How Microsoft Uses Open Against Open
Submitted by srlinuxx on Sun, 05/11/2008 - 14:38.
To my shame, Peter Murray-Rust put up a reply to my post below in just a few hours. It shows that even such a key defender of openness as Peter finds he "needs an MS OS on my machine because it makes it easier to use tools such as LiveMeeting.
I presume that Microsoft's money comes without strings, but inevitably its availability will make buying its own software easier. Where a cash-strapped project would cast an interested eye over free alternatives, and be willing to pay the price of grappling with new software, those with enough funding - from Microsoft or elsewhere - may well just opt for the familiar.
This is doubtless happening all over the place in science.
Short sighted on technology ? teletype vs. fax machines ? Linux
Software programmers started with compilers. That is short sightedness on technology. You have to work with ascii codes. Fax machines had long replaced all the teletype machines except perhaps in the military.
Openness or closed shop(proprietary software) fight on how to use free software and destroy economy as we know it. You want it free, there will be no money changes hands. So, Linux remains free, and each one of us has to waste time to fix bugs on our own computers. Nothing gained here.
Modern society had done away with big family to feed ourselves, live free off the land. We work for others and buy modern conveniences to upgrade our standard of living. Linus wants us to work free and make a name for Linus. Nothing gained here. Volunteers quit when others got paid. Openness and freedom has no meaning here.
Technology fortunately give us freedom to play, after we faxed our messages and gotten paid for our efforts. We can live free of computers and their bugs. Or we can have virtual administrators to keep our computers operating and without bugs everytime we boot.
It is sad, how much time I spend to fix up Linux operating system or I have to stay with Linux sweet spot to barely survive. Linux also changes too fast, but it is really too slow to keep up with drivers.
If you think you can live with Linux for more than 6 weeks, you have to be using kernel 2.4.x. Kernel 2.6.x is still struggling to debug the conflicts of 2.6.x kernel overriding 2.4.x codes.
Microsoft may yet save my day, using obsoleted WinME. It has been updated so many times since my paid cd, that it takes over 10 hours to update if I should reinstall from my original cd. $100 is still cheap investment for the last 8 years. I never had to debug; auto-update solved all my problems and kept all my many computers running cool.
I am cheap, and I want free Linux software. I am still looking for a copy that can last a while? I have sent for the free Ubuntu 8.04 which hopefully may last for 5 years(with promised support); the older free Ubuntu did not last that long(did not have support from Ubuntu with recommended updates on synaptic)?