Public Works Canada solicitation about FOSS

[colin davidson]

On 2/13/09, Lennart Sorensen <lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 08:49:43PM -0500, Christopher Browne wrote:
>  > The trouble is, XP isn't slower than Vista, it seems (from a lack of
>  > personally using either!) that the opposite is the case.
>  >
>  > And I gather there may also be issues of Vista having a smaller set of
>  > built-in "stuff on the side."  I heard (and this mightn't be entirely
>  > true) that they were intending to drop a lot of the extras out because
>  > managing releases for them was proving to be a headache.
>  >
>  > As near as I can tell, the main "more featureful" aspect of Vista is
>  > the presence of a whole lot more "chrome-y" things in the UI, which
>  > pretty much explains it being bloated and slow, despite requiring
>  > massively more hardware.  There will doubtless be hardware compatible
>  > only with Vista, but that is a sword that cuts both ways in that
>  > there's doubtless also plenty of XP-only hardware out there.
>
>
> Well really vista is a whole lot nicer to work with than XP (and
>  earlier).  It has much better ability to quickly find things without
>  lots of scrolling and mouse clicks by having added search ability to
>  most parts of the interface.  Like pop open the "start" menu (no longer
>  labaled start in vista), type something, and you get a list of all items
>  in your entire menu tree that match that word.  So hit the windows key,
>  type putty and you get a couple of things with putty in the name in a
>  list, and a cursor down or two and enter, and putty is running.
>  windows+r and a command name was an option in the past, but only if you
>  knew the program name exactly and it was in your path.
>
>
>  > I'd be curious as to what *really* is a meaningful enhancement to the
>  > user in getting Vista...
>
>
> Well I think the one above is huge.  Of course Microsoft apparently
>  didn't think advertising "It's easier and faster to use" was much of a
>  selling point.  Apparently "It looks pretty" was.  Of course (huge
>  surprise) lots of people (especially businesses) didn't thing pretty was
>  worth $200.
>
>  It is also much more stable than XP.  So far in close to two years, my
>  wife has only had a blue screen of death in the last week, and that was
>  due to installing a free proxy client which turned out to have a very
>  unstable driver and conflict very badly with AVG.  After removing that
>  piece of crap it went back to normal.  Can't say that for XP.
>
>
>  > Note that Linux can suffer from the same.  The Compiz "ray tracing
>  > windows on the sides of cube" thing that recent Fedora/Ubuntu releases
>  > have trumpeted may be *cool*, but even though there's *some* utility
>  > to being able to see what's going on on all the virtual consoles, it
>  > strikes me as a hugely expensive feature that's not valuable enough to
>  > warrant the bloat.
>
>
> Of course only a few distributions and users think compiz is a selling
>  point for upgrades (which of course you rarely pay for in the linux
>  world).
>
>
>  > Historically, Microsoft has factored the cost of updates into the cost
>  > of selling *NEW* versions of their OSes.  Gates had a whole "there are
>  > no important bugs in Windows" thing some years ago that nicely
>  > expressed this attitude.
>  >
>  > The cost of deploying this, for Microsoft, has gone *WAY* up, way
>  > faster than sales, over the last number of years.  Consider that 10
>  > years ago, Windows 98 was basically still a shell atop MS-DOS, and
>  > essentially unsecurable, as a result,  The shift to having systems
>  > where it's even worth *attempting* to secure them, let alone having
>  > more-or-less regular security updates is a really big change.
>
>
> The security of windows 98 didn't really have anything to do with
>  running on DOS, since it was actually running its own drivers in 32bit
>  mode not DOS.  Any security issues were entirely a matter of crappy
>  coding practices and the idea of making things easy out of the box
>  rather than secure out of the box, so all services were enabled by
>  default and generally not designed to be secure, just easy to use.
>
>
>  > I have to "call nonsense" on most of your presumptions, not because
>  > you seem particularly wrong, or because they seem illogical, but
>  > rather because there's indication of them being untrue.
>  >
>  > 1.  Microsoft was trying to turn the taps off on "XP, the old,
>  > obsolete version."  If Vista hadn't been the evident disaster it has
>  > been, XP would no longer be for sale.   They didn't intend there to be
>  > any "solid revenue stream" - they intended for people to buy Vista to
>  > replace it.
>
>
> I suspect people just figure XP is good enough, vista requires more
>  resources to do the same job (it may or may not do the job better, but
>  it does require more computing resources to do it).  Moving to vista may
>  require retraining.  After all some users need training if the colour of
>  the screen changes.  Making the start button a round coloured thing is
>  just way too different for them to comprehend and adapter to without
>  extensive training.  This applies even more so to office 2007 which is
>  very very different looking (it works quite well, but sure takes a bit
>  of getting used to for those used to many years of pretty much the same
>  thing every version).
>
>
>  > 2.  I see nothing to quibble about surrounding amortization of sunk costs.
>  >
>  > 3.  I see plenty enough advertising from Microsoft that it seems that
>  > THEY believe they need to advertise!
>
>
> Apple has been growing in market share.  Microsoft has a market share
>  large enough that growth isn't really likely, only maintaining status
>  quo.
>
>
>  > Frequently odd, yes, but rationales can be found, and ones consistent
>  > with the kinds of policies we see coming out of Microsoft.
>
>
> Certainly maintaining a product when you would rather spend your
>  development efforts making new products doesn't make sense.  Especially
>  when you don't get paid by the users for support, only upfront for new
>  releases.
>
>
>  --
>  Len Sorensen
>
> --
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>

I have Vista on my laptop (came installed). Because I have yet to
figure out how to run rdesktop across an MS VPN (and I HAVE tried, I
assure you - just keep getting a black screen), I use Vista to remote
in to work. Because I run my laptop in a sealed environment (don't
ask), I care rather a lot whether the machine boots up to use the
external monitor. Vista is a little random in that regard (Debian has
been pretty solid, so far). Also, Vista has this endearing little
habit of updating while you're using remote desktop full screen. Then,
without and visible warning, rebooting to complete the install of the
update. Try having your system restart on you without warning while
you're trying to work say six or seven times, and see how much you
like that system...

Cheers, Colin
--
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