USTR Condemns open source software, DoD approves

[Zorkorist]

Watch out, because here comes closed source, google.

-John

 

[frostedflakes]

Microsoft would prefer they use pirated Windows than Linux.

Yup, I'm pretty sure Microsoft execs and other representatives have publicly said stuff to this effect before. Microsoft could easily kill piracy if they wanted to. It will never happen, though, because then the third world would move to Linux and other free alternatives. Microsoft would rather eat the loss now and keep market share. Then when standard of living improves in countries like China and people can actually afford to buy the software, they'll choose Windows.

 

[Acanthus]

Wow, crazy. If I write some Code, it's my IP. If I choose to give it away for Free, that's my Right to do so. If it undermines the Industry, too bad, sucks to be You.

Kind of like how Kazaa was built to take down the music industry, and Skype was built to take down the telecoms

Neither of them achieved their goal, but that was the idea.

 

[Craig234]

Kind of like how Kazaa was built to take down the music industry, and Skype was built to take down the telecoms

Neither of them achieved their goal, but that was the idea.

IMO, digital technology poses one of the greatest threats to our civilization ever. Protection for the compensation of content creators for sales goes back to the very first reproduced items.

 

[Bateluer]

IMO, digital technology poses one of the greatest threats to our civilization ever. Protection for the compensation of content creators for sales goes back to the very first reproduced items.

Nobody says you cannot sell open source software, people sell it all the time. And usually make a pretty penny in profit on it.

Technology changes, content mediums change. If you don't change and adapt with it, you will become obsolete and irrelevant. The monks hand scribing books probably cringed when the printing press was invented. The RIAA could have cornered the market with digital, MP3 music downloads, but instead shot themselves in the foot and doomed themselves to irrelevance.

 

[Craig234]

Nobody says you cannot sell open source software, people sell it all the time. And usually make a pretty penny in profit on it.

Technology changes, content mediums change. If you don't change and adapt with it, you will become obsolete and irrelevant. The monks hand scribing books probably cringed when the printing press was invented. The RIAA could have cornered the market with digital, MP3 music downloads, but instead shot themselves in the foot and doomed themselves to irrelevance.

That just sounds like talking points parroted.

The monks did lose a lotof power when the printing press was invented, but since it means so many more getting things while copyrights could be protected, that was a very good thing.

It's nothing like the risk to virtually all music, software, books, paintings, films being possibly subject to easy, cheap, virtually infinite universal distributionj and preventing almost any compensation.

That leaves us with things like live concerts and charity/government support.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Hey look - a thread about the US government publishing propoganda, and then a pissing contest about whether or not Linux is a mainstream desktop capable OS.

Try asking yourself what the average salary of a windows user is, and what the windows licence cost is, as a percentage, spread over a 2-4 year refresh cycle. Because that's the available savings that has to pay for the retraining and learning curve.

As for this open source crap, the position of the American government on IP is pretty ridiculous. And I'll add another 'open source doesn't mean free' to the pile.

 

[First]

Half of what you just wrote didn't even correlate with what you replied to, are you high or just fucked in the head?

This discussion is over.

Weak wimp-out.

“Forty percent of servers run Windows, 60 percent run Linux…”

–Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO (September 2008)

Text

An out-of-context quote from an article claiming there’s a conspiracy against Linux market share numbers isn’t exactly credible. Ballmer was likely referring to Linux’s lead in a specific, high-end segment of servers (and even if he wasn’t, he’s wrong based on the hard numbers anyway). But fact is Linux gets pummeled otherwise; not based on the merits of Windows necessarily, but it is what it is and we have to live with it.

 

[Thump553]

According to the IIPA, official government endorsements of open source software create "trade barriers" and restrict "equitable market access" for software companies.

That reminds me, Alice in Wonderland is opening this week.

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

Hey look - a thread about the US government publishing propoganda, and then a pissing contest about whether or not Linux is a mainstream desktop capable OS.

Try asking yourself what the average salary of a windows user is, and what the windows licence cost is, as a percentage, spread over a 2-4 year refresh cycle. Because that's the available savings that has to pay for the retraining and learning curve.

As for this open source crap, the position of the American government on IP is pretty ridiculous. And I'll add another 'open source doesn't mean free' to the pile.

FLOSS is more than the GNU/Linux OS. Take a look at all the new Linux derivatives that run appliances, cell phones, TiVO and so on and so forth. Take a look at any major organisation with larger database requirements, storage requirements and so on.

And take a look at a desktop computer running Linux or *BSD with 20k applications available at no cost.

Learning how to type in Write instead of Word is ... well perhaps that retraining isn't too bloody hard, learning how to click a different looking symbol and clicking write instead of word might not be either, using firefox instead of ... firefox? Well perhaps not all that much training required, using Thunderbird instead of ... Thunderbird? Well perhaps not all that much there either, eh?

Truth is, a regular user would be able to sit down and run any newer linux distro with KDE without any training what so ever.

 

[MotF Bane]

IIPA can go the same place as RIAA and MPAA belong.

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

IIPA can go the same place as RIAA and MPAA belong.

Fallujah?

 

[JSt0rm]

$=free speech and corporations=people per the supreme court so now politics are going to get even more interesting.

 

[MotF Bane]

Fallujah?

I was thinking someplace a little warmer, but okay!

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

I was thinking someplace a little warmer, but okay!

I don't know if warm Hell wouldn't be prefereble to cold Hell.

 

[3chordcharlie]

FLOSS is more than the GNU/Linux OS. Take a look at all the new Linux derivatives that run appliances, cell phones, TiVO and so on and so forth. Take a look at any major organisation with larger database requirements, storage requirements and so on.

And take a look at a desktop computer running Linux or *BSD with 20k applications available at no cost.

Learning how to type in Write instead of Word is ... well perhaps that retraining isn't too bloody hard, learning how to click a different looking symbol and clicking write instead of word might not be either, using firefox instead of ... firefox? Well perhaps not all that much training required, using Thunderbird instead of ... Thunderbird? Well perhaps not all that much there either, eh?

Truth is, a regular user would be able to sit down and run any newer linux distro with KDE without any training what so ever.

Just the differences from excel would be enough to stop most places from adopting. Too many internally developed excel/VB apps out there.

The fact is I could sit down and use Linux, though I don't, but average users needed retraining for the new windows start menu!

And I suspect there are a lot more Exchange/Outlook corporate users than thunderbird users; another area where even minor incompatibility will cost uncountable time to most companies.

I did use Open Office for windows for a while; maybe it's better now, but a few years ago it had nothing like the polish of Office, and with the cheaper home-user editions available, it was a no-brainer.

I support open source in theory, but quite honestly I don't support it with my time, or my wallet.

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

Just the differences from excel would be enough to stop most places from adopting. Too many internally developed excel/VB apps out there.

The fact is I could sit down and use Linux, though I don't, but average users needed retraining for the new windows start menu!

And I suspect there are a lot more Exchange/Outlook corporate users than thunderbird users; another area where even minor incompatibility will cost uncountable time to most companies.

I did use Open Office for windows for a while; maybe it's better now, but a few years ago it had nothing like the polish of Office, and with the cheaper home-user editions available, it was a no-brainer.

I support open source in theory, but quite honestly I don't support it with my time, or my wallet.

You don't just have Open Office, you have five other suits and the one i'd recommend is koffice.

You have 20 000 apps at the tip of your fingers, all of them free and most of them better than anything else, like MySQL, Koffice, slick, mainstream and polished.

I recommend that you sit down with KDE4.3 and use Koffice and THEN you can talk to me about integration or what excel can do.

How the fuck do you even try to spout off about something you haven't used for years?

I'm not saying that windows + office isn't good because it is, it's bloody great, but you don't have to educate a user regarding how to type, e-mail or whatever since the most popular programs are actually cross platform these days.

IOW, until you actually know what you are talking about perhaps you should STFU?

 

[Modelworks]

Open source can easily replace paid software for the general office stuff like word, mail, web browsing or excel. Open source does not mean you are tied to linux. I know of a ton of windows programs that use open source. All it means is that the creator has agreed to make their code available or that they are using code that was made open to the general public. Open operating systems like Linux and open source is both a bonus and a curse. It is a bonus because everyone can customize and do things their way and a curse because the freedom to do things however you want lacks order. Someone not familiar with that world sees it as anarchy where some applications work others don't and some hardware is supported and some not with varying opinions all over.

Then you have companies that profit from open source and then want to withhold information in violation of the rules. Their are millions of devices that use linux for the OS. I bet everyone here has at least one device that is running open source code . The rules are the companies that use it are supposed to release the changes they made to that code to make it work with their hardware. The thing is many/most do not . They are big corporations and the open source community has a hard time making them comply. Or when the companies do comply they release just the original source without the changes and want to claim that as complying.
http://gpl-violations.org/

 

[Fox5]

You don't just have Open Office, you have five other suits and the one i'd recommend is koffice.

You have 20 000 apps at the tip of your fingers, all of them free and most of them better than anything else, like MySQL, Koffice, slick, mainstream and polished.

I recommend that you sit down with KDE4.3 and use Koffice and THEN you can talk to me about integration or what excel can do.

How the fuck do you even try to spout off about something you haven't used for years?

I'm not saying that windows + office isn't good because it is, it's bloody great, but you don't have to educate a user regarding how to type, e-mail or whatever since the most popular programs are actually cross platform these days.

IOW, until you actually know what you are talking about perhaps you should STFU?

Well, you are underestimating the stupidity of the average user.

The average user is too stupid or unwilling to learn the differences between Firefox and Internet Explorer. Functionally, these programs are about the same, but the average user is just scared off because it looks different.
Now then, throw in a more drastic change with something like the iphone, and suddenly the average user can adapt because it's a completely different device, and not something similar but different. People get annoyed with familiarity that isn't exactly the same (look at all the bitching from XP to Vista). Most people just aren't comfortable enough with computers to accept change.

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

Well, you are underestimating the stupidity of the average user.

The average user is too stupid or unwilling to learn the differences between Firefox and Internet Explorer. Functionally, these programs are about the same, but the average user is just scared off because it looks different.
Now then, throw in a more drastic change with something like the iphone, and suddenly the average user can adapt because it's a completely different device, and not something similar but different. People get annoyed with familiarity that isn't exactly the same (look at all the bitching from XP to Vista). Most people just aren't comfortable enough with computers to accept change.

For normal usage there is no difference what so ever.

KDE isn't familiar but the same at all, it is just one step ahead of anything else when it comes to usability.

Click the fucking K and watch the layout, use your desktop for whatever you'd like, use multiple folders as transparent forlders overlapping somewhat if you'd want, use desktop items as you please....

All in all, KDE leaves windows 7 in the backwater sucking for air in a fair comparison.

Now what?

 

[3chordcharlie]

You don't just have Open Office, you have five other suits and the one i'd recommend is koffice.

You have 20 000 apps at the tip of your fingers, all of them free and most of them better than anything else, like MySQL, Koffice, slick, mainstream and polished.

I recommend that you sit down with KDE4.3 and use Koffice and THEN you can talk to me about integration or what excel can do.

How the fuck do you even try to spout off about something you haven't used for years?

I'm not saying that windows + office isn't good because it is, it's bloody great, but you don't have to educate a user regarding how to type, e-mail or whatever since the most popular programs are actually cross platform these days.

IOW, until you actually know what you are talking about perhaps you should STFU?

Good idea, you probably should

What you're refusing to grasp is the amount of lost time (= money) involved in changing over, and the amount of investment in the current de facto standard.

Even if Linux offers an equivalent to everything MS offers, and it's all 'free' (free support anyone?), switching would still be cost prohibitive to most organizations.

Outlook, for example is a lot more than email; in fact, it is barely email at all, it's really calendar software that happens to also be an email client. And it's deeply rooted in many organizations.

Sorry, but until there is something gamechanging in an OS not made by MS, the game isn't going to change, because it won't be worth it.

You don't have to re-teach typing or emailing, but you do have to re-teach pretty much everything else. Office workers had enough trouble switching from NT4 to W2k/XP.

 

[Descartes]

What a nerd fight going on here and so 1990s at the same time. Seriously, the "anyone can run Linux!" argument was great back in 1995, but we're all in the real world now, addressing real problems and running real businesses. Anyone that makes such a suggestion over a decade from the debut of Linux, many years after it had credible window managers, is the guy wearing velcro shoes amid oxfords.

Linux has so little market share in this sector that it's not even worth discussing. Suggesting people can or should use OpenOffice is precisely the kind of nonsensical thinking that kept IT back for so many years due to misalignment with things that actually matter in running a business.