IT Job creations... IT job losses?

[JoeHill]

On Mon, 3 Nov 2003 18:59:38 -0500 (EST)
"Keith Mastin" <kmastin-PzQIwG9Jn9VAFePFGvp55w at public.gmane.org> uttered:

> Why is it wrong? M$ has a huge market share on the desktop, yes. Why
> does that irritate you? 

Illegal business practices, predatory behaviour, strangling competition,
seemingly unlimited willingness to ignore security issues, bullying
hardware manufacturers into dumping competing products, etc. etc.

> Why are you not going after Mac for building  bigger, faster and
> better proprietary computers that you can't customize without killing
> the warranty? Is that also not monopolistic?

Mac was one of MS's victims, remember? Building a totally proprietary
system isn't monopolistic, it's just stupid, which is why they were such
easy prey. IBM learned this the hard way and is now reaping the benefits
of embracing OSS. Sun, Oracle, and Novell have jumped on the bandwagon
too. Hey, ask Eric S., the proprietary software model is dead, I just
don't want to see MS drag a whole bunch of innocent bystanders down with
it.

> I fix a lot of broken windoh$ boxes. Let me tell ya something... those
> users... M$ is the best they are capable of using, and even that's a
> stretch. I've seen them decide they didn't need an Administrator
> account on Win2k, so they deleted it. Let me ask you this: do you
> really want those people trying to run a computer that's outfitted
> with anything but windoh$?

Yes. They have a far greater chance of getting their work done without
having it interrupted with a BSOD, virus infection, forced upgrades,
patches that break functionality,  another BSOD...let them try to delete
the root account on a properly configured Linux box. Now *that* I would
like to see. And if you can click on "Start", you can certainly get used
to clicking on the little Gnome foot ;-) And as an added bonus, they
won't be able to download and install Gator or Bonzai Buddy.

> I'm not convinced that everyone shares your views about what linux is
> *supposed to be*. I sure don't. Dominant models genrally suck for
> anything they weren't designed to do. Volkswagen made a great car with
> the beetle, but it was thought to be useless for moving a house.

A lot of people share my views, including the FSF, the producers of
several Linux distros, national, regional, and local governments, just
to name a few. Yes, diversity is good, which is why Linux is a good
choice to replace Windows in a large number of roles, while MS pulls up
it's socks and starts running a different kind of software company, one
that is competitive and dedicated to customer satisfaction. The latest
information I've read indicates they are neither.

> > Linux *can be* "suitable for all situations and users", but it's not
> > going to happen overnight, and it's not going to happen without
> > users taking an active and participatory role in the politcal
> > discourse that so far has allowed MS to quietly carry on it's
> > monopolistic game.
> 
> Ah, you want to push it. What makes linux so great? Yes, it's a good
> little OS for a lot of things, makes for great inexpensive general
> servers, but no match against other OSes for some things. We don't yet
> have a RDBMS that can do live realtime backups without a ton of
> specialized and expensive hardware and proprietary software, and this
> is no small issue.

It's not going to replace everything, but it sure as hell has a chance
at replacing Windows in just about every role that currently occupies.
It already outsells Windows in the server market, and it can beat them
on the desktop as well.

> I really don't care about X or and of the DE's. As far as I'm
> concerned X is a lost cause and should be thrown back to the drawing
> board the same way that a lot of the M$ underbelly is trife.  IMHO a
> whole new graphical user interface architecture needs to be rethunk so
> we can scrap X altogether. Now just imagine the headaches of the
> deployment and distribution.

That I don't doubt. X is very very old and seems to be showing its
limits. But that's hardly a challenge for the thousands of highly
skilled developers who work on GNU software every day. It'll happen,
you're right, it has to.

> Joe, remember that linux is just a baby. It hasn't been around forever
> line some the Unices or M$. It's come a long way and so far is a great
> backend support system for running servers, but at the end of a day,
> it's just another OS to chose from.

I disagree. It is the one OS to present a major challenge to the illegal
and egregious monopoly that is MS, an opportunity, if you will, to break
the back of Gates' stranglehold on the desktop market. Maybe it won't be
the one, but it sure has a hell of a shot at it, and I'm thinkin' I'm
bettin' on a winner.

And as for all those Windows developers who program in VB, well, adapt
or die.

-- 
JoeHill
Registered Linux user #282046
Homepage: www.orderinchaos.org
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