff prefers).
It hasn't happened so much in first-world countries (Web Server Edition aside) but I expect as Linux continues to enjoy deployment in more fortune-500 companies, and as the OOo suite grows in popularity, you will see Microsoft reexamine their pricing structure across the board.
They're already trying other avenues, such as the upcoming hosted Office offering, Windows Live, and so forth, but after the first year's subscription is up and time for renewal has come, or the first time a company's ISP goes under and it takes 20 to 60 days for a new ISP to provision a T1 and get Verizon|Bellsouth|SBC\{enter phone company here} to actually connect the line, they'll realize just how bad a 100% hosted/subscription offering is. Yes, it's convenient when one is on the road and needs to get that fooPresentation.doc file he forgot, but when C*O is getting his ass reamed because the entire company went down because of the decision to save $20K to $40K in licensing per year cost weeks of downtime when the T1 provider died and all savings were more than offset by lost business due to the downtime, you'll see the thin client model die.
Hosted offerings came about five years too late. During the dot-com boom it'd have sold well (companies bought into many things they shouldn't have) but it'd also have shown the failings then as well.
Anyway, I doubt Linux will spell Microsoft's demise. It will just force Microsoft to change the way they do business at some level, and it has already affected their dealings to some extent.
WORM (CD-R) media once sold for almost that much. Look how quickly the prices came down as defect rates decreased and production increased. Now a CD-R disc can be had for a tiny fraction of the cost of a floppy disk, which has remained at pretty much the same price level for nearly 15 years.
Yes, back up a single unreliable 300GB hard drive to another single unreliable 300GB hard drive. Why doesn't everyone do that?
There are plenty of consumer uses for 300GB media, and system backup is only one such use. Other uses include timeshifted television shows (Windows Media Center, MythTV, etc.), photo albums (consumer digital cameras are already up to 12 megapixels, professional at 17.1, and consumer 17.1megapixel cameras are just around the corner), home videos, and heck, why not massively complex video games with truly photorealistic gameplay? It'd be like CD-I (remember those?) on steroids. With the vast amount of storage available you could intermix actual film footage with photorealistic CGI (with proper shading and blending this time around) and have really realistic gaming environments without the CPU hit of having to render the entire environment, and without the restrictive environments one had with the old CD-I games.
Plus; with 300GB media, HDTV films could be shipped with either no compression or very minimal compression - or lossless compression, with headroom to spare for extras. You wouldn't necessarily have to provide 300 hours of footage to fill up the media.
This could also open up a whole new avenue of media distribution, especially for independent music artists. Subscribe to free 300GB sample discs where the samples could be available in (uncompressed) PCM format, and the full content could be unlocked with a key, downloaded into a client app where it could be given to the customer in an unencumbered format of the customer's choice. Perhaps ALL of the content could be delivered and played at a low bitrate as a teaser sort of format (a true try before you buy music medium), from a variety of artists in practically every genre.
Don't limit your imagination with how you currently use 300GB storage devices.
The only problem with this media I see (aside from **AA entanglement destroying it before it gets to market - see Blu-Ray, HD-DVD) is this: By the time it ships, 3TB drives will likely be on the market. How the heck does one back up those suckers?
Regarding Snow White>
Wasn't Snow White produced in the 1930s? (checks IMDB) Yep, 1937 (and I've never actually seen it. I tend to avoid Disney flicks). Can't it's ROI be attributed to several factors?
* Every few years it hits the theater again
* Every few years they release it on video, then recall remaining stock from the shelves
* lock it in the vault for 7 years
* Re-release (repeat again and again)
I avoid Disney flicks because of the way they do this. Once they release it to video, they should make it available all the time. I know they have a brilliant marketing plan but it's a good way to alienate some customers.
And of course, the reason it won't ship in 2013 is because the MPAA and RIAA will complain because the media will actually allow for exercise of Fair Use as outlined in Copyright Law, despite other legitimate uses for the media as well. That is, of course, assuming that the **AA organizations still exist then and haven't given up the ghost due to their not having embraced modern technology.
How each of the thousands of deployed Linux servers at Google's and Akamai's data centers are counted? Each company has thousands upon thousands of Linux boxes, all identically configured, and were they Windows deployments certainly the licensing would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, easily, and Microsoft would be trumpeting those specific clients were that the case.
Of course, because each uses home-brewed "distributions" built from source downloads and in-house contributions, each deployment is not counted as a sale- heck, the original box at each company probably was based on Slackware and not counted as a sale from the very beginning.
Google and Akamai are not the only large data houses or hosts turning to Linux by a long shot, and yet every solution where the distribution is downloaded and deployed from an image (particularly from in in-house distribution) is not counted as a sale. This is because Linux (and BSD) make this possible - both due to licensing and due to technology.
Is it possible to build your own Windows distribution tailor-designed? Sure, but the custom licensing and paperwork (including NDAs) make the cost prohibitive if not obscene, and those certainly would count for sales - each deployed instance. There is certainly some of that going on with Windows, and those are tallied in the sales, but nowhere on the level that Linux and BSD are.
It's well-known that Daimler-Chrysler and AutoZone are migrating to (or have completed migration to) Linux - is each system deployed tallied as Linux sales? Doubtful, because each instance was likely deployed from a single downloaded image, or a single image purchase.
The solution?
Microsoft should build a better product, price it in accordance with its true value, and market it to compete with Linux. Sell it based on its merits/benefits and not based on what FUD they can contrive.
So, how does one tally Windows vs. Linux deployments? Self-reporting? Doubtful. People/organizations which pirate Windows will under-report deployments. Organizations which are Microsoft partners will over-report deployments and sales. Linux zealots will over-report.
And of course, with most stories referencing odd videos or sounds (etc.) there is no sound sample provided with the story. :(
It's easy for a commercial server to outsell a server which is free for download by anyone.
& cid=14117183) but it seems they're still in the first (denial). Eventually they will come to accept open source, quit spreading the FUD and come to terms with it and actually offer not only apps which run on *nux or *BSD, but offer consulting for deploying OSS solutions - and when that time comes, I'm sure that Microsoft will excel at it, as well. Oops, made a pun there (excel) and I assure you it was unintentional.
Not only that, some of the "commercial" distributions which while not being marketed as server platforms are perfectly usable as servers, just as reliable and scalable (especially after recompiling the kernel), and explicitly allow for use and redistribution of unlimited copies within the organization.
So: By counting sales of Microsoft Windows vs. single downloads or even sales of a single copy of say, Novell Linux, or even SuSE Linux or CentOS, you're (probably intentionally) skewing the stats. Sure, you may be "outselling" Linux, but are you really being deployed more than Linux? Doubtful. How many people download CentOS 10 different times for installation on 10 different servers?
How much more likely is that downloaded image going to be burned to DVDs and handed out and installed on separate boxes? Not only that, because imaging Linux is easier than it is to image Windows servers, how much more likely that servers are being deployed using Partimage and being set up in clusters for web or email servers?
The other day I posted that Microsoft is in the third stage of grief (http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169359
From about.com: "The 5 stages of Grief"
{begin quote}
Definition: Elisabeth Kübler-Ross M.D. developed the five-stage grief model that we use today. It is a guide to the stages that a dying or grieving person goes through while accepting death.
The five stages are:
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
{end quote}
Microsoft in the Denial stage: "Get the facts"
Microdoft in the Anger stage: Microsoft sues Taxachusetts, Finland, etc. - large customers who begin to seek alternatives
Microsoft in the Bargaining stage: Microsoft offers the Office XML format as a standard, submits it to committees
Microsoft in the Depression stage: I don't know what they'll do but you'll see their stock tank and Ballmer lose his hair (oops, too late!)!
Microsoft in the Acceptance stage: Microsoft offers Windows under a dual-licensing scheme: Commercial and GPL. Continues plans to port to a Linux-like kernel and proclaims that open source is the best thing since sliced bread. Continues to exist through consulting, support, and related services. Microsoft is now the Good Guy!
(note to n00b mods: this is a funny, not a troll. If you don't get it, or you disagree, just ignore and move past. If you get it, chuckle. If you agree, chuckle. This is merely an attempt at humor and not an attempt to ignite a flame war. Thank you for your kind understanding, and use your mod points wisely!)
Angry Toad, are you still using OpenOffice 1.1.x/1.2.x? If so you need to download 2.0 right away.
Aside from a few performance issues (e.g., problems reading formatted or hyperlinked spreadsheets with >1100 rows per sheet) OpenOffice can fulfill most users' needs. In fact I've rolled it out for several customers in networked office environments (one with ~12 users, one with ~30 users, and one with close to 50 users across a WAN). Users range in experience to totally clueless "Where's the any key" types to typical office users who can just barely grasp the concept of what a "template" is or what a mapped drive is - and yet they've all discovered templates, label printing capabilities, charting, and even Impress (e.g., OOo's answer to PowerPoint)! They use Firefox (I no longer have to clean up spyware every week for them, thank God. Billable work is great, but I'd rather they spend their time improving things rather than maintaining status quo).
IMHO a user interface like the "ribbon bar" in Office 12/office 2005^H6^H7^H^H21 is destined to confuse users and frustrat people for taking up way too much desk estate, and while it's easy to turn off the ribbon bar for the legacy business look and save screen estate, how likely are people going to be able to find the ability to turn it off?
In the Windows world:
OOo is one of the exceptions as of the OOo 1.9 beta and now OOo 2.0 release.
Firefox as you mention is one of the exceptions.
Thunderbird is another exception.
Gimp? Definitely not. Photoshop is easier to use(!). Gimpshop is only slightly more intuitive than The Gimp, and only because it mimics the counter-intuitive-yet-easy-due-to-familiarity Photoshop.
In the Linux world:
OOo is one of the exceptions as of the OOo 1.9 beta and now OOo 2.0 release.
Firefox as you mention is one of the exceptions.
Thunderbird is another exception.
KDE is an easy-to-use desktop environment I've sat total novices at (familiar with Windows and sometimes MacOS) and yet they find the web browser, Writer, and other basic stuff quite easily. Gnome desktop? Not so much. I know my way around gnome but hate sitting novices down at it because I have to hold their hands too much.
Evolution? Aside from current bugs with the Exchange connector, it's easily as easy to use as M$ Outlook (although that is not saying much; it's easy due to familiarity).
Konqueror? Eh, I'm of mixed opinions about it. Easy (downright powerful) for advanced users, but for novices? Depends on which profile/view one loads, I suppose.
Since when is gaming all about eye candy? Commander Keen is still a ton of fun to this very day. It'd be nice if Id or Apogee were to update those games with newer graphics, but that wouldn't make the game any more fun. Heck once in a while I boot up C64 games in VICE and a lot of games for the commie blow away nearly any modern PC or PS2 games for pure fun and playability, even with its lowly 2bpp graphics.
Since I make effort to not get exposed to new material to avoid temptation of becoming an RIAA-label customer again, I wouldn't notice if Eminem disappears off the face of the Earth. Since I started avoiding modern RIAA material I've rediscovered classic rock stations, talk radio, classical, oldies stations, Jazz stations, and even Christian talk radio (yes, I listen to both uber-liberal NPR and to Christian stations. Sue me.)
So, unless No Doubt or Pink Floyd or Weird Al comes out with new work (the only way I'd know is because I check their web sites regularly - and that's how I found No Doubt ended their "hiatus" (e.g., reformed the band) and is going back to the studio in January), I won't be buying new material from a big label.
Oh, and when I do discover a so-called "independent" artist, yes, I do check the record label family tree ( http://www.arancidamoeba.com/mrr/whoownswho.html ) to find out if the label is really independent or not.
BTW a friend of mine recently got suckered in by a so-called "independent" label. He released some old material that was previously unreleased and rather than going through Rhino (who f'd him out of an estimated $2.5mil in royalties) he went through SunDazed - only to find after he signed that it is owned by Capitol. He was PISSED but at least he's friendly with the "owner" (e.g., General Manager, pawn of Capitol) of SunDazed. Because of this "indie" scamming that is going on that even he got suckered into (after getting burnt twice by two big labels, he's definitely not naive), he's starting the process of forming a true independent label (it's not easy, he's hoping his name still carries some weight) to help his son's band not get f'd over and being a slave of one of the big six labels. One thing they're going to encourage is online distribution - the tracks will likely be 64kbps for the full free tracks (NO DRM), 128 or 192kbps 30-second clip samples of highlights, some free live shows (video and audio).
I've tried Subversion with small "hello world" projects but haven't used it in production, so I can comment on it. It was bad enough that I didn't want to put time into configuring it. However I was unaware of the TortoiseSVN front end for it. I've checked out some other front ends I found months ago and they sucked. The new KDE one seems okay so I'm going to do some testing again but I don't think it'd match VSS, nor do I think it'll come close to M$'s new source control. Keep in mind I'm going to be having both Windows and *nix clients, which is why I was considering VSS under wine as a solution.
:)
But thanks for the info, I'll check it out and hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised.
And that is untrue of Visual SourceSafe, Rational ClearCase, CVS, or any other source control system how, exactly? If it stores in a DBMS of any sort (be it directories/files, a single monolithic file, or any other storage medium not composed of Magic Pixie Dust(tm) it can become corrupt. Heck, you could simply go old-school and tar up your project each day and run into corruption, causing you to have to roll back to a days-or-weeks-old backup.
So let's take your statement and s/Subersion/SourceSafe:Source Safe is great, until it corrupts your repository so, that it cannot be recovered with the tools provided. Then you're glad you made daily backups of the repository, revert and continue as usual.
I mean, Source Safe IS great, and I am thinking of trying it under WINE and if it works roll it out, but it is not immune to corruption. If anything it is more prone to corruption given the higher risk of viruses/worms/etc. under Windows, not to mention NTFS flakiness. I haven't tried Subversion yet but do plan to but for a front end, unless you go all CLI, the GUI has a long way to go to catch up with Microsoft's VSS. Even Rational ClearCase couldn't match VSS for ease of use (at least not back when I used and administered it around 1999/2000), and ClearCase costs several^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hmany magnitudes more than VSS.
Not only are they adding a new splash screen, but they're giving away a free copy of the software to anyone who submits an entry! How can you beat that?