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Linux Business

Some European Moves Towards Linux 181

Posted by kdawson from the straws-in-the-wind dept.
Readers VE3OGG and FFFFHALTFFFF write in with three pieces of a global picture that is emerging of governments and corporations moving away from Microsoft and towards open source. First, France: the French automaker Peugot Citroen has announced that over the next several years they will be integrating up to 20,000 Novell SUSE desktops as well as 2,500 SUSE servers into their facilities. (Let's hope that, in Novell, Peugeot Citroen hasn't bought a lemon.) Next, Sweden: the Swedish Armed Forces has made a decision to migrate its Windows NT servers to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Finally, Russia. VE3OGG writes: "It would seem that after the recent Russian piracy debacle that could see a school headmaster jailed in a Siberian work camp for purchasing pirated copies of Windows for his school, the Ministry of Education in Russia has decided that the school boards will no longer be purchasing any commercial software."
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Some European Moves Towards Linux More

Some European Moves Towards Linux

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  • How soon before MS does an about face on "helping" that teacher out?

    • Threatening to use Open Source is Negotiating Ploy (Score:5, Insightful)

      by evw ( 172810 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @11:28AM (#17935184)
      Although it sounds very grand when whole countries or states or cities make a lot of noise about switching to open source software, if you follow them to the conclusion it always seems to work out the same: they end up sticking with Microsoft. I suspect that Microsoft comes in a makes them a sweet deal (maybe they'll open the source code a little, maybe they'll drop the price) and in the end they stick with Microsoft. As more and more groups do this, I think it's just part of the negotiation.

      "We've already established what you are, ma'am. Now we're just haggling over the price."

      • Re:Threatening to use Open Source is Negotiating P (Score:5, Interesting)

        by a_n_d_e_r_s ( 136412 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @11:42AM (#17935390) Homepage Journal
        In Sweden one university was thinking of switching to Linux - a couple of days later it got a sweet deal from Microsoft.

        According to rumours they got a 90% rebate on the normal licensing fee for software.
        • In other news, vendors are likely to drop prices when in fear of losing customers.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by jellomizer ( 103300 ) *
          Well I am not to suprised or shocked. If I was running IT Services For a University or any company of consequential size. I would always keep Linux on the table as an option. Keep that Option rather public and go to Microsoft "can we make a deal". That way you can Get MS Products for Cheap and you will not need the expense to migrate over. But the work before that is not that easy you need to make sure you can switch to Linux in case the deal goes bad (never threat unless you are willing to act).

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by SgtChaireBourne ( 457691 )

          From 2004 : " Uppsala universitet betalar mindre än en tiondel av ordinarie pris för Office. [www.idg.se] " , which translate to English as "The University of Uppsala pays less than a tenth of the ordinary price for {MS} Office"

          Word on the street was that UU was going to go completely FOSS, or at least completely non-MS, on its workstations. Many other institutions were heading that way until 2000-2002. Turku was a notable case, but there were quite a few others that weren't able to move even that far befo

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by fjollberg ( 1061600 )
            Generally, rumours that a University site is going all non-MS or vice versa are cr*p. There is just no central administration capable of making decisions of that sort at a University site. Most likely, many if not most computers at Uppsala University, like at KTH, The Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, are already non-MS. There where rumours that KTH was going all-MS a couple of years ago which we, being one of the system administrators groups, thought rather funny. Meanwhile we ran some 150 Intel-

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by mattcasters ( 67972 )
          It made me wonder about the profit margin Microsoft has on this software.
          I know that in general the price of retail software is as virtual as you can possibly imagine it, but still.
          The real question then is: if all their software would be sold at 90% discount, would Microsoft still have a profitable software business?

          I'm sure that the answer to that is still a wholeheartly "Yes!".
          • If all their software is sold at 90% discount, it's no longer discounted, that's the new standard price. It's a marketing ploy to claim any different. So what they can do is increase the price tenfold, but continue charging the same, claiming they're giving everybody a 90% discount. Which is ridiculously stupid, and therefore is exactly what they'll do once somebody reads this post. Microsoft is much better at writing suicide notes than software or licenses.

      • Re:Threatening to use Open Source is Negotiating P (Score:5, Informative)

        by jdcool88 ( 954991 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @11:48AM (#17935452)
        All of these groups didn't stick with MS: http://www.linux.org/info/linux_govt.html [linux.org]
      • Re: the parent post - RTFA: "Rather than attacking mobsters who peddle pirated copies of Windows directly to companies, the Russian coppers decided to lock up a Sepich headmaster who bought hot Windows software which came from Perm region's Capital Construction Administration.... Microsoft says that the incident has nothing to do with them..." I can well belive that last part. M$ carefully treads a fine line between being too repessive in developing countries, (where they are secretly delighted that peop
      • Although it sounds very grand when whole countries or states or cities make a lot of noise about switching to open source software, if you follow them to the conclusion it always seems to work out the same: they end up sticking with Microsoft. I suspect that Microsoft comes in a makes them a sweet deal (maybe they'll open the source code a little, maybe they'll drop the price) and in the end they stick with Microsoft. As more and more groups do this, I think it's just part of the negotiation. Yes, but it i

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Divebus ( 860563 )
      ...just like Steve Ballmer flew in to "help" the city of Munich decide against Linux desktops. To quote a famous Princess; "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by tb3 ( 313150 )
        21 minutes between the story post and the first use of the obvious "Star Wars" quote. I think you just set a new record!

  • Holy grammar batman! (Score:5, Funny)

    by letsgolightning ( 1004592 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @11:16AM (#17935022)
    When do we get to meet this mystery European?

    • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )
      No joke. In other news, Some American takes a giant crap in the morning. Film at eleven.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by beady ( 710116 )
      I think it means "Some moves that are European", not "A move by a European".
      Clarity is a virtue in headline writing though.
    • I think this European guy might be a Russian?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by pluther ( 647209 )
      "European" is an adjective. Try reading the headline now.

      • Yes, we get it. But it's still poorly worded (Score:4, Informative)

        by spun ( 1352 ) <loverevolutionary&yahoo,com> on Thursday February 08, 2007 @01:02PM (#17936396) Journal
        How about "Some moves towards linux by Europe" or "Europe makes some moves towards linux." These capture the essence of the original without being confusing. However, they are still kind of dumb. The concept is that more people or agencies in europe have been using Linux. "Moves towards" isn't the best way of poutting this. "More Agencies in Europe Adopt Linux" or "Linux Usage Rising in Europe" would have been much better.

        "Some Lazy Editor Moves Towards Cheetos." Why do I suspect that these guys really just want to sit on their asses all day playing video games while the money pours in and they do as little as possible? I know the submitter probably wrote the headline, but that's what editors are for: editing.

        I feel like the editors resent everything they actually have to do, like they are some kind of royalty and we are the peasants whose duty it is to support them. Hmm, I wonder if slashdot editors get Primae Noctis rights?

    • Re:Holy grammar batman! (Score:5, Funny)

      by springbox ( 853816 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @12:04PM (#17935652)
      Yeah, I know! My friend was talking to me and said "hey, did you read Slashdot recently? Some European is using Linux! Surely this individual will turn the tide on Microsoft's market saturation!"


      Now that "some European" is using Linux maybe "some other European" will make the switch as well!

    • Yeah, I had forgotten that it was possible to use "moves" as a noun.
  • Does anyone have any operating system usage statisitcs that are actually reliable. It seems that any pro - windows site (www.microsoft.com) would have you believe that the windows monopoly is as healthy as ever whilst we also hear news like this showing systemic adoption of Linux based operating systems across multiple sovereign nations.

  • "Some European"? (Score:5, Funny)

    by skoda ( 211470 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @11:29AM (#17935192) Homepage
    Which European? He must be pretty important to get a Slashdot frontpage notice.

    • Re: (Score:1, Redundant)

      by suv4x4 ( 956391 )
      Which European? He must be pretty important to get a Slashdot frontpage notice.

      Tommorow in the news: some American moves to Windows, and some Australian gets bitten by a stray dog.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gbobeck ( 926553 )
      I wonder if this European guy is in any way related to some Puerto Rican guy [wikipedia.org].
  • From one of TFAs:

    Teachers are not that happy about it. Apparently not many of them know much about Linux and there are no specialists around to teach them


    It would be a shame to waste this opportunity. Is there a LUG in the Perm region that could step in and offer some support?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Qubit ( 100461 )
      This page [linux.org] on linux.org mentions several LUGs in Russia that could help teachers, students, and others learn how to use Linux.

      The article on mosnews.com mentions that

      Schools in the Perm region will soon quit buying software from commercial companies

      And in fact there is a LUG in Perm -- contact info is for victor_v [at] permonline.ru, and they have a website here [nevod.perm.su]. The news page on the site hasn't been updated since 1999, but hopefully "Victor V" is still around and could perhaps give a crash course to the tea

  • Some European? (Score:1, Redundant)

    by night_flyer ( 453866 )
    there are how many people in europe? And we get some anonymous European to move to linux?!?
    • Ahem Russia with approx 300 mio people is one of the bigger emerging markets. This is really a severe blow to Microsoft, I hope some chairs are now flying! Russians are generally nice, but they are somewhat different, they do not like to be bulled with from out outside (they do their bullying themselves)

  • A good move (Score:5, Interesting)

    by linuxci ( 3530 ) * on Thursday February 08, 2007 @11:33AM (#17935254)
    Let's just hope the Russians don't decide to accept a deal from Microsoft for cheap software, ultimately if they do that they're just setting themselves up for future problems down the line. When funds are tight it is very useful to be able to have software where it's legal and encouraged to copy it. The amount of piracy that goes on with Microsoft products just shows how much that people consider Windows the only option, once they have other choices then more people are going to go for free and legal over free and illegal.

    Back when I was a student Linux was a great way to free and easily get all the tools needed to learn Perl and C. The documentation on the internet provided most you'd need but I still bought a few O'Reilly books for reference, I learned a lot more using Linux in the 90's and using Linux gave me the skills to get a better paid job when I left university, people coming out with only Windows skills do not get the same salaries.

    Some people say that teaching Linux in schools is a bad thing as the commerical world is all Microsoft on the desktop. That's total rubbish too, people should not be taught 'Word' they should be taught general word processing skills and preferably be exposed to a few alternative apps so they don't think there's only one way to do it. Versions of Microsoft applications change the UI between versions so even if they do end up working at a Microsoft shop they'll adapt better to the changing UI's between versions. Also a better all round education will open up alternatives to businesses, if the staff are better trained then switching to alternatives will be easier, it can save the economy a fortune in the future.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by beerdini ( 1051422 )

      Some people say that teaching Linux in schools is a bad thing as the commerical world is all Microsoft on the desktop. That's total rubbish too, people should not be taught 'Word' they should be taught general word processing skills and preferably be exposed to a few alternative apps so they don't think there's only one way to do it.

      I used to work at a school where I fought furiously for Linux only to have the IT manager say it is the job of the school to prepare students for the real world, and Word(Microsoft) not Linux is what the real world uses. Also there was no way anything was going to use Linux.

      In the mean time she was trying to cut costs, so got a new Linux server, and ran out to buy a MacBook because it was pretty. With leadership like that can anyone figure out why I left?

    • Re:A good move (Score:4, Interesting)

      by danpsmith ( 922127 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @12:03PM (#17935640)

      Some people say that teaching Linux in schools is a bad thing as the commerical world is all Microsoft on the desktop. That's total rubbish too, people should not be taught 'Word' they should be taught general word processing skills and preferably be exposed to a few alternative apps so they don't think there's only one way to do it. Versions of Microsoft applications change the UI between versions so even if they do end up working at a Microsoft shop they'll adapt better to the changing UI's between versions. Also a better all round education will open up alternatives to businesses, if the staff are better trained then switching to alternatives will be easier, it can save the economy a fortune in the future.

      I honestly think this is a very good point. The fact of the matter is that the way we instruct computers now is fundamentally flawed. Instead of teaching conceptually how to perform operations with a computer, teachers often instruct students to double-click there and click there, hit F3 and whatever. Computer education should be about education of concept. The ability to adapt from one interface to another is the important ability, not the ability to go through a set of instructions. I had often been worried that if I didn't run Windows I would fall behind in the interface and not be of much use in tech support. The opposite is really true. The more you learn different ways to use different interfaces the more commonality you ultimately see, the better you understand the concepts and the better able you are to diagnose and solve problems of any nature, on any OS.

      It's probably harder to teach concepts than it is to teach point here and click that, but I believe it's essential for computer education. Kids nowadays are already getting interface education free of charge, as most cell phones have different interfaces from one another and portable devices tend to differ in interface as well. The fact that not everyone owns one type of portable and one type of cell phone or camera gives them a chance to explore doing the same tasks with different "menu options" meaning the same thing. The older folks who aren't used to using interfaces are quickly finding themselves behind the ball.

      Fortunately, I'm young enough to keep up. If you have a general idea how certain devices *should* work and options they *should* have, you can often diagnose problems with the more sophisticated printing equipment, applications, just about any OS or portable device. People need to learn the concepts of how things work instead of just finding a windows keyboard shortcut to launch the control panel.

    • What are you talking about? Of course Russia almost entirely uses Windows, and nothing is going to change in the short-term.

      Teaching variations on a program or an operating system is a waste of time for most people. The skills will easily transfer. It's not like you master using Word, but then go back to square one when you load up another word processor.

      • Teaching variations on a program or an operating system is a waste of time for most people. The skills will easily transfer. It's not like you master using Word, but then go back to square one when you load up another word processor.

        That's a good argument for teaching from something simple like Abiword, but I don't think that that argument can support teaching Microsoft Word. The basic features of a word processor have been the same across all brands for nearly 20 years. The question is "Once you've taught

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by init100 ( 915886 )

      Versions of Microsoft applications change the UI between versions so even if they do end up working at a Microsoft shop they'll adapt better to the changing UI's between versions.

      Not to mention the fact that the version of Word taught in school will be dead long ago when the kids graduate ten years later.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jimicus ( 737525 )
      Some people say that teaching Linux in schools is a bad thing as the commerical world is all Microsoft on the desktop.

      The commercial world is not ANYTHING on the desktop, and it's something schools need to understand. The commercial world is all about APPLICATIONS on the desktop. With the exception of those who go into an IT role, nobody is expected to troubleshoot their own PC. They've got a bunch of applications - which will probably include Office, though by the time the school pupil has got through c
  • I thought that Linux was always bigger than MS in Europe already, was I wrong? With SuSE being originally from Germany and many other local distros, MS was fighting more of an uphill battle to get into European nations. Kind of makes me want to move overseas so I can work with a good stable OS and stick it to Bill Gates and the Legion of Doom...er...Microsoft.

    • Kind of makes me want to move overseas so I can work with a good stable OS

      Uh, not that there aren't good reasons to move to Europe, but you can run Linux anywhere. If you absolutely must use Office, for example, Crossover [codeweavers.com] is cheap.

      Having recently made the jump myself after years of switching back and forth, I'm curious to hear why others who want to run Linux can't or won't. I develop Windows applications professionally, but I can run everything I need under VMware Workstation, which I needed for testin

      • In my case it's because of games, mostly. Give me a virtualized solution that lets me play games at 90% native speed and I'll switch.
        Different people than me use specialized software for which no alternative exists, or special hardware for which no drivers exist. Besides, competing with free as in pirated when you're free as in no-apps-for-that-exist isn't easy.
        • Small clarification: [...] play all exotic games I feel like trying out without any problems whatsoever and negligible pain during installation, by providing a FULLY EMULATED environment. 90% D3D compliance doesn't cut it, "you need to wait 18 months and maybe we'll add special support for that game that nobody but you plays... eventually" does not cut it. :D

    • Re:Wasn't Linux always more popular there? (Score:4, Informative)

      by oliderid ( 710055 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @12:03PM (#17935634) Journal
      I thought that Linux was always bigger than MS in Europe already, was I wrong?

      Yes your are (still) wrong. but it depends of the market we are talking about. If you mean the web server market, clearly Linux won. If you mean the desktop PC market, Linux is almost non-existant.

      Concerning corporate/administration networks, each migration from Windows to Linux makes headlines (Munich city, French Police/Gendarmerie with Open Office, Swedish army, etc.). So I guess it is still considered as "extraordinary" events. Most are still running Windows. But it may change with the official support for Open standard/format that I've seen in recent call of tenders. Microsoft will clearly lose a big advantage.

      The situation in Europe isn't that different from the US, except maybe that the Microsoft lobby is less powerful.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by init100 ( 915886 )

        But it may change with the official support for Open standard/format that I've seen in recent call of tenders. Microsoft will clearly lose a big advantage.

        But now Office Open XML is an "open standard", so nobody have to switch. :)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by chthon ( 580889 )

        Personally I am afraid that in small countries like Belgium, the Microsoft lobby is even stronger. I think that for Flanders it is even worse. I've seen in Datanews that the Wallonian government has more initiatives which use FLOSS.

        • I'm Frenchspeaking Belgian :-).

          Yes you are right. But don't despair, I know a small company that install on regular basis files server (SAMBA) in companies like Electrabel which is one of the biggest company in Belgium. I guess this is the first step in the business world.

          Concerning politicians they make big news and we still have to see any "real" initiative. The last big investment in a non windows environment I've noticed so far in the Frenchspeaking region, was the Frenchspeaking education administratio

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by SaDan ( 81097 )
      You don't have to move to find a decent job in the States that uses Linux/Unix as a primary OS for servers and desktops.

      If you're in the Rolling Meadows, IL area (NW of Chicago), I'm leaving a job where we use RHEL or Solaris as our server OS (some system have to run Windows, but they are few and growing fewer). The opening is on Monster.com somewhere. All development uses as much open source as possible (Eclipse, lots of C and Java, MySQL, etc).

      My new job will also be dealing with Linux and open source s

    • Re:Wasn't Linux always more popular there? (Score:4, Informative)

      by soliptic ( 665417 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @12:33PM (#17935986) Journal
      Yes, you were wrong. It's pretty much completely unheard of at home or at work. MS utterly dominates. At work we've got one Linux server now (as in: within the last year), cos I helped push towards use of an OSS CMS (plone as it happens), but apart from that, it's all MS. If I went around the office I doubt more than a couple of people would have even heard of Linux. MS having an uphill battle to get in?!? Absolutely not. (Disclaimer: I don't really know anything about the super big Enterprisey systems. I doubt it's much different to the US tbh - there's Linux adoption but the Linux installs are probably replacing Unix more than anything else.)

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Oranse ( 1018452 )
      You talk like Europe is an another planet. Wake up, there are whole other continents than North America.
      Granted, the media there doesn't necessary tell that 'Europe is still under the domination of MS' or anything other from here, but the world or life outside US is not very different than yours.
      Torvalds does indeed live in this country, but I don't think that makes Linux any more popular. If a company has international connections, everyone has to use the same system, right? MS still rules the world.

  • backfired (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DaMattster ( 977781 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @11:35AM (#17935282)
    It would seem that Microsoft's campaign against the poor, Russian school teacher backfired miserably. Microsoft has now incurred the wrath of the Russian government and has just locked itself out of a market. That's a real smooth way to do business and has just opened the flood gates for open source software. Bill Gates' tacit denial of Gorbachev's appeal shows an utter lack of foresight and has caused an ultimate loss for Microsoft. And all of this occurred because Bill wanted to make an example of a poor, Russian school teacher whom was using Windows, not for commercial gain, but for education. If Microsoft were wise, they would have provided free, genuine copies because this teacher is educating future Microsoft consumers. Instead, they caused alienation, and, as anyone can tell you, alienation is a bad thing. So now, Red Hat has the chance to build loyal users. Go Red Hat!
    • More than that, Bill Gates (and by inference Microsoft) risk becoming an political embarassment. Such a move is unlikely to endear Microsoft to all the politicians they have contributed to. Simply stated, government *hates* competition, when some upstart corporation or religion thinks they are more powerful than a sovereign nation-state. Microsoft is also well-known for its competitive attitudes, but this issue may just be the thing that teaches them where the buck stops.

    • Re:backfired (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Hercules Peanut ( 540188 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @12:15PM (#17935800)

      It would seem that Microsoft's campaign against the poor, Russian school teacher backfired miserably.
      Allow me to make a slight alteration, please.

      It would seem that the RIAA's campaign against the poor, American grandmother backfired miserably.
      or
      It would seem that Apple's campaign against the poor, blogger backfired miserably. or

      It would seem that MPAA's campaign against the poor, (fill in the blank) backfired miserably.
      What are we teaching in our MBA programs these days? Really, I'm serious? When did treating your customers, fans, educators, innocent by-standers like the enemy somehow become mainstream thought among U.S. executives?
      • In the 1980's

      • The economic model that they're working with looks a bit different than you'd expect. It's "what can we lobby for to force people to give us the most money", not "how can we avoid alienating our customers". They're not worried about little things like 10% of their customers boycotting them, they're worried about losing their ability to force the other 90% to pay out the ass. The lawsuits are a PR campaign trying to prevent people from realizing that downloading content is normal.

    • Yes, shoot first ask questions later, is a good way to start a business in one of the biggest emerging markets, especially in a country, stuffed with very proud people who do not have too many problems except one, they do not like to be mocked with from the outside, especially not in a very arrogant way!

  • We've seen this before (Score:5, Interesting)

    by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @11:36AM (#17935298)
    Clearly MS hasn't learned its lesson yet. While I don't begrudge MS for trying to protect their copyrights against piracy, they do need to learn about subtlety. Does Ernie Ball come to mind? Ernie Ball had more copies than licenses; they didn't keep up with the licensing like they should have, and they admitted it. They were a good MS customer and would have preferred to work with MS on any licenses problems. But raiding their offices with armed federal marshalls? Now, they're a Linux shop. MS lost a good customer and got bad PR. All for 70 something licenses that Ernie Ball would have glady paid for had it had the chance.
    • This wasn't some case that Microsoft could decline to prosecute. In fact, Microsoft declined to assist with the prosecution in this case.

      Given the extent of rampant copyright violation that goes unpunished in Russia, I'm more likely to believe this case was the result of someone trying to make a political point, either against copyrights or because of a personal grudge, rather than that of the police legitimately pursuing a copyright violator.

    • Clearly MS hasn't learned its lesson yet. While I don't begrudge MS for trying to protect their copyrights against piracy, they do need to learn about subtlety.

      MS have, in all likelihood, learned their lessons very well. What they have is actual global figures for their performance, and we Slashdot readers have only 3 anecdotes in this story. They can afford a policy that costs them a few users here but raises profits in many other places.

      Yet, the Novell deal sounds new, doesn't it? Migration to a Lin

    • Does Ernie Ball come to mind?

      probably not, unless you are shopping for guitar strings.

      this Linux coversion story is what, four years old now? getting a little long in the tooth, don't you think?

      it tempts one to ask where all the Ernie Bells are that haven't migrated to Linux. if the answer is "everywhere" and the answer is "still running Windows," then Ernie Ball has changed very much.

  • Peugot Citroen can use the savings. They had a bad year and are about to slash jobs. They make brilliant cars though. When the DS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citroen_DS [wikipedia.org] came out in 1955, the rest of the world was stil in the stone-age. Without any of the fancy stuff, my Saxo does 25 km on a liter of diesel, (that is 58 miles to the gallon for you gas-guzzlers!).

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Ed Avis ( 5917 )
      Yes - and what's more, in 1955 the Amiga had multitasking, a 3d accelerated desktop, and full-motion videoconferencing, but ignorant LEO users dismissed these features as making the Amiga a mere 'toy' and not suitable for real business use.
      • Without memory protection? I agree with them. Any program crashing could bring down the whole system, and could access any other memory address in the system. It allowed for some nifty hacks, but it was a glass house of a system, throwing stones back and forth with every program execution.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mgblst ( 80109 )
      Not having kept my eye on the car market, it is difficult for me to say how good a car maker they are. But you using as an example a car from 1955 doesn't really help support your opinion any.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jimicus ( 737525 )
      I was kind of put off citroen when my late father experienced total failure in the master brake cylinder in a Citroen ZX. With me and my brother in it.

      AIUI, at the time, almost every other car manufacturer had designed out single points of failure in the braking system.
  • I'll never find out, but it would be good to know if the deal between Novell and Microsoft figured strongly into the desktop selection.

    The adoptions sound good, but when money is involved there's a "winner takes all" environment which I think Microsoft wants to promote. Later on, they can assimilate or crush them easily.

  • "Nobody has gone to prison for selecting Linux" (Score:5, Funny)

    by Per Abrahamsen ( 1397 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @11:57AM (#17935558) Homepage
    Should work even better than the old successful IBM FUD piece "Nobody has been fired for buying IBM". And like good FUD pieces, it has some truth in it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ashitaka ( 27544 )
      I like this. Good advertising should be surreptitious, sneaking up in the reader's conscience and adjusting their behaviour without requiring much thought.

      "No one ever had to pay thousands of dollars in license penalties for using Linux"

      "No one had to re-activate their software when using Linux"

      etc.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hoggoth ( 414195 )
        > I like this. Good advertising should be surreptitious, sneaking up in the reader's conscience and adjusting their behaviour without requiring much thought.
        > "No one ever had to pay thousands of dollars in license penalties for using Linux"
        > "No one had to re-activate their software when using Linux"

        Have you seen the great new Apple Switch ad [apple.com]? It features a Vista firewall intercepting every sentence Mac & PC say to each other and requiring confirmation for each one.
    • Don't worry, I'm working on fixing that. - Darl McBride
  • The summary implies that all schools in Russia will be switching over.

    But the linked article only says that schools in the Perm region will switch to Linux.
  • Ministry of Education in Russia has decided that the school boards will no longer be purchasing any commercial software."

    Isn't that how they got into the problem in the first place?

    Having said that, it will be excellent if this incident helps people to look at the alternatives to piracy.

  • The summary says that "the Ministry of Education in Russia has decided that the school boards will no longer be purchasing any commercial software", while the article says: "Schools in the Perm region will soon quit buying software from commercial companies, said the region's Education Minister Nikolay Karpushin." Perm Krai [wikipedia.org] is just one of over 80 federal subjects in the Russian Federation.

  • Several words about russian mentality (Score:4, Informative)

    by MemoryDragon ( 544441 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @12:14PM (#17935786)
    Drink with them, make friendship, du not fully trust them, too many crooks, but many also are nice, make business with them, but never every try to be arrogant against them or bully them. They are very proud people, and the usual american arrogance is not really accepted. (I am not russian and live in central europe btw.)

    The russian mentality in many ways is somewhat different to the usual western mentality, you really have to be open to keep friendships with them or generally deal with them and you have to learn their ways to some degree.

    • s/russian/american

      THanks for the warning, but I'm an American and hve been dealing with that mentality my whole life.

  • Re: Teacher sent to jail for buying Windows (Score:3, Interesting)

    by shadowspar ( 59136 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @12:14PM (#17935796) Homepage

    "It would seem that after the recent Russian debacle that could see a school headmaster jailed in a Siberian work camp for purchasing copies of Windows for his school, the Ministry of Education in Russia has decided that the school boards will no longer be purchasing any commercial software."

    Excellent! This is exactly the kind of strong government action we need to see more of. Obviously the Russian government sees quite clearly that Windows' DRM, lack of security, and general brokenness presents both an economic and security threat to the state, and is willing to take a stand to prevent this cancer from spreading any further. I think anybody who voluntarily buys a copy of Windows deserves to spend time behind bars, and now it's time for Western governments to step up to the plate and make this a reality.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rastos1 ( 601318 )

      GP: Excellent! This is exactly the kind of strong government action we need to see more of.

      TFA: it appears that Russian schools in the area are so scared about being shipped off to a Siberian Gulag, that they are buying Linux gear instead.
      Harsh punishment for mere copyright infrigement - bad.
      But it drives the users to Linux - good.
      I'm confused.
  • grammar joke...

  • Airborne! (Score:4, Funny)

    by kidcharles ( 908072 ) on Thursday February 08, 2007 @02:11PM (#17937424)

    Teachers are not that happy about it. Apparently not many of them know much about Linux and there are no specialists around to teach them.

    Sounds like we need to paradrop some bearded Linux hackers into the Perm region for an emergency education operation. Some of the heavier ones may need two parachutes.
    • ... a note pops out that reads: "The parachute for this pack was proprietary and therefore not included. A more free and open parachute is in development on parachuteforge and will be ready for beta testing probably sometime in the next six months. Developers and seamstresses are welcome to volunteer."

      Sorry, couldn't help it. I can hardly stop laughing hard enough to post about Bruce Perens and his chute, but he surely has insurance.

  • "(Let's hope that, in Novell, Peugeot Citroen hasn't bought a lemon.)"

    Let's hope that Slashdot contributors stop behaving like crazed fundamentalist idiots at the mere mention of Novell's SuSE Linux (which rocks by the way) because of an agreement to share technology with Microsoft.

    Novell has fscked up in lots of ways but SuSE Linux isn't one of them.

  • [...] but it appears that Russian schools in the area are so scared about being shipped off to a Siberian Gulag, that they are buying Linux gear instead.

    I think we've found Linux's new World Domination(tm) strategy.

    That's one hell of a motivator...
  • i first interpreted it as "a random guy, of indeterminate european descent, took a step towards linux". in other news, i am thinking about switching to decaf.
  • which European and where did Linux go? sorry. next time I should probably RTFSummary.

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