Comments on: More “Independent” Studies… Against GNU/Linux

By: nobodie

nobodie — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 05:50:11 +0000

I’m here in China, and let me tell you a little about the situation.
1) computer classes teach no programming skills or any useful computer interaction skills besides MS package use. EG: database courses all teach Foxpro, exclusively, and I don’t mean FPII.
2) the result is horribly unskilled “IT Professionals”: The IT guru in my office doesn’t know how to set up a network to share a printer. He suggests that we use a shared USB drive to carry stuff to the print “server”
3) PLEASE NOTE

By: Sum Yung Gai

Sum Yung Gai — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:07:43 +0000

I agree, we have to give credit to Microsoft where it is due. I give them credit for illegal business practices. I give them credit for BREAKING my existing software and FORCING upgrades (think MS Office 97, there are other examples too). I give them credit for writing an OS (Vista) that DISABLED my DVD player when Vista decided that I was playing a “pirated” video (it wasn’t “pirated”, it was FOSDEM 2007).

Oh, let’s also not forget to “thank” Microsoft for threatening school districts, too, once they thought they had them “addicted”. Google for “Portland Public Schools” and 2002.

Remember, drugs come with lots of pretty promises, too. Sometimes, they even come in pretty packages, just like MS Office or even MS Windows. The high you get from them is beautiful. But they still hurt you.

My Linux software “just works”, doesn’t get in my way, doesn’t disable my hardware, doesn’t “phone home”, *DOES* preserve my freedom to compute as *I* wish. My OpenOffice works really well, too, better and easier than MS Office 2007, that’s for sure!

I love Linux and other Free/Open Source.

–SYG

By: Roy Schestowitz

Roy Schestowitz — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 22:04:55 +0000

This fallacy is very common and it is perpetually used as FUD. An ordinary user needn’t access to the code, but there is reliance on other programmers with the means and the desire to improve the software. Firefox extensions. the Apache project and the Linux kernel are excellent examples of this. Many individual companies and developers contribute back their changes to the patchmaster.

By: Web Forms

Web Forms — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:46:53 +0000

Altho in business practice, Microsoft is evil, we have to give credits when it is due.

I am talking about the softwares itself. (without touching on the business / monopoly side)

Microsoft’s main softwares clearly respond to user needs in terms of usage. Their engineers really put features that makes Office (especially Office 2003) very useful.

In open source however, (expecially if it is free), when user need a particular feature, there is no incentive for the owner to put it in the software.

If the user is too persistent / keep asking, they usually met with answers like.. this is an open source software, you study the source code and do the changes yourself.

Me, like 95% of the world population, do not want to look at the source codes.

We just want the software to work as it should be. The software should work for us. Not the other way round. i.e. we do not want to waste our time tinkering with the source code.

By: Scott Bicknell

Scott Bicknell — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:38:07 +0000

The point about addiction… is the point. Microsoft has adopted the classic tactic of drug pushers. Give it to them free. Then, when they’re hooked, reel them in and start charging money.

When they refuse to pay (“pirate” the software), withhold the drug (the ability to use the software) by giving them the black screen.

By: John Kinney

John Kinney — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 20:19:45 +0000

“In other words, addiction comes first, later comes the ‘pumping’.”

Um… Not to put too fine a point on it, but isn’t that what a classic drug pusher does? Get somebody hooked and then raise the price?\

John Kinney

By: Dan Andersen

Dan Andersen — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:44:16 +0000

Great post. I wish people would actually realize this has always been going on.