Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> The secret of GNU/Linux desktop adoption
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | ...Perhaps I just don't understand the industry I work in, or why it would
> | be so desirable to deploy insecure and unreliable operating systems
> | provided by a sole source provider who has a history of illegal business
> | practices.
It's "The Golden Rule" - them that has the gold, makes the rules.
It doesn't have to be fair.
It doesn't have to be right.
It doesn't even have to be legal.
Occaisionally you get someone who gets sloppy, like Ken Leay of Enron,
or the folks at WorldCom. But change the name, rotate positions, and
you have MCI merging with AT&T.
A little stock manipulation, go after the lady who might have made
$50,000 to "cover up" the broker or brokerage who has been "betting
against clients" to the tune of $millions per day. Seal the records as
part of a settlement, and the fat lady washes toilets for 6 months.
Bill Gates gets on the stand, admits in 4 concurrent cases to fraud,
extortion, bribery, blackmail, sabotage, and obstruction of Justice,
and within less than a month, pre-written settlements are quickly
negotiated, complete with weasel clauses, which seal the records and
grant unlimited immunity for all prior acts. Confession is good for
the soul, but if you are Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer, it's also good
for your wallet.
And just think, now every business manager over the age of 30 thinks he
wants to be "just like Bill Gates", doing the shady deals, screw the
ethics, arm-twist your customers, rip-off your vendors, and every
lawyer over 30 wants to be able to write contracts and settlements that
let you get away with it.
It's now called the "Great American Business Ethic".
But then to divert attention from all this "mobster-like" activity, we
will blame it all on globalization.
After all, how dare some ethical company try to actually make it
possible for people to have luxuries like electricity, clean safe
drinking water, safe food, safe roads, housing where deadly malaria
carrying mesquitos cant get in. Where buildings have windows, and
screens, and maybe even electric fans. Where people live in buildings
instead of tents pitched by the highway. Or where the tents are made
of Vinyl instead of leaky cotton.
It's just immoral, that such a company would allow us to give even a
small portion of the jobs we don't even want to do, to people who do it
for a salary that is less than we spend filling our Hummers with high
octane Gasoline. They come to work in scooters that get 40 miles per
Litre, on 8 lane highways that are less than 20 feet wide (4 scooter
lanes, 2 auto-rickshaw lane, and one "car" lane. And the very rich get
to ride in cars half the size of a honda civic (Tata Indica).
It's just shameful that these US companies are willing to let people in
other countries do these low-pay jobs so that they can buy american
prepared food, McDonald's Veggie burgers, and tons of chick-peas grown
in the USA. The stuff we used to have to tell the farmers NOT to grow,
while hundreds of millions of people died of starvation, malaria,
dysentary, and cholera.
It's just shameful isn't it?
> | Perhaps I just don't understand the industry I work in, or why it would be
> | so desirable to deploy insecure and unreliable operating systems provided
> | by a sole source provider who has a history of illegal business practices.
It's really simple, this software is supposed to make workers more
productive, so we will give them Windows and deduct the cost of their
PCs, Windows licenses, Office Licenses, and support contracts, from the
overall payroll budget. This way we can lay off 20% of the work force
to fund the next release of Microsoft's software for the remaining 80%
who can work more unpaid overtime to make up for the lost workers,
which increases productivity.
But then we can blame the economic hardship on sending all those
grunt-level programming jobs to India, where they think working 12 hour
days 6 days a week for less than the price of dinner for 2 in the US
every week - is a really good deal. Of course, it does mean that they
get to eat 2 times per day, ride a moped to work, and sleep in a
building that has a solid roof, and maybe even a window with a screen
in the main bedroom. The rest of the windows don't shut, but at least
you don't have to wake up wondering if those welts from the mesquito
bites mean that this might be your last week at work, and your last
month on earth..
> | Perhaps we are failing to understand why these systems appear to be so popular.
Who said it was popular. About 80% of the population HATES Windows.
But that's a GOOD thing for Microsoft because people will want the NEXT
version which PROMISES to fix all of the BUGS, VIRUSES, CRASHES,
SECURITY Violations, and IDENTITY THEFT, that plagued them in the
current release.
Microsoft has been telling us that Windows will better than UNIX
(Solairs IPC and SLC, SGI Indy, HP-9000,...) since Windows 3.0, and we
keep believing the promise.
As Windows 3.1 crashed and hung every 2 hours, Microsoft told us that
it was much better than Slackware Linux 1.0 which ran for days, even
months, without a reboot. In fact, when a Linux user thought that
Slackware had rebooted after 400+ days, they realized that it was only
that the 32 bit "jiffy" counter had cycled.
> | Some suggest it is about having desktop 'eye candy', though much
> | of the eye candy I have seen being promised by Microsoft is already
> | available in free operating systems today, without requiring one to
> | purchase new hardware...
> `----
Oh, that's not good. After all, the OEMs want to sell new hardware.
They are hoping and praying that Vista will come out and generate
enough sales of new 64 bit Intel systems to give them enough profits to
weather the 3-5 years when Vista machines will be a commodity and the
prices of the machines will fall to the point where they are losing
money on each Vista machine they sell.
At least Linux is giving them a bit of profit during this "dry spell"
while they wait, yet another year, for Longhorn, or was that Steer, oh
that's right Vista (no promises of dates like "Vista 2007", since it
might not be stable until 2008.
> http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/node/1692
But Microsoft says that Vista "really is better than Linux", or at
least it will be, some day, when they get the bugs out, and get the
security holes plugged by putting the security vendors out of business.
The new firewall will make sure that you can't get to any sites that
Microsoft doesn't want you to see.
The Antivirus software will remove all of that horrible virus software
like Firefox, OpenOffice, Thunderbird, and VMWare Player.
You won't be able to download any drivers that aren't signed by
Microsoft, especially drivers for those horrible little Linux-Friendly
OpenGL and FireGL cards.
After all, Microsoft has an 85% profit margin and a $40 billion/year
revenue target and they will get it even if they have to force your
employer to lay off 1/2 the work force.
You WILL buy Office 2007 and Vista, whether you want it or not, whether
you need it or not, whether you can afford it or not, and whether you
like it or not. You won't be able to buy a machine that doesn't have
at least a vista license purchased for it. You may not GET the Vista
license, but it will have been paid for.
Don't worry though, if your employer decides to take the entire cost
out of the IT budget and fires the entire IT department, they have a
great deal on tents at Wal-Mart.
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