*** FORGIVE THE LONG RANTING POST. HIT DELETE NOW IF OFFENDED *** Funny subject line huh? Wondering what it has to do with Linux?
To those of you on Shaw you have probably received one of their pimping pieces of spam promoting their customized version of IE 7 that is now available for download from Shaw. Please note that I am not condoning MS bashing as I believe that you use the right tool for the right job at the right price. I went to the server that hosts that download and guess what. Unix server running Apache, OpenSSL & PHP. Hmmm? Then when you go and look for more information it announces that Shaw is "partnering" with MS to promote the new IE 7. Now I don't mind Shaw pimping their own products but when they start promoting other peoples stuff; but from both a personal and professional standpoint I am offended. And I let them know! Someone offering an agnostic product (i.e. Internet Access) should provide equal opportunities and support for all choices. You have to know that this partnership means that for every unit someone downloads they are likely getting a kickback fro MS. Not only that, Shaw's partnership with Bell for the digital phone service (and Bell is partnered with MS as well) means that they are dangerously close to being one sided in their offerings. Look at the software they offer for download...Windows only. Talk to their tech support and they support Windows...and apparently Mac now as well, but mention Linux or BSD and they cringe. What good is free tech support if they can;t support me? Should I not get a discount because they can't meet their own service agreements? They would tell you no. I tool it upon myself to let them know what I thought of their offering and that they should be providing fair access to everyone. I would like to see them announcing Firefox 2.0 when it comes out and how they have partnered with them to promote it. wont happen cause they get nothing for it. I also went on to mention that I found it offensive that they would free and open source products when it suits them but that they won't support open source software in general. I don't know if it is an official thing but the tech I talked to said that they do tell people about Firefox as well, but do they actually support it. I did encourage this tech to train themselves if they could but to also approach their bosses and recommend per haps setting up a lab of sorts to give them the opportunity to work on other OS's and software that customer might be using. I realize it is impossible to know everything about every product, but I think Shaw doing that sort of thing would definitely give them an edge in business. This all being said I would encourage others to voice their opinions to Shaw about this practise and perhaps to the other ISP's out there who may be doing the same thing. Maybe one voice can't much, but might make them at least acknowledge something other than the status quo. If they are willing to promote a buggy slow security hampered software (IE) then why not promote something that works and works well (Firefox) and does what it is meant to do. _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [email protected] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying
