M. Fioretti wrote: > ... most people still simply think of (actually understanding) any > technology ... should make you waste as little time as possible.
Which was my main motivation in moving to FOSS back in the late 90's. > This should not be undervalued. Personally, I do not find it undervalued, but I do find it a paradox in the context of MS. > Forgetting this fact of life is an all > too common mistakes of several FOSS advocates, who fail to reach > people because they seem always to give for granted that everybody > _loves_ software hacking and flexibility. No. I can't stand it. However, I seem to observe that MS boosters in various so-called IT depts absolutely love poking and prodding the same bugs again and again. One can make a strong case that one of the main reasons Novell Netware lost marketshare to MS in the late 90's was that Netware more or less ran by itself and needed little or no attention. Often leaving no ongoing technical crises to keep staff on. > >> If an organization uses MS, one can be sure that infighting dominate >> the work culture, even if diplomatically done. If an organization >> uses anything else, but especially FLOSS, then one can be sure that >> the priority is about getting the job done. > > This may be true in organizations whose whole daily life is centered > on software (say, an ISP). I'm afraid that in any big corporation > where almost all computers are simply used as typewriters and > calculators it is the opposite. Hmm. I was thinking the exact opposite. Based on my observations in institutions and businesses that *do not* use software as anything much more than a glorified typewriter or calculator MS is used not because it increases productivity, but rather the opposite. The more a department depends on computers for work and communication, the more burden it becomes. In otherwords, it's a way of throwing sand in the gears. > In such places, "getting the job done" almost always means "let's not > waste time playing with all the possible software alternatives, Which is fine. However, at the same time they spend countless hours paying overtime for something that never quite works. In contrast, using FOSS or even a hybrid like OS X allows the machines to be installed and forgotten, thus permitting everyone to get back to work. -Lars --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
