John McCreesh wrote: > I hope this doesn't sound too racist - I am a closet Francophile ;-)
Not really, given that French is a nationality rather than an race(*). However, as a US citizen I do take issue with the slur that MS is somehow representative of the US or in any way 'American' except for the postal address. It certainly doesn't represent any of the pre-Bush ideals, rightly or wrongly, presented as 'American', at least not the dogma we got in school regarding hard work, honesty, ingenuity and independence. ;) From what I recall, it doesn't even pay its fair share of taxes, and one wonders if the amount that is paid even offsets the economic damage from its malware or the -20% efficiency found in MS shops. These problems do bear a not insignificant role in having made the economic situation worse that it would have been. Freedom. In contrast to the top-down, hierarchical, centrally controlled, command economy represented by MS, the freedom brought by open source and open standards do, appear to represent very much the ideals(**) of democracy and independence as described by the Founding Fathers. To bring it back on topic, the ideals of these political philosophers and or business men were brought to realization only with the help of the French back towards the end of the 1700's Anyway, I applaud the Gendarmerie's initiative and steadfastness. That the move has been well-documented and analyzed helps others very much. The results can now be applied in the US. With the economy the way it is in the US now (the really bad news doesn't filter overseas yet) major deployments of new versions of MS products will likely have to be financed by firing staff. So it could be once again, 233 years later, the French military assisting the US out of a bad spot. We could extrapolate the cost savings from the Gendarmerie for a national deployment for OOo for the whole US, based on the estimated current number of MSO seats, and announce it as an economic stimulus package: OOo gives $X billion USD worth of software to US to stimulate economic growth. -Lars (stepping back down from the soap box) (*) Further, population geneticists like Luigi Cavalli-Sforza seem to take issue with the assertion that there is such a thing as race. Following the frequency distributions of alleles, a strong case can be made that there is no such thing. Sorry, I used genetic maps to support archeological and historical data regarding viking trade routes. Must be a flashback. ;) (**) Shared by many nations. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
