Agreed, more or less. A major point, I think, is this:
Now that the industry has more or less collectively
decided that the network is now good enough to provide
WAN-delivered applications, and web tech such as AJAX
is helping deliver them smoothly, using existing architecture
such as standards-compliant web browsers, why the heck
to we need a super-fancy OS? Aquarium screensavers are
a great example. Instead of having living pets to interact with
and experience life lessons about partnership and care with,
we "need" to burn extra watts to entertain those archaic fancies.
I enjoy fancy desktop environments almost as much as those who
promote them, but obviously it is not required for, and is almost
diametrically opposed to, the functionality people need from computers.
Sorta like power windows & doors, yes I might drive safer by not leaning
across the car to use a hand-crank, but to assume that power windows
make people drive more safely is just idiotic. Like a hands-free mobile
kit,
the safety is very dependent upon the user. Safety or productivity, similar
cases. I had my own backlash about OS X in the last few months, since
most users don't engage in many of the features, at which point I think the
OS doesn't matter much -- like those who simply need a RED car, or one
that looks fast, or .... and so forth.
In the interest of avoiding a flame-fest I better stop here :) It seems we
all pretty much agree about what is really useful, and how the commercial
market hurts & limits FOSS adoption, and how interoperability and getting
things done is more or less the bottom line -- the ideal freedoms of
information
also being on the table of course. I'll also just add in, that I am
impressed with
(but not surprised by) Google word-processing and spreadsheet applications,
too
-- if you haven't seem them yet, they're worth checking out. Sign up for
google's
'for domains" beta program, if you have a spare domain name hanging around
:)
They give you 25 accounts, containing gmail, calendaring, and the apps...
and more.
ben
On 2/12/07, Michael Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I know some one is going to disagree with me on this one.
I think the now defunct company Network / Net Appliance not to be
confused with the Company NetApp. Network Appliance created a nice
little computer called a I-Opener with QNX and there Nano window
environment. No fancy graphics and animations. I think if some one
had a free distro that updated it self and just has a e-mail client
and web browser like FireFox. I know your saying what about office
software. If you only need a word processor and spreadsheet
application. Use Google. I don't think Vista is going to have a
large following and Microsoft will drop support for Windows XP early
causing people to upgrade.
-Miller
On 2/12/07, Ben Barrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> If there were some way that Microsoft could release win98 to the FOSS
> world, without providing undue competition with their own marketing,
> that'd be a major help for the millions of "normal" users, who just need
> to get online for common web/email uses.... where the upgrade costs
> surrounding Vista compete with numerous MONTHS of grocery bills. :((
>
> I think Vista is overpriced by a factor of TEN. Even upgrading to XP,
> for the average low- to mid-level income citizen is a hardship. Too
> many winME installs still thrashing about, out there in the world...
> I'm just identifying the pains of the masses here, for the business
> world I think the costs are fairly nominal, although of course they'd
> get FAR more bang for their buck by going with a FOSS-backended
> architecture. If Intuit would only release a QuickBooks for Linux,
> either an enterprise version for Linux or even their base product line
> in such a way as to be COMPATIBLE with Samba. I have a client
> for whom Samba was working as their QuickBooks share for years,
> and recently things broke down and got bad, I haven't been able yet,
> to figure out whether the particular instance of Samba is having
troubles
> or whether they've actually made their dependency more clear (in terms
> of interoperability failures). Yuck, not stuff I want to deal with, but
it
> certainly drives the business world, and so many companies don't need
> much more than a well-firewalled workplace WAN-connected LAN, with
> QuickBooks or something similar. Yes, "something similar" could begin
> to take over, but without easy training videos and course at LCC to
> train on those similar, possibly FOSS systems, it just won't fly.
>
> It might be known that I have become an OS X supporter... and I think
> that computing platform has done more to offer users a good starting
> place to switch, now with parallels, boot camp, etc... hopefully Xen or
> similar (vmware?) will allow those last necessary windows components
> of an organization's architecture to be hosted without dedicated
hardware.
> When I was at Lunar Logic, we had a handful of winders boxen on & around
the
> rack, which was otherwise almost 100% debian, the sysadmin team dreaded
> it and was hoping to put them all in virtual containers IIRC. Ideally,
into
> the
> circular file [ie, wastebasket] :) They did their job, though,
although
> at times
> they took an inordinate amount of maintenance and tweaks for interop....
> much like any ego-maniacal coworkers that need to feel like they run the
> place.
> ("yes, whatever you say; yes, you are so right... we've adapted systems
as
> per your [PHB] assertions...")
> </rant>
>
> lol
>
> ben
>
>
...
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