Mandriva bigwig (nearly) accuses Ballmer of b-word Mandriva CEO François Bancilhon has asked Steve Ballmer what it feels like to look at himself in the mirror. In an open letter to the Microsoft head honcho, posted to the web late last night, Bancilhon claims that the Nigerian government has somehow decided to install Windows on 17,000 brand new PCs already equipped with …
...and similar messages.
I am kinda skeptical of this reasoning that they have to be trained to use what's out there. For two reasons:
1) when they come out of school in 5 to 10 years, the software will be significantly different -- or are they going to keep updating these things religiously, as soon as the new versions are out? I doubt it, specially in poor places. Which leads to the second point...
2) the "educational" side of this. Should school teach you how to "think computer" or just train you to press buttons on the screen of a handful of applications? Of course this is a general problem in school, not just computer related -- otherwise science classes wouldn't just make you memorize stuff, but would teach you the scientific method, critical thinking, etc. for example.
.. doesn't it seem like they're behaving like a cornered rat? Makes one wonder what they know that we don't that's inspiring such acts of desperation-- or is it just pure paranoia? It doesn't show a lot of confidence in their products. You'd think if they'd use all that energy and cunning to produce a well designed OS that people would actually prefer to use, they'd fare better. Linux in fact, is actually doing pretty well because it's better, not because it's cheaper-- noone is twisting anybodies arms to use it or to improve it. But, MS would have to forgo the heavy handed bully techniques they use on their developers (and their customers, it seems), something they just can't seem to outgrow. Waterboarding techniques just don't produce a good OS any more than they produce good intelligence.
...you have no idea what happened. But of course, the bashers are out in force. I know this is so much pissing into the wind, but how many of you that are here accusing MS of bribery have anything at all to go on other than the knowledge gleaned from this article?
Does anyone teach Critical Thinking or Logic anymore?
Come on. How many people do you know that can actually use Word or Excel even somewhere near the way they're meant to be.
Word is just used like a fancy electric typewriter (except that someone who knew how to use a typewriter might be able to use the tab-key properly) and Excel is used for everything but proper spreadsheets.
So no, kids don't need to learn how to use MS Office products; they just need to be shown how to use a word-processor and a spreadsheet because if they've been taught that properly they'll be able to work out how to do it on any alternative system.
My guess is that MS are giving away Windows for free and paying for the Mandriva licences too (<sarcasm>and given commercial confidentiality I'm sure MS have had to take the Nigerian Government's word on how much they paid for the Mandriva installs</sarcasm>).
I won't be surprised either if the Nigerians never get around to actually paying Mandriva despite the fact they've said they will.
Hello?
I run Suse (Open and use SLES), Fedora, and Knoppix (dropped Mandrake (now Mandriva) after they tanked, had too much trouble with their product back then anyway. Might be good now though, don't know) plus some XPs.
Hate to say it, but while XPs up time is lower than the Linux distros, the MS patch history is, well, much much better. I am really tired of recovering Linux boxes that have gone titsup after a "security" patch-- the boxes are insecure if no one wants to install the patches due to a risk of losing the box too. The XP boxes keep on ticking along patch after patch, MS learned their lesson. The Linux distros haven't, or maybe cannot afford to properly regression test their patches.
Whatever. MS is pulling ahead on what they do best-- ease of use. And rarely does XP clobber configuration files like Linux patches are notorious for.
If Nigeria went with Linux, they would become a great source of help desk workers for Linux, since the students would need to spend a lot of time repairing dead software.
I'm posting from one of several boxes running FC6-- my primary copy of Suse 10.0 that I normally use is, you guessed it, titsup and waiting for a pumpup (probably to 10.2). Every propeller head should use Linux, the other 99% of the world is presently better off with MS or FreeBSD, er, MAC.
If you don't like the facts, change them. Invest your time in improving the free open software available instead of MS bashing.
I have attended a couple of presentations given by Microsoft executives in the last 12 months. Most have centered around some aspect of security, and all have been given (initially) on a laptop running Vista.
I do not run Vista personally, so I cannot personally attest to how Vista's qualities. I can, however, speak to the fact that at EVERY SINGLE presentation, the M$ executive speaking had to eventually switch to a machine running XP, because his/her Vista presentation laptop repeatedly crashed. I feel bad for the apologetic presenters, because I am sure there is a company policy concerning presenting on Vista.
If a new car model continually broke on the showroom floor, would YOU rave about it, let alone buy a fleet of them for your business?
Someone once posited that a million monkeys with a typewriter each would oneday somehow magically write Shakespeareian content.
Imagine the new Linux-based spam/viruses 17000 computers in the hands of kids could do. Keep them kids in the Windows arena so I can stress less about my linux firewall.
Doesn't matter if it is 17,000 or 17,000,000. There's not going to be an increase in viruses for Linux. Spam may jump, virus infections in windoze will jump (but then, that's gonna happen anyway).
But a properly administered *nix/BSD system will not be able to get hit b y infections in the same way windoze users do. And that's basically because it has a decent security model (ie only admin can write to system files, not the lowliest guest account - no matter how things are set up).
Sure there's the odd hole here and there - still far less than windoze. But these will not mean that any virus infection worth worrying about can hit a Linux box..
The main things you will need to worry about are either some hacker getting in and screwing things up, or someone installing windoze and nortons on your firewall machine. If that happens, you're screwed.
I use both XP and linux at home and work. Maybe its going to be a cut back version, which consumes less resources. Great, where can I download that version?
Maybe they'll dual boot and teach both. Either way, microsoft loses money which is great. That's why I originally bought an xbox :)
As Sir Humphrey would say; "That's a courageous statement!" The western world runs windows (on desktops and laptops, almost true), however on low computing power devices (as these systems are ) it is a very different story, without unix/linux, routers are a set of pretty LEDs , your mp3 player turns into a paper-weight....
on Desktops laptops. the op sys is by and large a program launcher, running firefox and open office and supporting users with those packages , makes op sys agnosticism an easier and realistic option. the problems are by and large bad writing by web designers either accidentally or by design, eg unnecessary ie only features, or importing closed standards documents from microshaft's tubby and unwieldy office.
Hahahaha are you serious? Microsoft's patch history is better then Linux? I'm no fanboy but I've read plenty of stories where weird and wonderful things happened after an XP patch was applied. In the 6 months I've been using Ubuntu after I got sick of Vista I've never had any issues with a patch nor have I ever heard of any such problems.
Imagine this scenario:
17,000 PCs running Windows = $X milion
17,000 PCs running Linux = $Y million (where Y < X)
Purchase order for 17,000 PCs running Linux made out for $Y million
Invoice to Nigerian government for 17,000 PCs running Windows made out for $X million
Intermediary/someone pockets ($X - $Y) million.
Judging by people's apparent opinion of Nigeria and its government, it doesn't sound a too far fetched situation. Maybe MS just made a better offer? ;)
<quote>As long as we insist young employees understand how to use Windows-based software then educating them in something else is wrong. </quote>
What are you talking about? What does windows do? Runs programs and manages files, thats all, exactly like Linux does. Point click drag drop. That's all.
At my school we are 100% linux. Naturally we use OOo. Do I think kids can manage on Windows and MS Office? Of course they can, its the same, only simpler and easier (only 1 choice of everything, designed for your grandma to be able to understand)
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