What Microsoft Could Learn from OSS and Linux 271
An anonymous reader writes "An article on OSWeekly.com discusses a few things that Microsoft could learn from OSS and Linux. 'As Microsoft continues to understand that open source does not mean they cannot generate a decent profit, I honestly wonder if they will eventually "get" that releasing MS Office code to the open source community is their only option. Since the whole threatening to sue thing will be met with the same fan base response, just like the RIAA, it is certainly not a wise decision. And if Microsoft thinks Open Office is a pain now, try suing people over it, then see how many people refuse to buy their products.'"
Code Release (Score:5, Insightful)
They dont have to release code.. just give out a 100% accurate specification, and don't threaten to sue just because you write a program that can parse Word 97/07 docs.
This goes for any closed shop. Especially hardware vendors. We'll write the code, just release the docs! :)
Office and Exchange are why people buy Windows (Score:5, Interesting)
Just about anything else could be released as Open Source, or given away free, and they'd do ok. They've done some things like that - Netmeeting was the first widespread H.323 voice/video/data/conferencing product, and while they didn't give out the source, the product was free beer (on Windows, of course), and was a reasonably standards-based reference implementation that everybody else in the industry could use. But messing with Office is messing with the crown jewels.
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Or the family jewels, judging from their (re)actions...
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and then there are the must-have third-party apps and plug-ins that integrate with Office. along with the countless macros, templates, tutorials, etc., that do not exist for OpenOffice.org.
Are you for real? Non free is dead. (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you actually praising the upgrade train and trying to tell me that people like it? That's the impression I get when I read:
Microsoft's got a tight-knit set of products out there - businesses want to run Office because everybody else does, so they buy Windows to run it on, and buy upgrades to Office when it comes out, and buy upgrades to Windows when Office needs them.
Let's get this straight. M$ is coercive monopoly [usdoj.gov]. People do not want Vista [slashdot.org] because it's expensive [slashdot.org] and restrictive [badvista.org]. People are not
Re:Are you for real? Non free is dead. (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's get this straight. M$ is coercive monopoly [usdoj.gov]. People do not want Vista [slashdot.org] because it's expensive [slashdot.org] and restrictive [badvista.org]. People are not buying it. The only thing they want less than Vista is a new Office design, complete with a format no one can open that forces them to buy the OS they don't want.
I think it's worth pointing out to you as well that Office 2007 works perfectly fine on XP so you're talking shit that it forces them to buy an OS they don't want, and to add insult to injury you can open Office 2007 documents in Office 2003! Further proof, that you're a fucking moron (you know, with how often you get moderated Troll, I wonder how you can post more than once a day).
The real question is how long hardware vendors can hold their breath before deserting M$ entirely. They have waited six years for Vista and it's a dud. Retailer have been squeezed into buying 20,000,000 coppies of Vista that no one is buying, which adds insult to the poor hardware sales injury. The complex and anti-competitive standards M$ has pushed on hardware makers has made hardware purchases a real crapshot, solved only by purchasing systems as a unit or meticulous research. How long are they going to back that kind of inefficiency when the result is a stab in the back like Plays for Sure [slashdot.org]?
Their "crown jewels" are third rate and increasingly irrelevant. Digital restrictions are an obvious dissaster which must be removed if they want any media market share. After six years of development, mostly wasted on digital restrictions, we get Vista. I've never, ever, heard anyone say they like a new Office format that causes them to go spend a bunch of money. M$ can't fix these problems on their own and no one is going to ride to their aid unless the result is really free.
M$ has a choice to make: go free or die. I have not had any of their stuff in my house for six years and I could care less. Either way they are a diminishing threat to hardware and file formats.
Also, you mention that you haven't had an MS product in your house in six years, and apparently care a great deal about it (because you could care less, as opposed to couldn't care less). In that case, shut the fuck up because you don't use the products, and therefore you don't know anything about them,
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And twitter really is a whiney zealot. You know it too.
So many questions! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Office and Exchange are why people buy Windows (Score:5, Insightful)
And they run Exchange for somewhat dodgier reasons
It may be hard to imagine, but there's a very clear reason why people use the Exchange/Outlook combination: nothing else has done such a good job at integrating contacts, e-mail, and calendars. Seriously, I've talked to a lot of Linux guys and OSS advocates who cannot grasp the value in it, but it really ends up being very useful and functional. For all the criticisms you might have of Microsoft, their products in general, and even Exchange in particular, it's difficult to find a client/server package that can replace Outlook/Exchange.
In fact, I would go as far as to place "insufficient Outlook/Exchange replacements" as one of the big stumbling blocks for Linux/OOo migration. Evolution does a decent job, but still not perfect, and is only available for Linux. A Windows version has been in the works for some time, but AFAIK it's not even in beta yet.
It's not even that Outlook or Exchange is perfect. Certainly not. There's lots of room for improvement, but neither the OSS community nor any other company is really filling the need.
Mod Parent Up (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't care for Microsoft's business practices. And many of their products are horribly flawed.
But Outlook/Exchange are staples in the business world, and I don't see a really alternative.
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:4, Insightful)
It's funny to me because I always hear people claim that it wouldn't be too hard to replicate, but nobody seems to be making headway. People actually use the webmail, shared folders, "send as" rights delegation (or whatever it's called), active directory integration, push to mobile devices, meeting invites, etc. Exchange and Outlook might "suck ass", but they still achieve all these features out of the box with minimal configuration. This is one case where Microsoft is actually serving the business needs of their customers.
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:4, Insightful)
It is arguably the simplest, most intuitive, yet powerful tool Microsoft ever gave the average business user. I work in IT, and I have to support hundreds of end-users who don't know a damned thing about computers, but they get Outlook right away.
Microsoft has done many things wrong, but when you utilize Outlook in a domain with Exchange/Active Directory, you get a pretty powerful tool.
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Let's face the facts about exchange though.. In my experiences, it's main benefit is inter company correspondence. Any other email program could do your external contacts just fine. Personally I would rather we stop using emails at work, and switch to an internal instant messaging system. It would eliminate 90 percent of my email. Most emails I get internally could be han
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Yeah, but I have to email these "complete idiots", send them meeting requests, reserve resources for those meetings and then have shared folders so people can access archives of data in order to prepare for those meetings. And, right next to those emails and requests, I need to be able to watch my calendar and the calendars of the recipients updat
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So what you're saying is that an office package in which I can't do something as simple as search my own multiple mailboxes is 'doing a good job'? I'm a 100% Windows guy who supports this useless frack of an app on a daily basis, and it makes me positively nauseous just thinking of the entire world using the same piece of utter shite to manage their schedule and contacts every day.
The 'integration' you're talking about? Yes, they've stuck three sub-standard pro
Missing half the point (Score:2)
The article misses a huge loss that MS will take if it ever releases anything remotely open-source. Not something technical, but something under "marketing". It will lose the idea that closed-source is better in a vast majority of their markets.
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I'm not so sure customers really care about open vs. closed source. All the real information I've seen suggest they just want to do their own work, and want something they know *will* work- and be supported in the future.
...so your "half the point" might be irrelevant to most people- I think the only people who really care about open/closed source are propeller-heads like us.
Re:100% accurate specification (Score:2)
Any open source microsoft office will be a _new_ project.
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The make plenty of money with office ( and windows ) totally closed, and dont realy need the 'free market' to be on board.
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But if there is no documentation of the format the only documentation is the code itself! Have you considered that?
I bet that they don't have one! There is no MS Office formats specification there is just only one implementation in software and that is it. It is not a standard and I bet even internaly in MS it is not documented/standardized throughly. They probably just add new functions to new versions and make the old functi
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Nah; I'd bet that they have a typical corporate software development environment. There's not just a spec for everything; there are several conflicting specs for most of their software. And the programmers generally ignore the specs, because they understand quite well that they'd better work on what their management wants (this week), if they want to keep their jobs.
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The alternative is they release specifications and someone in China makes an exact copy of the chip. Completely illegal and violates lots of patents, but who ever heard of a patent in China. With our new-found world trade treaties and desire for cheap goods for all the US is certainly not going block import of the
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For some of us, this is a good living
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I'm not MS fan. Lately I have been disappointed at open source too. Of course this disappointment revolves around the new license and the handling of the Novell-microsoft deal with the constant drumming of it is our code we can do anything we want with it. But it is almost as if the tone is
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Title (Score:3, Insightful)
Right, the next headline will be... (Score:5, Funny)
Leave the money makin' to the convicted monopolists, shall we boys?
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To say nothing of the 'ie' -> 'y' :)
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/me is a subscriber so can see into the mysterious future.
I also just like being a smart arse...
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Piracy (Score:5, Interesting)
Besides which, Open Office is in no way a real threat to MSOffice's success and market dominance. Like Microsoft is supposed to throw away their monopoly because someone else has made a word processor for free? Right.
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Well it worked for Firefox!
Piracy is the excuse, sales are the reality (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft Office Home and Student Edition 2007 [amazon.com] is $122 from Amazon.com, retail boxed. Three seat license. Currently - and predictably - #1 on the Amazon software sales chart.
There is of course the OEM edition and academic pricing.
The Geek is far too quick to equate max retail list with the street price for a legit copy of Office. But the deeper truth is that MS Office is still overwhelmingly dominant in every market and still best of class.
Sun Star Office 8 [amazon.com] - a solid alternative, one might argue, for the home user - is $73 at Amazon and #1000 in sales.
Get real (Score:5, Insightful)
Why in the hell would they do that or be enforced to do so?!
You can't enforce anybody to 'open up code'.
Supporting ODF or opening their own formats or codecs would suffice.
Re:Get real (Score:4, Interesting)
My prediction? Microsoft is going to convert their Office product to a series of ActiveX applets and serve it up through Internet Explorer. Homes and small businesses will access the applets over broadband Internet connections, and larger businesses will be offered a chance to license an Office server either as an application or rack device.
The only reason they haven't so far is because broadband penetration in their target markets isn't high enough yet. At some point, they're going to decide that a sufficient percentage of their market has broadband, and they'll discontinue client-side-installed Office software.
It's unfortunate for them that broadband didn't spread more quickly. This administration gives them the perfect atmosphere of leniency. If they could have released an online Office two years ago, they could have established their position as the de facto way of doing business before a potentially more strict administration came along.
Force-feeding OSS (Score:2)
They also want Big Government to pass laws to force federal and state offices to use Open formats.
Why do individuals, businesses and governments have to be forced into using OSS?
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First, why should my tax £££ be wasted on expensive software from Microsoft, when a free download from openoffice.org will do the job just as well.
Secondly, most of the measures are not about using free or open source software, they are about using open formats. Microsoft could if they wanted to, make their software use these formats as an option. The reason for this is to promote competition, so people can chose which software they want to use and open their documents
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I use linux for 7 years now.
I have a laptop with dualboot windowsXP/debian on it. I use windows for school.
I used it for one and a half years without a problem.
A good friend borowed my laptop for a week to work on an essay, since he needed MS office, and I installed ubuntu on his PC.
After that week of normal use (firefox/office), it kept crashing and when I scanned virusses were all over.
He has no idea how that could have happened.
All kinds of strange things happen to windows Pcs of friends.
Woohoo! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Hey, that's not fair. He fixes PCs & tinkers & stuff. [lockergnome.com] ;-)
Pretty much (Score:2)
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So the whole point of open source is to take some of billg's money away?
(and on what facts do you base your claim that Gates is a complete jerk asshole?)
hmmm, What could Microsoft Learn from OSS & L (Score:5, Funny)
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They could learn to really let the users define the software.
They could learn to let go of the marketing department madatory requirements and buzzwords.
But perhaps most importantly, they could learn that the product name has absolutely nothing to do with it's function, but is more of a reflection of the original programmers wit.
OK maybe not so seriously.
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Actually that is what they think they do. They let the Reps (who hold what are essentially Focus Groups, and Opinion polls) dictate needed features. Actual users are so far away from design as to be insignificant.
Witness the changes from a beta MS product to shipment. All that user feedback what changes, It crashes less, Maybe If you are lucky.
They respond to "Trends" not users.
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Umm, NVIDIA.
They could easily be included in the kernel, damn near anybody can, but they like it the way it is. They believe thier product is software instead of hardware.
RTF (Score:2)
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Nothing (Score:4, Insightful)
yeah, right (Score:5, Insightful)
Statements like that just shout "I am delusional!". The people using Open Office are kinda already refusing to buy Microsoft's products. I don't think Microsoft is shakin' in their boots about pissing off Open Office users.
Re:yeah, right (Score:5, Insightful)
This mistake is VERY common among technical people. Programmers assume users will want to use an application the same way they would want to use it. In many parts of the Open Source community, programmers write open source applications with themselves in mind as the target audience. There are definitely exceptions, of course, but this is true of the majority. Having to jump through a few highly technical hoops to install or configure the software is often considered fine, even in a "release" version. For a regular user this is a disaster, as they are unable to navigate the installation/configuration hurdles and quickly give up.
Microsoft, meanwhile, fundamentally understands users. Look at what they concentrate on: Installation and Look and Feel. Technical users bemoan XP and Vista as lipstick on a pig. They're right. But Microsoft knows that the road to wealth is not paved with hidden efficiencies like optimized TCP/IP stacks and user/process security models. The road to wealth is paved with nearly foolproof installations and preinstalled pretty looking software. Software that caters to the user. (Technical software with a smaller audience, such as the nightmare installation of Team Foundation Server, are not a part of this discussion since the user base of such software is by nature highly technical)
You may say, "But wait, MS products aren't all that pretty, and they don't always install well!" True today. But Office, when it came out, was prettier and easier to install than anything else on the market. Windows 95 even more so. Now that they've gained the upper hand, they've become complacent, living off their inertia. Still, when new products debut (like Vista), the same two focuses emerge: Ease of Installation and Look and Feel. (Note that Pre-Installation of Microsoft OSes and Office is a HUGE factor in Ease of Installation, don't overlook it if you respond - there's no easier install than no install).
Damn, I wish I had mod points for you. (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as people maintain the attitudes like the one you shredded, Microsoft has nothing to fear. Microsoft has some of the worlds brightest technical people, who get beaten down on a regular basis when they try to get all 'geeky' with the software. Eventually, really good technology makes its way into the products, especially in the case of Office 2007, but only when the "user experience" is taken care of. It has to look good, feel good, install and uninstall with ease, and become second nature to the user in a short amount of time.
Linux people need to understand what they are up against. I work with a group of small medical research companies. When Merck decides to move to Office 2007, guess what all these companies have to do in order to continue working with Merck? Ya think they are going to take a moments look at Open Office? Nope.
You see, Microsoft understands that they can focus all their sales attention at a group of select companies, and the rest of the market has no choice but to follow, just to stay in business. Suppose you are a small manufacturer, trying to get your product sold at Walmart? Try sending them a financial forecast on anything but Excel, and see how far you get?
You dont beat this kind of lock-in with technical superiority. Steve Jobs understands this, and has restructured Apple accordingly. Linux vendors should follow his lead, but they dont. In no way is the IPod, or IPhone the most technically superior solution in its space, but both will be market leaders on the cool-factor alone.
Geeks dont like it, but tough shit, that is how the world turns.
In every industry, and in every marketplace, marketing determines who wins. I say it over and over again on Slashdot, but until Geeks relinquish the direction of their creative inventions to people who understand how to SELL something, the folks at Microsoft will lose no sleep.
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Install the compatibility pack?
Who cares about OOo? (Score:4, Insightful)
They don't. Nobody, and in terms of market share that's almost not an exaggeration, uses Open Office. If OOo would gain even a 10% market share, MS would probably like it, because it would help them argue that Microsoft Office isn't a monopoly.
Google Apps is a much bigger threat than OOo.
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Microsoft is completely safe (Score:2)
(btw - I think GoogleDocs should be considered a broader threat to MS these days... I don't open files emailed to me any other way any longer)
Correction (Score:5, Funny)
I honestly wonder if they will eventually "get" that releasing MS Office code to the open source community is their only option if they really want to stop making almost 3 billion dollars [cbronline.com] a year in sales.
There, fixed that for ya.
alarmist (Score:2)
Huh? Wha? Did I miss something? (Score:3, Interesting)
You jumped from point A to conclusion B awfully fast there. Why would they want to release the source code to Office? Also from TFA...
Ah...so you're worried that Microsoft would SUE someone using OpenOffice?
Honestly, I think OpenOffice is its own worst enemy. I've tried to switch to OpenOffice several times, but it just can't match my old Microsoft Office 97 in terms of launch and execution speed.
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Any claims that MS Office is unnecessarily bloated and slow compared to its OSS counterparts can now be laid to rest.
Uh (Score:5, Insightful)
How old is whoever wrote this? 12? Who honestly believe that anyone gives a flying expletive about whether Microsoft sues the Open Office project or not? As if the millions of technologically apathetic Microsoft Office users will rebel against Microsoft for a cause that they've likely never heard about.
How did this get on the front page? It's like a half-way thought through anti-Microsoft rant taken from any random open source related IRC channel.
Difference between fan base and businesses (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft does not give a flying f*** about fans. They care about 10,000+ employee businesses that are MS shops. And even then, they want them to pay for premium level of support.
Even if the total number of MS haters exceed the total number of MS licenses on any given year, MS still goes to the bank with those licenses.
Do they want the haters to become joiners? No, not really. They do however want businesses to buy laptops for their workforce so that work done outside the office is still done with MS prod
this "article" is rubbish (Score:5, Informative)
The important thing is, Bill Gates had an onion tied to his belt, as was the style at the time.
Has the poster RTFA? That's not even a rant - rants usually have a point or a specific grievance that they're aimed at. There's no point to that, no argument, he's not trying to meaningfully convince anyone of anything, offers no evidence, no logical or illogical basis for what's being concluded, nothing. It's just a loose collection of vague, meaningless assertions about how doomed MS is if they don't change. Does he even name one thing that MS is going to miss out on by not being OSS?
Release MS Office Code? (Score:4, Funny)
Billg: "That's the dumbest fucking idea I've heard since I've been at Microsoft."
Why must MS start to sue before people refuse? (Score:2)
Maybe... (Score:2)
Another wacko (Score:5, Insightful)
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As mentioned earlier, for them to be forced to open up their source code is something that (to
I Hate to Disagree... (Score:5, Informative)
You want to sue Microsoft for sabotaging you or stealing your patents? Go right ahead. You'll be embroiled in a long, expensive lawsuit, and the eventual penalties, if you get any, will be very little. As a result of FUD or "embrace, extend, extinguish," your company is more likely to be marginalized by the end, like RealNetworks or Netscape. I really think the only way to have dealt with it was the major antitrust lawsuit by the government, but we know how that resulted.
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I just wish companies like Microsoft would take advantage of their monopoly positions more, and jack up their prices, and treat their customers even worse than they already do. After all, what are people going to do about it? They'll bitch and complain just like they do with gas prices, but they'll still buy MS software. Same goes for the RIAA; they need to jack up their prices to $30 or $40 per CD. The
Open source Office? (Score:4, Interesting)
What possibly would Microsoft gain from exposing the code base? It would certainly allow OpenOffice to incorporate all of the "features" of Microsoft Office into their product with (a) little work and (b) no risk. What else would it do? It would not make throngs of Open Source devotees rush out and buy something the could have for free. I can't see unpaid volunteers contributing to the rather rigorous build process Microsoft has to add fixes for obscure, unfixed bugs.
And why does Microsoft have to sue anyone?
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Why would someone pay for it if it was free?
If people would, then MS would sell it as well as give it for free.
It would also have droves of developers improving it.
It would be a bad business decision. Meaning it would be bad for the business, but it would be good for the consumer.
Please... (Score:2)
Please, the average American has a memory of about 2 seconds, about as long as a gold fish. A new headline pops up and we'll pretty much forget about MS sueing anyone. That same day, we'll drive to Best Buy and not only buy Office, but donate a few bucks to a "clubbing baby seals foundation", and "help the poor gas companies cause" in exachange for a free subscribtion to S
Does anybody understand that article??? (Score:2)
Is it just me, or are there other
Options (Score:2)
I honestly wonder if they will eventually "get" that releasing MS Office code to the open source community is their only option
Open sourcing office is their ONLY option? What about the second option, the one that involves keeping it closed source and continuing to generate billions of dollars in profit [marketwatch.com] off of it each quarter?
Not the only option... (Score:2)
I don't think that is their only option. They could release Windows as Open Source and still be in the strongest position to offer software that runs on it.
People are becoming angry that the playing field isn't level and that's one reason there is a migration away from Windows onto a platform where the developer doesn't have to guess about API calls. If Microsoft Offered a vers
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It always amazes me that although people hired full-time to write software spend months getting up to speed on the applications they need to maintain, some "community" person will be able spend a little time examining the source and find "bugs" which they will "fi
OSWeekly? (Score:2)
Boring article (Score:2)
Yeah right (Score:2)
THey control standards, operating systems, what people buy, how they use software, what price people pay, and even the speed of innovation, to what best suites Microsoft.
If MS were dumb enough to give away their crown jewels then people could be free and decide for themselves. This would mean a loss of profit as people who want to write letters to Granda would not spend hundreds of dollars for Word and another hundred for Vista. It would mean phbs may actually consider
-1, WT*? (Score:2)
FOSS => Taxpayer-subsidized software development?
To be polite: let's not go there.
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Re:How to treat people (Score:5, Informative)
Non free has always treated people poorly. (Score:5, Informative)
far too many RTFM's for the OSS community to be lecturing Closed Source companies on treating people like they matter.
Where do you see that? It's not on my LUG or in the class I help teach. Elitism is entirely a closed source constrution. Non free software is designed from the beginning to keep people helpless and divided, to create haves and have nots. Free software, by design, is inclusive and friendly. Have you ever seen a Vista install fest where enthusiastic volunteers come together and give a configured OS to anyone who wants it?
Re:Non free has always treated people poorly. (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I've seen it enough that while I don't necessarily think it's pervasive, it's certainly a problem.
This is no different than your wacky claims that you haven't seen a Vista laptop in your school, so therefore no one is buying Vista and it's a flop.
There's a nice Latin term for these types of disingenuous conclusions: reductio ad absurdum [wikipedia.org].
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When OpenOffice.org has a site as helpful and accessible to end users as MS Office Home, then we can talk.
Re:There's probably more they could learn from IBM (Score:5, Funny)
"Oh, yours is coming! We'll have our day! Yes-sirree!"
*kick kick kick*
"We're open source and free and real agile with a moral high ground and all kinds of stuff, and you are goin' DOWN!"
*lots more petulant kicking*
The dinosaur looks down, puzzled. It tickles. It also squishes.
Re:There's probably more they could learn from IBM (Score:5, Funny)
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One of these days, Microsoft will completely cease to exist. The end has already begun.
It may not be in the next five years...or even 5 billion years...but it's coming.
Maybe, but not the way you think (Score:2)
Actually, from a business perspective IBM's mistake was making the PC too open (although it wasn't entirely open). If you want your platform to be widely adopted and ultimately non-profitable, make it open. If you care about profit more than generic adoption, keep in closed. That's why Apple is still in the personal computer business and IBM is not.
So, MS open sourcing their software would be making the same mistake as IBM.
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which kinda sucks if you making a case for the "free" Office alternative.
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you've just described OpenOffice.org which - for all practical purposes - is funded, staffed and managed by Sun. and has a code bas that makes MS Office look transparent.
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Yes. Too bad that that Software only comes with a new computer, and that Microsoft Office is again your only option...
(oh, btw., I'm still waiting for that open source version of iTunes). An Apple monopoly would be far worse than the Microsoft monopoly we have now (and I'm saying that even though I'm using an Apple computer myself.. ).
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