So, this school uses 100% open source software? I take it this particular school will not be producing any young graphical artists, filmmakers, or music producers, then?

For most tasks students complete on school computers, I would prefer to deploy Ubuntu Desktops instead of overhauled Windows XP workstations which need to be manually pampered into health. If everyone is using open office, all documents produced at the school will look god-awful, but this will be a grand equalizer between students, demonstrating to them that there is no place for presentation in academic content.

So, this will be fine for students in most subjects... but I have to feel bad for anyone with creative or artistic leanings. Linux is an engineer's world. While young programmers will be able "express themselves" with terrible unix code and tools, artists will be left learning with archaic and useless tools that have no bearing to professional software where they could be more productive on Macs or even Windows machines. They may not suffer from "vendor lock-in", but they will be subject to "industry lock-out". Ubuntu systems are really only pragmatic in some cases.

Why did you even post this? You just posted that you had no reason for posting on this thread.

Wow, this seems surprisingly factual for an article on Roughly Drafted, but it basically loses it halfway through when he starts predicting the doom for all Microsoft products and brands as he tends to do in every article he writes.

It sounds to me like this is built off an angry and possibly drunken rant from a former Danger dev who felt somehow lost or screwed in the Microsoft enterprise atmosphere.

It sounds like Microsoft wants to leverage their software technologies more heavily (actually the Zune HD is a good example of this) in order to have mobile devices that have better interfaces and media capabilities and are more application-centric like the iphone. Chances are the Danger devs are frustrated with the loss of their cloud architecture and not receiving any proper vision from their management as to where their work is going. Microsoft is a power technology firm, after all, so they're going to want their various teams to utilize their core technologies to produce more powerful interfaces and usability paradigms. There's obviously a strong break in management. It's also possible that the Danger devs aren't taking the sort of leadership they should in this or not open-minded enough to learn new technologies.

If Danger really did build a phone on netbsd, then chances are Danger's servers are BSD servers. If Microsoft wasn't continuing the sidekick line or architecture, chances are these servers were still running BSD. There would be no reason to migrate them to Windows. That's likely why they were maintained by external contractors and not simply virtualized into the Microsoft cloud.

If you come off as a naive moron or hypocrite, then it doesn't really matter how patient you are. You're just bouncing along calm and oblivious, like a manatee or something. It's no fun to be a voice of reason in a giant crock of idiocy like slashdot, so I feel for the people who decided to argue with you.

I mean, talking software on slashdot is like talking religious with Jihadists. It's a wild ride. I wouldn't do it in person for fear of being suicide bombed by someone in a penguin shirt.

Arguing with the people on this site is like arguing with a brick wall. Arguing with that guy was like arguing with a brick wall that was masturbating furiously.

It's just very limited. Besides this, you're walking on egg shells. If you can't meet a pretty extreme level of freetardism, then you will get negative press instead of your fringe market, such as TFA. As a hardware manufacturer, unless you're also producing chips and have no other markets where you sell your drivers/BSP's, then these standards can't always be met.

They would have been better off not targeting the segment at all.

I answer stupid people on the internet like this all the time. Don't credit yourself too much now. This is pretty much what I do on slashdot. You can check my comment history.

Do you fancy yourself some sort of puppet master or something?

I am not going to respond to you anymore. This isn't enlightening or entertaining... it's just creepy. You seem like you might be getting off to this.

Whatever, freetard. You're the one defending a defunct enterprise.

You're right. Sun's doing great now.

And what was your point? What were you saying this entire time? My point was not indefensible because you just blundered on about some vague point regarding open source while I maintained my original focus on netgear being stupid for trying to sell to people like you and Sun being stupid for thinking open source would work for them like it would for Red Hat. You haven't refuted anything I said, hell you just refuted something I didn't say and then started jerking yourself off over it. What a spectacle! The funny thing is that Netgear's going to lose money and you morons will blame it on their proprietary drivers.

What's important is that Sun drank the koolaid that morons like you dish out and that's a massive enterprise gone. They got taken for everything they're worth, and no shit eating freetard argument is going to change that.

I call you people freetards because that's what you are. Religious morons with a dire inability to view your market for what it is: a sham. The successful players in open source are just really good at rubbing your egos so that you'll dish out free labor and accept half-assed products because you think you're all part of some big happy family. Meanwhile, you software is shit, the market is tanking, and all the Linux jobs are in China because you don't need innovative people to recreate unix. The only companies that profit off the community are those that take more from it than they give, and that's the end of it. Sun gave a lot more than they took and now there's another vacuum in the market. Long live the open source fantasy!

This is just a fantasy. There is absolutely no conceivable reason to think that Android will overtake the iPhone. It hasn't been a market success in the slightest yet. Many companies are still hanging back from it and waiting until it has meaningful hardware acceleration for graphics and video. In this respect, this is a prediction that it will defeat a superior, cooler, and more popular product for absolutely no goddamn reason other than the analyst wants it to.

Oh wait, the article's in The Register. Nevermind. It is a fantasy.

2012: Year of the Linux Desktop.

...Right. So, Sun did not build their technology platform and market position around Java? I am not going to go dig through quarterly investor reports to placate your smug ignorance. If you think Java was not a big thing for Sun, I am not going to bother trying to convince you otherwise.

...yes! Yes, moron! They keep it out of their marketing materials! Holy fucking goddamn. They talk about free software and gnu when talking with developers but not when communicating to customers.

Besides this, Red Hat doesn't spend as much on development as Sun did. Red Hat spends money developing projects that benefit their core server market ONLY like KVM or the kernel or GCC. Core technologies. They don't waste money on things like OpenOffice. Red Hat is more focused. They profiteer off the community while Sun gave finished software to the community. Sun was a technology developer and Red Hat is more of a technology packager. Open source makes some sense if you use it as a technology springboard-- but open sourcing Java was worthless to Sun. Same with Solaris. It was utterly pointless. So, instead of using the community to build their product, they merely lost their product to the community. Thus, Sun "believed" in open source. Red Hat is more pragmatic. For everything they give, they sell a massive platform that they only develop a small part of. Red Hat has more flexibility than Sun because they don't own the Linux platform.

Fuck this, it's a waste of time. You're like a child.

What the fuck are you talking about? What was that in reference to? When the fuck did I say Sun sold to freetards? Where did you get that? I was talking about Netgear selling to freetards. I was only referencing Sun as an example of a company that was bitten by embracing open source wholeheartedly.

Sun was strangled by open source, but for entirely different reasons. You're arguing with yourself, you twat.

I am not arguing with you anymore. You're dense as shit.

Then what does Sun do? Java was Sun's biggest most profitable venture. They literally changed their stock symbol to JAVA. So instead of adding value to the platform, you give it away so that the community can take all your resources and run with them?

Both Red Hat and Sun are offering Java as a platform, the difference is that Sun spent all the time and money developing, designing, and maintaining it while Red Hat is merely able to draw profit from selling the platform. What happened here is that one company made a proportionally larger investment than the other and then gave it away. So Sun's now pushing Java at a loss and Red Hat is selling Sun's work at a profit. Red Hat profits from open source and Sun loses. I'm sorry if this seems complicated to you. You seem to struggle with very basic monetary concepts.

Listen, dumbass- they're not marketing the product as GNU Linux, they're not pushing the GPL first, they're not presenting that as the main selling point. There are no profitable ventures that sell you "software freedom". That's the realm of extremists. If your product is somehow connected to Stallman in any forward facing way, you'll look retarded. Marketing loses. Nobody who makes money on open source puts "software freedom" or the GPL or GNU or the FSF or anything on the front page of their site or their box or their marketing materials. Even with Red Hat, who broadcasts their open source affiliation louder than anyone, they hide these references in their site. You aren't marketing to freetards, but you're certainly using their work.

Sure, FEDORA is marketed to freetards-- but it's not for sale. So who cares? It's a giant test platform. It's not a product. If you're catering to freetards, you're doing so to get their labor, not their money.

Yeah, just keep jerking off. This is pointless. Not only are you failing to grasp the most basic foundation of what I am saying, but you're congratulating yourself over your ignorance. That's impressive.

Then why open source Java? Sun open sourced things that rendered their company pointless. Why drop money on Open Office? Even Red Hat had the sense not to initially open source RHN.

The point is that open sourcing something makes it a commodity. Red Hat can market an open source operating system because Linux made Unix a commodity. Red Hat offers a cohesive and supported platform solution built on Linux. That's how they license it. What value does Sun offer its customers anymore?

The problem is that you're inept and incapable of parsing complex ideas, so we run in circles.

My point is that Sun killed itself by giving away all its products in an obtuse manner, rather than just open sourcing useless technologies on the fringe of their business like any other sensible company that deal with open source.

That's separate from my initial point which is that FREETARDS DO NOT BUY THINGS. You do not market to them because they attack anyone who tries to sell things to them. Selling to an anti-commercial market is stupid. Netgear will get to learn this the hard way.

What are these links? What is your point? Red Hat has all sorts of open/free bullshit hidden deep in their site, but their marketing material says Red Hat before it says "open" or GPL or anything useless like that. It's not a selling point.

That's a pretty pragmatic take on this, but I think it's going to bite them because they're marketing to an aggressive and reactive segment.

No, it's not. It's exactly my point. You are so goddamn dense. Red Hat is NOT MARKETING TO OPEN SOURCE ENTHUSIASTS. How much more clear can I make this? They are marketing their solution as a commercially supported professional enterprise platform. They mention Linux, but not GNU or the FSF. If you want to see freetard-centric marketing, look at this:

http://www.gnewsense.org/

Do you see a difference? Oh, all it seems to talk about is how "free" the software makes you. Try to find this on Red Hat's website.

Wait, here's another one:

http://www.myopenrouter.com/

What's this? Oh, it seems to be marketed as an OPEN SOURCE router My OPEN router. Now find an entity that markets to this segment and profits. Good luck!

The GPL is not a brand, it's just a license. You are an abject moron. Red Hat does not use GNU as a major advertising point. Dig around on their website and see how many levels you have to go through to find GNU or the FSF mentioned.

So what would Sun's equivalent to RHN be? It's more than just a package manager. What does Sun offer that gives a web based interface to server management?