Dear Naushad I hope you will not mind my 2 paisas :D, we all have the freedom to express our views, and with due respect to your views, I would like to point out a few things.
You are right in saying that everyone should be judged from a holistic view, true, but how holistic can a person become depends largely on that persons perception of reality, knowledge, etc.etc./ First, let me tell you one thing, IE become most popular despite Netscape being free -- not because we "chose" to accept IE, but because during that era we had to go for a download of an entire night for netscape, whereas IE came bundled with windows. I still remember how costly using internet had been back in 1995~96 -- and downloading software was some sort of an cardiac attack on your wallet :D. People didn't have the choice for Mac -- they were neither easily available nor were softwares as available like today. Had it been otherwise, I am pretty sure people would have gone for Mac. And yes, for a software to survive in the market, quality is just another irrelevant issue -- as the *knowledge* of the user is the primary. Another issue I would like to add regarding IE, it sucked, but we sticked to it because (AND ONLY BECAUSE) it came as a bundle with the OS. Linux was yet to mature a bit more for general users back then, and needless to say, the only source for Linux CDs were friends/relatives/colleagues returning from abroad. We neither had the Elephant Road or BCS Computer City for mass CD distribution. Being the developer of first cross platform web friendly Bangla font, I know the hassle I had to face to make it work in Windows 98 and 95 -- whereas it worked flawlessly in Windows NT4, MacOS and Unix alike. Life was not easy, and we were habituated to quicker and cheaper solution. Now, to address a more serious issue, do you know that at some point in time in the past you would have gotten Windows 98 free with any pc/laptop you would buy? It would come as a bundle, and running any unix like OS in any of them would have been a major crisis for any general users (who would primarily use the PC for word processing, spreadsheet or Power Point at a max, and largely play games and listen to CDs or watch movie). Therefore, it was neither a freedom of choice nor an option for the en-masse. And you might be happy that Billy boy is donating so handsome an amount and training so many teachers and students, but I am trying to visualise the consequences. What will happen to the teachers and the students after they are trained? How many of those students will find a job that can enable them to effectively use their knowledge? Moreover, as they get to any legislative position, which OS or technology will they vouch for? This is a long term effect, and you might not be directly effected by it, but our economy, politics and many other aspects are involved -- there is no way of denying it (well, everybody has a right to deny it, but the facts will remain the same). These teachers, maybe not all of them are as bright as we expect them to be, will never know the potential of Open Source, and neither will the students until they meet someone with enought potential from the world of Open Source. I know marketing is mostly false or partial truth, but you don't see Oracle go for vouching their product while they use someone elses -- as far as I know, all the MSN/HotMail and other microsoft sites run on Solaris -- they tried to migrate to Windows once, and hopefully most of us still remember the three day downtime of all MS sites :D. Now, think, the company that is suggesting windows server for your corporate network/setup is unable to effectively use it for themselves!!! Getting back to my point, I don't think he is contributing anything to the society, rather, it is an investment which he will harvest in the near future. And frankly speaking, I feel truly sorry for the teachers and the students who will receive the training. As for money, I wish they could use it for teaching / learning Open Source technoloigies and enhance their understanding of ICT. Quoting Naushad UzZaman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Dear Brother Alok, > > Nice to see your reply. As I mentioned earlier, I am not a big fan of > Bill Gates:) but I don't want to judge any person with a particular > point of view or for his particular attitude or deed. There are many > reasons to hate Bill Gates! But before hating him you should also > think Bill Gates is the richest person now because there are millions > of windows users. We had the choice but we chose Windows! (e.g. people > chose IE! Did Bill Gates forced us to do so? We switched to IE by our > own. Now we are migrating to Firefox, because we liked firefox. As > simple as that..) I hope people will migrate to other OS soon too. > > However, I am not claiming that Bill Gates is the greatest person:) To > me Richard Stallman or Linus Torvalds are better human being (from a > Computer Scientist's point of view). But I also think that we should > acknowledge Bill Gates's (how do people write Bill Gates's something!) > this contribution to the society. > > Thank you. Best Regards, NZ > > > On 12/7/05, Ahmed Sirajee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Time out!!! > > > > What I wanted to mean was fair competition. > > Without competition there is no existance of a market. > > > > Although a fair competition doesn't exist for real. > > That doesn't nullify the idea of fair play. > > Does it? > > > > Netscape was just an example. > > And you are right in your point nothing is free. > > > > > > > > ??? ???? > > > > alok > > > > > > On 12/7/05, beeplove <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > while saying, 'Netscape died just because of making IE free with 98' > > > > > > also consider the following: > > > > > > 1. We computer users were dumb enough to pick right browser. > > > 2. If I remember correctly, Netscape was also free. > > > 3. In business, quality is not the only thing. Whether a product will > > > servive in the market depends on many thing, quality is one of them. > > > 4. During the time of Tomas Alfa Edison, he was one who oppose the > > > efficient use of AC. But after time, we know how efficient is AC. Can > > > netscape proof it by time. > > > > > > > > > Finally, I would say, Do we have anything in the world which is really > > > free? Think about it again before answer. > > > > > > > > > Thanks, > > > Mohammad > > > > > > > > > --- In [email protected], Ahmed Sirajee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > > > Hi Naushad... > > > > > > > > You are godamn right, the article is fantastic. > > > > Just to wash up some egg shelled brains. > > > > > > > > What is the point? > > > > Is The Daily Star just wanted to prove him as Data Bill Mohsin? > > > Don't you > > > > think Netscape died just because of making IE free with '98? > > > > > > > > Guilty feeling can drive ppl. to donate profusely, to wash off the > > > sins they > > > > made? > > > > > > > > What was in that article was a collection of quotable quotes from The > > > > Readers' Digest. That noone reads anymore. > > > > > > > > Not meant to offend you, pls. understand that. > > > > > > > > I hope you would. > > > > > > > > > > > > Sincerely, > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > alok > > > > > > > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > To unsubscribe send a blank mail to: > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > Ahmed Arif Sirajee > > 880172961331 > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > > > > > > > To unsubscribe send a blank mail to: > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > > > > ________________________________ > > YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS > > > > > > Visit your group "bdlug" on the web. > > > > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! 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