US unduly influenced by MS
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| grouch May 05, 2006 5:18 AM EDT |
What Ashlee Vance's story really indicates is the unhealthy influence of Microsoft in U.S. government. FOSS (Free, Open Source Software) is being "aggressively" taken up by much of the world, excluding the U.S. '"The parts of the government that are concerned about things like national security are really worried about open source," [Mitchell Kertzman] said.' This is a reflection of the long-running Microsoft FUD-point regarding FOSS security. It is completely illogical to argue that secretive software is more secure than software you may freely examine and evaluate. It is also contrary to daily news. A few paragraphs after this illogical concern, the article points out that increased scrutiny reveals "companies have discovered that assets claimed as proprietary often end up having plenty of code pinched from various open source projects." This illustrates that secretive software contains, well, secret stuff. You can never be sure what it is really doing. The U.S. government needs to cease favoring the monopoly and begin favoring its citizens. |
| dinotrac May 05, 2006 6:22 AM EDT |
grouch - News flash: There is more to IT than Microsoft. When it comes to truly secure computing, Microsoft isn't even in the game. Think IBM, Sun, HP, etc. |
| grouch May 05, 2006 8:06 AM EDT |
dinotrac: The U.S. government is the biggest customer for Microsoft. Remember also the recent news item about all those zombied MS computers in Congress. Remember FEMA (being dismantled in favor of the Dept. of Homeland Security) uses MS. The DoHS uses MS (strange that it's their spokesman repeating the MS line). Actually, every department of the U.S. government is using MS, either on the desktop, in the server room, or both. The Ambassador to Peru was called on to intervene on Microsoft's behalf when Peru considered moving all government functions to open source. U.S. officials begged the EU Commission to go easy on MS. Microsoft has always claimed their secrecy of source code yields superior security, in spite of facts. Ballmer's questioning of open source software security is mirrored in the DoHS spokesman's comments. I read your comment under the thread "It's all in how you state it, I guess" (http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/22577/) and agree that normal cycles and inertia account for some of the lowered use of open source in U.S. government. Those do not explain all of the lag. Consider what happened to Peter Quinn for an IT decision for one part of one state's government. Microsoft jealously guards its government contracts. |
| dinotrac May 05, 2006 8:08 AM EDT |
grouch -- Peter Quinn is a person who quit his job. The state is still going forward with OpenDocument. |
| grouch May 05, 2006 8:20 AM EDT |
dinotrac: >"Peter Quinn is a person who quit his job." That leaves out the preceding fight by Microsoft to get Massachusetts to ignore Peter Quinn's group's conclusions and recommendations for interoperability over long time spans, the story in the Boston Globe, the timing of the story, the indications of who planted the story, the clearing of his name, the lobbying by Microsoft, and the focus of Microsoft on "competing standards" instead of competing products based on 1 standard. B. Franklin flew a kite. |
| number6x May 05, 2006 8:24 AM EDT |
Romney better think about his stance on ODF if he's considering a run for the Oval Office. I'm willing to bet some of the movers and shakers will advise him to be more pro Microsoft. It would be a bold populist move to keep his current stance, commit to the long term lowering of government costs, and supporting open markets and free enterprise. If Microsoft makes any trouble for him, he can always counter with a reminder about who brought Jack Abrahamoff to Washington DC, and use Peter Quinn as another example. That could shut them up pretty quick. The American Middle class is on the ropes lately and the current elected officials, of both parties, seem to be working harder to please China and big corporations than stand up for their own constituents. A populist stance could win votes. (even if its just a campaign strategy) |
| dinotrac May 05, 2006 8:26 AM EDT |
Microsoft and the Oval Office is an interesting question when you consider that Bill Gates is a Democrat and Microsoft is HQd in a Democratic state. |
| TPuffin May 05, 2006 9:42 AM EDT |
MS gives generously to both major parties, at all levels, to ensure they've got plenty of friends. Seems to be working. |
| dinotrac May 05, 2006 9:49 AM EDT |
TPuffin: Yes the do, as do most large companies. And yes, it does seem to work -- up to a point. Microsoft is constrained to the extent that it's interests clash with IBM, Oracle, Sony, AT&T (still feels funny to type that), Time Warner, Disney, etc. |
| jimf May 05, 2006 11:50 AM EDT |
Bottom line.. The US is engaged in a vicious war between Corporate America and the US Citizen. At this point, it looks to me that the Citizen is loosing badly. |
| keithcu May 05, 2006 6:08 PM EDT |
A big reason why Windows is more prevalent and stronger in the US is because of inertia. Everyone runs the OS everyone else runs--it makes it easier to share documents, get help. Everyone in the US knows Windows and learning Linux will take a while. I used Windows for 14 years before using Linux and it took me many months to get comfortable with it and I still consider myself a noob. Also, Linux isn't as polished in some ways as Linux yet. Just check out all the Ubuntu install bugs for machines which already have Windows running on them. The US will lose its total dominance of the software IP world that it had when 95% of all computers were running the complete MS stack, but if the US gets working on the transition, it can still be relevant. I'm not sure if MS will be relevant, unless it reinvents itself. |
| jimf May 05, 2006 6:24 PM EDT |
keithcu, It takes about a year before you will be as at home in Linux. Whatever Ubuntu is reporting, Linux will run on just about anything, and except for games, is just as polished . Personally, I'm not all that impressed with Ubuntu anyway. Debian has been far better for me. I suggest you try Kanotix if you want a really polished distro which is really close to Debian standard. |
| grouch May 05, 2006 7:18 PM EDT |
jimf: Heh. Your comment looks like it could have come from my daughter. I told her about getting a friend to try out Ubuntu and her response was, "Why not give him the real thing?" (The friend eventually had me mimic my own installation, ugly as the desktop is, after giving Mepis a try, too). |
| dcparris May 05, 2006 7:23 PM EDT |
>A big reason why Windows is more prevalent and stronger in the US is because of inertia. Everyone runs the OS everyone else runs--it makes it easier to share documents, get help. I initially chose the Wintel platform because it was more affordable than Mac (the only other system I knew about) and offered a wider range of programs to choose from. Then I discovered why it was more affordable - it was cheap crap. Over time, I discovered new reasons why it continued to be so affordable: (1) Continued crashability (2) The Registry has a way of holding on to drivers that are supposed to have been un-installed by the (un)installer (3) New peripherals (such as my HP CD burner) included bundled "lite" versions of software with time bombs that prohibited installation after a certain date (I still think that ought to be illegal.) I understood the desktop environment fairly well. The only thing I found confusing was the virtual desktop concept. Once I got the point of it, and started making use of it, I realized there was no way I could ever go back to a lame environment like the default Windows GUI. I managed to figure out the rest of the interface fairly easily. Enlightenment and similar GUIs threw me off a bit as well, but a little reading got me past that. I don't know - it just all looked so similar to me. Maybe I'm just wired that way. Learning the admin tasks has been more challenging, but that's mainly because there are so many things I can do that I could not do with Windows. For example, there's no way I could run a full-blown, 10-box LAN using Windows (due to licensing issues). So I am still learning a number of tasks. :-) Anyway, I was pretty comfortable on the desktop from the beginning. |
| grouch May 05, 2006 8:09 PM EDT |
dcparris: >"Learning the admin tasks has been more challenging, but that's mainly because there are so many things I can do that I could not do with Windows." Nailed it in 1! (Not to discount all that preceded that bit of insight; it was beautiful). GNU/Linux on the desktop is no big challenge for the newbie or the user familiar with MS Windows. It's when they want to take advantage of all that power lurking within that it gets complicated. That's not a fault, it's a fact of the universe. A hammer is a very simple tool, but it's not very adaptable to complex tasks. The words of Neal Stephenson in "In The Beginning was the Command Line" still ring true: "Eventually the big dealership came out with a full-fledged car: a colossal station wagon (Windows 95). It had all the aesthetic appeal of a Soviet worker housing block, it leaked oil and blew gaskets, and it was an enormous success. A little later, they also came out with a hulking off-road vehicle intended for industrial users (Windows NT) which was no more beautiful than the station wagon, and only a little more reliable. With one exception, that is: Linux, which is right next door, and which is not a business at all. It's a bunch of RVs, yurts, tepees, and geodesic domes set up in a field and organized by consensus. The people who live there are making tanks. These are not old-fashioned, cast-iron Soviet tanks; these are more like the M1 tanks of the U.S. Army, made of space-age materials and jammed with sophisticated technology from one end to the other. But they are better than Army tanks. They've been modified in such a way that they never, ever break down, are light and maneuverable enough to use on ordinary streets, and use no more fuel than a subcompact car. These tanks are being cranked out, on the spot, at a terrific pace, and a vast number of them are lined up along the edge of the road with keys in the ignition. Anyone who wants can simply climb into one and drive it away for free. Customers come to this crossroads in throngs, day and night. Ninety percent of them go straight to the biggest dealership and buy station wagons or off-road vehicles. They do not even look at the other dealerships. [...] The group giving away the free tanks only stays alive because it is staffed by volunteers, who are lined up at the edge of the street with bullhorns, trying to draw customers' attention to this incredible situation. A typical conversation goes something like this: Hacker with bullhorn: "Save your money! Accept one of our free tanks! It is invulnerable, and can drive across rocks and swamps at ninety miles an hour while getting a hundred miles to the gallon!" Prospective station wagon buyer: "I know what you say is true...but...er...I don't know how to maintain a tank!" Bullhorn: "You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!" Buyer: "But this dealership has mechanics on staff. If something goes wrong with my station wagon, I can take a day off work, bring it here, and pay them to work on it while I sit in the waiting room for hours, listening to elevator music." Bullhorn: "But if you accept one of our free tanks we will send volunteers to your house to fix it for free while you sleep!" Buyer: "Stay away from my house, you freak!" Bullhorn: "But..." Buyer: "Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"" (Buy the book. That may seem like a lot to quote, but it's a tiny percentage. You can also read it online (handy for old eyes)). |
| henke54 May 06, 2006 6:21 AM EDT |
C++ divided by CLI
Programmers agitated by Microsoft's approach
"At the ACCU conference recently, one wag in the audience referred to Microsoft’s C++/CLI as “C++ divided by CLI”, which neatly summed up the prevailing mood. The 10,000 classes in .NET can’t work with ISO C++, and you may ask why anyone in their right mind would try to bring out a platform in this day and age that couldn’t talk directly to C++. Earlier, a Microsoftie had asked how many were developing for Vista, and the only person who admitted to this worked for Microsoft." http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/05/05/microsoft_cplusplus... |
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