FAA May Ditch Vista For Linux 359
An anonymous reader writes "Another straw in the wind: following last week's news that the US Department of Transportation is putting a halt on upgrades to Windows Vista, Office 2007, and Internet Explorer 7, today comes word that the Federal Aviation Administration may ditch Vista and Office in favor of Google's new online business applications running on Linux-based hardware. (The FAA is part of the DOT.) The FAA's CIO David Bowen told InformationWeek he's taking a close look at the Premier Edition of Google Apps as he mulls replacements for the agency's Windows XP-based desktop computers. Bowen cited several reasons why he finds Google Apps attractive. 'From a security and management standpoint that would have some advantages,' he said."
training (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:training (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:training (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:training (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:training (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget that they'll need to retrain people for Vista and Office-whatever anyway. So it's not like one option is free and the other costs money.
Re:training (Score:5, Interesting)
Everybody's been through the Microsoft cycle multiple times now. Microsoft promises the world during development, but by the time a product actually ships, its years late, hugely over budget, and still has only 10% of the features originally promised (Remember Microsoft's database file system? The one that would revolutionize searches and data management and do away with folders? They've been promising that one since 1994 at least. It was supposed to be part of Windows 95!) And Microsoft's products End up having severe support issues during their lifetime (Business Crippling Worms anyone?) It heartens me that Organizations are really starting to think about going with other options.
Only minor training required (Score:5, Insightful)
There would, however, be traing for IT and support people.
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Re:training (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I really that much smarter than the people who work at the FAA?
Re:training (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:training (Score:5, Insightful)
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As a private pilot, I can happily support this. Really. Air traffic control is excellent, and available just about everywhere in the USA. Navigation aids (VOR, etc) are available just about anywhere that you'd ever want to fly,
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Who pays for air traffic control? Ri
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I'll thank the FAA every time I take my shoes off or have to throw out a perfectly good bottle of water to board.
To which they'll probably laugh in your face, considering the FAA has absolutely nothing [tsa.gov] to do with that. TSA is DHS, FAA is DOT.
I didn't realize how many of you libertarian fucktards there are crawling around this web site until comparatively recently. Sadly, very few of you seem to have studied any economics. This is a shame since it underlies your whole system of beliefs. While I'm sure they don't teach this at DeVry, there in fact are cases where government intervention improves overall welfare. Lots o
Re:Every time I go outside... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is made even worse by most people's completely incompetence when judging danger. For example, travelling by train in Britain is MUCH safer than travelling by car, but whenever there is a railway accident hordes of idiots switch to cars because they think trains are dangerous. Yes, I do know about people preferring dangers they have a feeling of control over, but it only makes me think them even more idiotic.
If we ever relied on market forces to promote safety, it would merely lead to a lot of resources being spent on marketing (rather than achieving) safety, and even more misinformation being spread.
Well, Compare it to Vista (Score:5, Interesting)
Other option is just Vista & the new Office. Where at some point you just have to install the new Office (I don't think old & new can be installed at the same time) and make them use it. Now, while I'm sure Vista is more similar to XP than Linux and the Office applications are probably similar also, you know there's going to be bumps.
That said, I don't think the transition to Google Apps on Linux would be any more painful than the transition to Vista running Office. I suppose time will tell though. Hopefully my assumptions are correct and this sparks interest on this huge cost savings?
I guess if you really wanted to promote Linux, you would write tutorials on how to take advantage of this switch to Vista/Office and how to put your workers on Linux/Google Apps. When you make cheap and extremely convenient, they will come.
Re:Well, Compare it to Vista (Score:4, Interesting)
As are OpenOffice, MSOffice, and the majority of Windows applications (thanx to wine). If they have a particular desktop application that does not work under linux or wine, all they have to do is ask on wine-devel and it would be fixed like flies on stank because of how high-profile the situation is.
BBH
Re:Well, Compare it to Vista (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about that. This is the same Google Apps that many users got locked out of a couple weeks ago. Putting your productivity apps on someone else's servers just isn't a good idea. OpenOffice would probably be a much more prudent move.
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You don't have any with OpenOffice either, which was what my suggestion was for.
There are little to no rollout or upgrade costs with a hosted app (someone actually has to INSTALL Office on all of the machines).
If you have a decent administrator, those should be rolled out smoothly over the network to your machines, so the overhead for that is fairly low.
Yo
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Same with thier GMail service at your domain.... they supply the server and software, you just pay them somehow.
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Usually middle management *are* the problem workers.
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Re:training (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally I find the big news to be the fact that more and more corporations, governments, and entire countries, are using Vista/Office2007 as justification to seriously consider non-MS products. Granted it's still a very small percentage of MS customers that have done this so far, but if the groundswell continues and a number of these groups are successful, then it could just be the start of a trend away from MS dominance.
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-Google's online business applications look a lot more like previous MSOffice than Office 2007 does.
-Just put them a decent user-friendly distro, 3 bigs icons on the desktop to link to Gmail, one to GoogleDocs & one to GoogleSpreadsheet. Done!
=>You won't need more than 2 days to explain them everything they need to know to get started, and you'll save a *lot* of money by leaving the Vista way.
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All options require training (Score:5, Insightful)
Technical similarities to XP aside, Vista basically IS an "entirely new system" as well, from an end-user and administrative perspective. The UI has been messed with. Security, right from the user prompts down to alterations in driver architecture, has been altered significantly. Applications released roughly in conjunction with Vista (IE7 and Office 2007) have significant changes (new XML file formats in office, more strict compliance with XHTML and CSS in IE7...). Compounding that the benefits to business are minimal compared to XP in its current state. The business case to upgrade vs migrate is less convincing than ever before.
It is nearly that case with my employer as well--we almost might as well move to macs or Linux vs. XP--the impact of Vista on the enterprise thereis nearly that big. Almost all of the intranet apps are designed and tested against IE6. Running them on Firefox is glitchy but it works, but using IE7 often completely BREAKS the app. Over three quarters of the products we sell will not function under Vista and never will ("next generation" replacements are being developed for release over the next couple of years). Fully half of the hardware we have is not "Vista capable". We have XP and it (mostly) works (good enough anyways). Why risk breaking what is essentially unbroken? Do we really need eye candy? We are already firewalled and antivirused to high heaven so is there any REAL benefit to Vista's largely unproven security enhancements? Which brings up the fact that our corporate antivirus stuff apparently breaks in Vista...
FAA's serious consideration of Google's apps really looks VERY compelling and makes a lot of sense, even if adoption would be over a couple of years. The architecture of Linux is more proven and more secure by far than Windows XP OR Vista. The price per client is significantly less. Google's application-server-thin-client model is much less burdensome. Open and Free systems have much better "real" support (MS makes the argument that closed software gets better support because it is backed by a big, rich vendor but I think most people in the know realise that in practice thereis WAY MORE help and support for Linux because of backing by many vendors and a huge developer community, whereas only MS can offer certain levelsof support).
I do thing that Vista is STILL very much on the FAA's horizon though. Government agencies as well as big corporations are coming under more scrutiny and are being more compelled to do due diligence and put as much up for competitive bid as possible--and get the best deal possible. MS' standard prices and offerings are VERY FAR from competitive since they've gone a long time without competing. Governmental agencies around the world are, as often as not, playing low cost Linux-based alternatives against Microsoft to "force Bill's hand" as it were. Even if Google's software suite falls short of requirements in the end, the FAA could very likely get a special sub-$100-per-user offer from Microsoft for Office upgrades.
I'd hate to seeit turnout that way, but anything that cuts down MS (either inmarket share or insane profit margins) is good in my book.
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My first step would be to migrate existing us
Re:training (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny enough, the hardest Linux converts are the Windows "Power users" because they no long know how to tweak...aka fuck up their new desktop. But for a large majority of office staff Linux either already is or could easily be working perfectly for them in almost no transition time.
I personally believe that if all the over protective MCSE's in the world woke up tomorrow with a decent level of knowledge about the Linux desktop within a couple months Linux and Windows in the corporate workplace would trade places for market share.
Google Apps Appliance (Score:5, Insightful)
store their data out of house.
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Agree, with additional reason (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Google Apps Appliance (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Google Apps Appliance (Score:5, Insightful)
It won't be the first time we're coming full circle in computer technologies (or elsewhere), it doesn't mean that he's wrong. Do you think "organic food" is a thing of the past? It's pretty modern franchise these days.
In computer software, we see interpreted languages coming in an out every few years. When I had my Apple II, the primary means of programming it was an interpreted Applesoft Basic script.
As computers advance and more performance is required, the interpreters become full-blown compilers (C, C++, later Basic compilers), but then the needs for flexibility arises and today we use lots of interpreted languages again (JavaScript, PHP, Perl, ASP, Ruby, Java).
And yet again the need for performance converted those to compiled language in the mid term (later Java runtimes
Still the portable version of
The notion that the future of software is to store absolutely everything remotely, like is the case with Google apps, is a very shortsighted one. It's a current short-term / mid-term trend.
There's already lots of talk about rich clients which support "interrupted connectivity", which is, web apps that have lots of functionality even when you have no internet (i.e. with laptop on the go etc.). These apps operate by usually having a small and simple web-server or runtime and SQL database embeded in them, along with ability for rich caching of remotely downloaded assets. Examples include the upcoming Firefox 3, Adobe's Apollo, Microsoft's WinFX (aka NET3) and so on.
Re:Google Apps Appliance (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Google Apps Appliance (Score:4, Funny)
Or are security minded... (Score:5, Insightful)
unless you LIKE the idea of a potential information leak (including business critical and identity
type information...), you probably don't want to be using their service unless you've no other
choice.
An Apps appliance probably would be a way around this problem. Buy one like you buy some of their
search engine cluster as an appliance for indexing your intranet and exposed Internet presence-
that way you get the security and control you need (Though make no mistake, while it is more secure
than what the FAA is now proposing, it's not as secure as OO.org would be on a desktop...)
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Hunting for a discount? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sound familiar? It seems like the tried-and-true tactic of publicly looking into Linux so Microsoft will rush in and offer support and discounts. Hopefully, they are seriously considering Linux regardless.
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$75 (Score:3, Insightful)
Already there (Score:5, Informative)
FAA is outsourcing the whole flight services infrastructure to Lockheed. A rep from Lockheed gave a presentation to our local EAA chapter on the new system and it's rather cool. Each person gets a multi-head display and all the software is running on Linux. I don't recall the distro. So when you call in for a weather report or to check if there are TFRs in your flight path, you will be talking to a guy running Linux. It makes sense for the FAA to switch because they will likely want access to the same software. The only downside is that there will be fewer of these people, so you may be talking to someone far away who doesn't know the local area and local weather.
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And this is bad because...? This is why monopolies are bad and competitive markets are good. I'd say this is the expected benefit of having two credible choices available: prices, however you measure them, go down. Whichever is chosen, Linux has already helped ensure that the FAA will pay a market-set ra
Google apps/security? (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe I'm thinking of a different Google apps, but how is running Google software more secure? Aren't google apps accessed from google servers? Doesn't that mean this government agency would be running applications from and storing data on servers they aren't maintaining?
I'm not saying that google makes lousy software, I'm just saying that I would be nervous if I couldn't actually directly manage the servers that were responsible for creating and storing the information.
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Then there is the obvious issue of having documents stored in a repository that is by nature openly accessible on the internet. Users already do a massively lame job of creating/maintaining/securing passwords. Now that, admitidly sometimes weak, physical barrier is gone, I can see major issues. Of course that's an easy fix by f
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Re:Google apps/security? (Score:4, Informative)
I agree. This is a _HORRIBLE_ idea (Score:5, Insightful)
If the "ditch" office/windows they're going to have to use GMail for ALL DOCUMENTS. Anything else would have to be like
Furthermore, tell me this slashdot: Why is it better to be locked-in to Googles proprietary software instead of Microsofts?
As others have said, this would only be a good idea, IMO, as a "GApps Appliance" that can be properly audited and approved by US Government security experts.
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Of course it's legal. Why wouldn't it be legal? The government can use contract private enterprises to do anything they need, whether it be data storage or building a house. Also, ever heard of the Freedom of Information Act? 99% of the stuff stored on those servers will be open to the public anyway (I suppose air-port security stuff and on-going investigations and the like would be the exceptions), so there is not like there is a pressing need to hide it.
I would also like to point out that it is not neces
Re:I agree. This is a _HORRIBLE_ idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay, I can follow that logic. It's sort of like the way US Government agencies do not use private financial institutions to manage their money, but keep it all in Fort Knox, and use only Fort Knox Credit Cards? Huh?
Google's specialty is high volume data management and security, and they take that very seriously. If they cannot yet do a better job for less cost than any business or agency whose main purpose is something else, then I would be very much surprised.
Perhaps the government should establish a National Data Management Agency for its own information needs, at the cabinet level. But that won't happen with this administration: it lacks the foresight and considers "intelligence" to be disinformation that will permit them to invade Middle East countries.
Hmm, possibly establishing a USNDMA would make sense. The USDVA (Veterans Affairs) already has a massive data sharing network for the CPRS (Computerized Patient Record System). It wouldn't be much of a reach to build out from that for all other government data. A USNDMA that was hardened against earthquakes, hurricanes, terrorist attacks, etc, might be a good idea, and perhaps cost less than the total the individual agencies are already spending on data security and management.
Re:I agree. This is a _HORRIBLE_ idea (Score:4, Informative)
But as others have said here, Google Documents doesn't even have Find & Replace capabilities yet. (They only have a "Replace All" option and even that is "experimental").
This is the future, I think. I really do. But not today. Not yet. It's just not ready.
Re:Google apps/security? (Score:4, Insightful)
No real difference (Score:2)
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I think that's the idea.
It's sort of like a company getting rid of its security force, armory, strong room and safe, and putting all its money in a bank. Wow, what a novel concept!
Ditching the monopolistic... (Score:2, Funny)
Oh wait, Google apps? never mind.
I hate to step back a second (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I hate to step back a second (Score:5, Insightful)
Simple. MS says they won't support XP after a given date. After that date the FAA (and everybody else) would have to upgrade to Vista to continue getting support from MS.
If the DOT/FAA goes with linux they'll likely go with a vendor like RedHat or Novell who will offer full support services without arbitrary drop-dead dates for support, much easier upgrade paths, etc.
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And any organization as conservative as the FAA will begin evaluating their options and planning their next steps at least a year or two before they implement anything.
I think I've seen this movie before. (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Vendor with monopoly rushes in with truckloads of licenses at "discount rates" to secure their position.
3. CIO returns with whitepaper indicating a TCO in favor of monopoly.
4. ???
If the "ditch" occurs, then that would be news.
Outsourcing Responsibility (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, to be ignorant of technology, but rife with enough buzzwords to be dangerous.
Not only are the google versions of the tools not nearly feature complete, but they're over the internet. Thus guaranteed to be sucktastically slow (especially when a lot of people use it) and very likely insecure in the end (hint: gmail has already had a few goofs). I'm all for ditching Windows, but using online office tools is just short sighted. Within a year or two of the switch they'll be climbing back into bed with MS Office [no doubt].
Also, if you're just going to use AJAX based web tools, what does it matter what OS you run?
Tom
Re:Outsourcing Responsibility (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course you can. For many organizations, handling document security is a major problem. Even basic stuff like backups is a major PITA
But even more than that, presumably one of the things he was referring to is the security implications of having people download "stuff" that may or may not be legitimate documents, and accidentally running it (and don't even try to give me shit about how there aren't any real viruses for Linux - if a major government agency starts relying on Linux boxes, you can bet someone, somewhere will start looking at ways to use it for intrusion). Yes, lots of apps have far saner policies about running things than Office has, but avoiding downloading files from mail accounts entirely in favor of processing those documents outside of your normal environment whenever possible would have the effect of limiting the potential damage further.
It's not that a webapp is required to do that, but that Google's apps present a possible way of doing it that is convenient and available.
Not only are the google versions of the tools not nearly feature complete, but they're over the internet. Thus guaranteed to be sucktastically slow (especially when a lot of people use it)
Maybe, maybe not. Google Spreadsheets handle a lot of Excel files that breaks badly in Open Office for me, and it's also FAR faster to open a document in than Open Office is on my box, and far less resource hungry to just keep open, which reduces the time to open even more. If I'd been editing lots of large spreadsheets instead of mostly viewing the occasional small one, perhaps Google Spreadsheets would be a pain, but for MY use it's actually far more efficient than Open Office. Haven't tried Gnumeric for a while, and I rarely need a word processor but when I do Abiword just haven't cut it for me (I tried it again a couple of days ago, and the printouts of the document I tested it on just came out horrendously ugly).
Also, if you're just going to use AJAX based web tools, what does it matter what OS you run?
It matters because the IT department has to manage the systems regardless what apps you run on them.
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And while you may think you're delegating responsibility you're still ultimately responsible. If I give company ABC my CC info to buy a product from them, then they choose to pass it off to someone else that I didn't authorize to process the payment, and eventually I learn that they did something fraudulent with it. You can be damn sure I'll hold ABC responsible, if not legally
Re:Outsourcing Responsibility (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course you can. Security is one of the oldest businesses ever outsourced (that means taken away from your own employees/slaves/servants and given to a foreign group for money/treasures/valuable gifts). What do you think the name 'soldier' comes from? It's a person working for sold (from latin solidus = a Roman gold coin), not because of loyality or proudness or legal requirements. Having foreign groups serving as your protection is one of the oldest tricks in the book because you hope that the foreign people are ignorant about your internal struggles and intrigues or don't have any local alliances, and if they aren't as independent as expected, you might replace them without fear of a local unrest.
That's the business of Pinkerton and all the other security agencies, and even outsourcing bookkeeping and document production, exchange and storage is old news. Every middle age town had its writers or calculators whose business was to work for the local traders who weren't able to write or didn't have the calculatory knowledge for bookkeeping. And even today you go to a solicitor if you really want your documents to be correct, authentic and secure.
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Tom
seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
What about openoffice.org surely its more secure than an internet app.
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Hey Jim Could you print that report for me on those Google Apps that were my brilliant idea? Sure thing sir....OMG the internets are down. Panic!
Pilot advisory - Seattle airspace (Score:2, Funny)
the Federal Aviation Administration may ditch Vista and Office in favor of Google's new online business applications running on Linux-based hardware.
The FAA issued a pilot advisory for the Seattle area: Pilots should be aware of the potential to encounter flying chairs any time they are east and slightly south of Seattle center controlled airspace.
Big Discount Stick (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a bargaining chip (Score:5, Insightful)
Whats the betting that after his Microsoft trip they will come up with a vastly reduced price?
They should just tell Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)
After all apparently Windows XP already works OK for them, and new computers capable of running Vista tolerably will run XP pretty well
It'll be crazy for the FAA or DoT to switch to Vista, there are only a handful of pluses for them (nope DirectX 10 support is not it), whereas there are so many minuses - trouble with drivers, trouble with compatibility, costs of retraining and support, lower performance (so far most of the benchmarks indicate that Vista is slower even for office apps) etc.
Then after 5-7 years, maybe Linux/Wine will have a decent Windows XP compatibility layer and the FAA and others can continue running their apps on a free OS of their choice (or a commercial Microsoft Windows compatible competitor ).
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moral? (Score:2, Funny)
I can see why the FAA dumped Vista...... (Score:4, Funny)
- A plane is about to land. Cancel or Allow?
- A plane is about to take off. Cancel or Allow?
- A transport truck is about to crash. Cancel or Allow?
You'd get sick of having to click Cancel or Allow all of the time too.
Oh wait.
This problem has already been solved! (Score:2)
Will never happen (Score:5, Informative)
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What's the point of Google apps? (Score:4, Insightful)
As much as I like seeing these articles.. (Score:3, Insightful)
functionality by remote. If I were the person in charge, I'd probably nix this one about
as fast as the DOT did Vista and Office 2007. Simply put, you can't guarantee anything
about information leakage, snooping, and so forth with this model.
When the Microsoft salesman calls... (Score:3, Funny)
How many times have we seen this? (Score:3, Funny)
Let me tell you the end of the story for all of you, MS comes back and gives the software away on the initial upgrade pricing but nails them to the wall for years on support.
In 5 years, rinse and repeat.
WTF? Tallking to Dell about Thin Clients? (Score:3, Funny)
I'm sorry, but do you really think Dell is going to enthusiastically push thin clients? AFAIK, Dell isn't even in the thin client business, they are in the PC business. Dell has an interest in dooming this from the start in order to protect their PC business. This CIO Bowen has no idea of where to go with this, so somebody needs to whisper in his ear. He needs to talk with Sun, since they have considerable experience with Sunray thin clients [sun.com]. Maybe even Neoware thin clients [ibm.com] from IBM/Lenovo.
"FAA May Ditch Vista For Linux" ? (Score:3, Informative)
That's like saying: "I like Hondas better than Fords because the gas tank is made with different materials."
This should scare you (Score:3, Funny)
1) The fact that Windows Vista (an unproven not yet released OS) is being considered for mission critical systems.
2) The fact that Government might tie a crucial part of national infrastructure to any single company (Microsoft or a high-flying dot com)
3) The fact that Linux was considered but not BSD, OpenSolaris, OSX and any number of other OSs suggests that the FAA still doesn't understand their problem, instead they focus on a sole-source vendor who can claims to be able to solve it, whatever it is.
Re:Oh yeah, another nail in the coffin (Score:5, Insightful)
Boo-fucking-hoo. That proves that not everything that is good for the customer is good for you. Let the old business model die, long live new business model.
In the meantime, Free Software and co. will continue as if nothing had changed, their product continues free, revenue (for whoever is aiming for it) continues coming from the same sources.
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Google - they don't have a VAR channel or partner program - They own the entire supply chain almost end to end.
That is something i seriously question and find it terribly ironic you chose not to answer and throw around you illogical praise for free software as if its the magical dust that will save your future.
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Well, they fund some of it and they'll host anybody's OSS project for free.
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Re:Oh yeah, another nail in the coffin (Score:5, Insightful)
Summer of Code [google.com], contributions to Wine [google.com], Firefox money
My question is a serious question. Even though you may hate Microsoft, it created jobs.
And so did wars, look at the amount of jobs in the Military Industrial Complex. You may want to take a look at the parable of the Broken Window [wikipedia.org]. It explains how eventual positive consequences of negative acts shouldn't be used to justify them.
That is something i seriously question and find it terribly ironic you chose not to answer and throw around you illogical praise for free software as if its the magical dust that will save your future.
Small Business USA will adapt to the new reality. Many companies will die, others will spring. Possibly, the ones that mimic Google business model (Free (as in beer or as in speech, it depends) Software, Paid Services) will have more chance that the ones what follow Microsoft strategy (Software lock-in, extend, embrace, extinguish). Time will tell.
Re:Oh yeah, another nail in the coffin (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to admit, this is what scares me.
Look, like most slashdotters, I want to believe in the 'do no evil' thing, and you know, when it comes to the intentions of Larry and Sergey, I do believe it. Everything I have seen of those two guys suggests to me that they are geeks first and billionaire capitalists second, I am just afraid that there is an element of 'Frankenstein's monster' in the whole Google phenomenon.
There are people out there (and lots of them) that would literally kill to control the kind of wealth and power that google has amassed. It would not be completely ludicrous to suggest that Google is currently the most powerful organisation on the planet. Google results can make or break companies and build/ruin reputations and with the Google apps model we are poised to hand over a lot more. That information will be around for a long time, it will probably outlive us all. It isn't going to bio-degrade, it isn't going to self-destruct.
It's too much trust. There are things I might put into a document or spreadsheet that I would not be comfortable discussing with my close family. There are things I do at work that I am not even allowed to discuss with my wife. Yet, we are expected to hand them over to google on the basis of the 'do no evil' promise (which as we have seen is impossible to keep regardless of how well intended). Right now I would rely on security through obscurity. I am a relatively obscure individual, it is unlikely anyone (beyond a small group of competitors and friend/family) would be interested in what I write in my documents, but what about if someday I want to become less obscure? Go into politics or a similar type of public life... then there will be more interest, and it will all be sitting right there.
I guess what I am saying is that it is important to bear in mind that it was Sergey and Larry that promised 'do no evil' not 'Google'. Google doesn't have a conscious, it doesn't care about good vs evil, even human's struggle to make that distinction. We are talking about handing over data that will outlive the founders, and will outlive the promise. I am the only one who is nervous about that??
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No. No you are not.
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I can see where you are coming from because for the past 10 years I have made my livelihood because of the massive spread of Microsoft products... Rather the massive failure of Microsoft Products.
However, I have always been aware that if either Microsoft fixed their products, made them easier to use out of the box, or a competitor did it for them and
Google Enterprise Professional Program (Score:3, Informative)
Google Enterprise Professional partners are product experts who provide value-added services or products to Google customers. As a Google Enterprise Professional, you'll have the ability to reach Google's rapidly growing customer base. We'll also provide you with either your own Google Search Appliance for development or a set of Google Apps Premier Edition user accounts for your own use. Plus you'll receive in-depth product training
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I use it on a daily basis, and this is interesting if true.
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Why? I see no reason not to take the word of an AC on faith and stop using gmail based only on his/her (unsigned) opinion. I'm sure the AC has no interest in any of Google's competitors.
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