Roy Schestowitz wrote:
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> "Expect Microsoft to ally even more closely with the RIAA and MPAA in
> making yet another try at hardware-based DRM restrictions ? and
> legislation making them mandatory. The rationale will be to stop piracy
> and spam, but the real goal will be customer control and a lockout of all
> unauthorized software. Two previous attempts at this have failed, but the
> logic of Microsoft's situation is such that they must keep trying.
>
> "I also expect a serious effort, backed by several billion dollars in
> bribe money (oops, excuse me, campaign contributions), to get open-source
> software outlawed on some kind of theory that it aids terrorists. We can
> only defeat that by making sure that national governments become so
> attached to open-source code that their military men and bureaucrats will
> short-stop the bribed legislators, rather than let their vital
> infrastructure be outlawed."
>
> http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/halloween11.html
>
> Lots more there. It's prophetic
Eliminating micoshaft is the best way to stop all this crap.
Very sound business practices to get rid of the WINDUMMY osen and replace
it with free software below:
Original article by Rex Ballard.
"
Here are some tactics I've been hearing about from different companies
who are trying to prevent another "forced upgrade" to Vista at the
cost of jobs, poor earnings reports, and loss of productivity.
Executive Management Approval
Employees who want Vista or Office 2007 have to get approval from
their supervisor, who has to get approval from his supervisor, and so
on up the chain almost to the CEO or COO. If a lower level manager
approves, and doesn't get prior approval from his management, a
substantial charge is assessed to his budget, sufficient to clearly
and negatively affect his bonuses. In effect, any Vista or Office
2007 he personally approves, comes out of his bonus.
The point is that most lower level workers are not willing to go
through the hassles of writting a justification sufficient to merit
the approval of a high level executive, and mid-level managers aren't
going to eliminate their chances of promotion or bonuses by bucking
upper management.
Self Funded Personal Platforms
The company will provide the PC and Windows 2000, XP, or Linux, but if
the employee feels that he has to have Vista or Office 2007, they have
to purchase it through the corporate procurement system, and the cost
of the software will be deducted from their bunuses or raises.
Linux bonuses
Company offers bonuses, or adds to annual bonuses based on the
employee's ability to use Linux, with higher bonuses for Linux in
Native mode, slightly less for Virtual Mode, because they have taken
the time to self-train and take responsibility for their own desktop
or laptop environment.
Annual surcharges.
Rather than just giving every employee a copy of Windows and Office,
the employees department gets charged for the licenses and support
they are using. For example, a call to the help desk for XP issues
would be over $300 per call. A support call for Linux might be as
little as $30 per call. In addition, administrative fees and support
fees for just having XP or Linux are similarly proportionally priced.
Full Time Reportinng
Time spent dealing with Windows XP or Office issues, ranging from back-
up and restore to reinstallation of software or Windows, has to be
reported separately on a time sheet. If this time is from the 40 hour
work week, it's treated similar to "sick time". If it's done in
ADDITION to the standard 40 hour week, it is considered volunteer
effort, but this gives companies a much better picture of how much
time is spent dealing with Microsoft related issues, and makes a
better case for switching to Linux.
Extra time spent installing and learning to use Linux ad Open Office
are treated like training, since these are new skills that the company
wants to encourage. Since this training time indicates a willingness
to follow corporate guidelines, Therefore this is a positive when
considering bonuses, raises, and promotions.
Client Provided software
More consulting firms are now expecting the client to pay for special
software. If the client is using Vista and/or Office 2007 and won't
share documents in a legacy friendly way, the consultant has to
purchase the software through corporate procurement, and expense it to
the client along with travel and other expenses (at full corporate
price). This is because too many clients have been "giving" pirated
copies of Vista and Office 2007 to consultants, and the corporate
licenses ONLY apply to permanent employees of the corporation. The
consulting company is liable to Microsoft for the pirated licenses and
could even face a $10,000 per copy fine for the copyright violation.
In some countries, the penalties for stealing are quite severe,
including the loss of body parts.
Automated License and software audits
Most corporations now have the ability to get a comprehensive list of
who has what software, and many are on the lookout for pirated copies
of Vista or Office 2007. If it's not on the inventory as a purchased
license, then it's pirated. Many companies are also asking violators
to come to the data center or customer support depot and have their
laptops re-imaged. Some corporate desktops can automatically be re-
imaged if pirated software is detected.
There are also some new viruses out that are causing full indexes of
the entire file-system to be generated, and sending the index to some
unknown location on a "trickle" basis. If your laptop is suddenly
runnig very SLOWLY, this might be why.
Another virus is looking for file-sharing software such as bit-
torrent, if it's found, the virus deletes all mp3 files. It only
impacts Win2K, XP and Vista users.
Seems like a lot of corporate and hacker forces are starting to make
Windows users really "suffer" for their addiction to Windows. And
attempts to install Vista are pretty much the road to an
"Intervention".
"
So start with LiveCDs me thinks....
http://www.livecdlist.com
http://www.distrowatch.com
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