Open Source, the only weapon against "planned obsolescence"
,----[ Quote ]
| I will also be blunt: I think Apple is hardly an open company, and can
| only be compared to Microsoft. I sigh every time people present Apple
| as a worthy alternative to Microsoft. In my view, Apple is just "a
| Microsoft wannabe with a sense of design and style", but the company
| is just as secretive as Microsoft. Why isn't there a Quicktime for
| Linux? -but don't make me think about it too much, with VLC and
| Mplayer, who needs Apple's broken player?. Apple's partner in crime,
| Adobe, isn't very different: Why did the firm only submit PDF to a
| standards body after the pressure and threat of a competing format
| form Redmondia.
|
| [...]
|
| Until the world switches to Open Source software, I think
| "planned obsolescence" is sadly here to stay. In the meantime,
| I will vote with my wallet and will try to stick to open sauce
| OS(s) for my PCs, and to buy devices which run on Open Sauce,
| whenever possible.
`----
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38544
Related:
2007: a world without Microsoft?
,----[ Quote ]
| The disappearance of Microsoft and Windows would leave a massive
| vacuum in the computing industry - who would be able to take
| advantage and slip into the gap? Who would benefit the most?
|
| [...]
|
| Linux is already offering alternatives to Microsoft, and would
| easily rush into the gap.
`----
http://apcmag.com/4891/a_world_without_microsoft
Publish And Perish
,----[ Quote ]
| Alexander Rose, the executive director of the futurist Long Now
| Foundation, worries about the impermanence of digital information.
| "If you save that computer for 100 years, will the electrical plugs
| look the same?" he asks. "The Mac or the PC--will they be around?
| If they are, what about the software? " So far there's no business
| case for digital preservation--in fact, for software makers like
| Microsoft, planned obsolescence is the plan.
|
| "The reality is that it's in companies' interest that software should
| become obsolete and that you should have to buy every upgrade,"
| Rose says. We could be on the cusp of a turning point, though, in the
| way businesses and their customers think about digital preservation.
| "Things will start to change when people start losing all of their personal
| photos," Rose said.
`----
http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/books-information-preservation-tech-media_cx_ee_books06_1201acid.html?partner=yahootix
http://tinyurl.com/yyjqoh
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