Secret EU Open Source Migration Study Leaked 311
Elektroschock writes "For 4 years MEP Marco Cappato tried to get access to the EU Council's 2005 open source migration study because he is a member of a responsible IT oversight committee in the European Parliament. His repeated requests for access were denied. Now they have finally been answered because the Council's study has escaped into the wild (PDF in French and English). Here is a quick look. It is embarrassing! Gartner, when asked if there were any mature public Linux installations in Europe, claimed that there were none. Michael Silver said, 'I have not spoken to any sizable deployments of Linux on the desktop and only one or two StarOffice deployments.' Gartner spread patent and TCO FUD. Also, the European Patent Office participated in the project, although it is not an EU institution."
Why do we let Gartner Continue? (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone needs to pull a John Stewart/Jim Cramer on Gartner. These guys spread so much BS, yet continue to be considered an authority.
Re:Why do we let Gartner Continue? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why do we let Gartner Continue? (Score:4, Funny)
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Stewart owned Cramer because Cramer made the mistake of fucking up in a domain that virtually everybody cares about, and most people know at least a little about.
Stewart owned Cramer because Cramer spilled the beans about how easy it is to manipulate the market and gave examples of things he would do as a hedge fund manager.
It was a video for thestreet.com or something like that. I guess back then he thought the internet was just full of investors and pedophiles and there would be some sort of honor among thieves and they wouldn't rat him out. But once the web was replaced by tubes, people that were afraid of spiders started joining the party.
There's some guy that p
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But... But... Gartner says they're a useful institution. Gartner!
Gartner helps EU redefine open standards (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why do we let Gartner Continue? (Score:5, Insightful)
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is LHC running Windows?
Do they have a large deployment of Linux desktops? Sounds like they're just using it for their grid.
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How large is CERN and were they using linux on their desktops before this study was published?
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I don't think CERN has ever been big on using Windows on the desktop. After all, it was at CERN that the World Wide Web was created, on a Unix workstation.
Then CERN is not relevant in a story discussing a windows to linux and OSS office suite on the desktop.
High end unix workstations are not the same as typical office worker desktops.
Re:Why do we let Gartner Continue? (Score:4, Informative)
The claim was that there were no examples of people using open alternatives, which was false.
First, that's not what the Gartner guy said and the previous posters comment has to be taken in the context of what the Gartner guy said to be meaningful in this discussion. The summary is even misleading.
I know shooting off without RTFA is the norm around here, but that doesn't make it right. Here's the emails where that question was raised. (emphasis added)
Dear Mr. Silver,
recently I attended a Gartner presentation in Brussels by Nikos Drakon on OSS. I told him that at the European Parliament we would be interested in visiting one or more sites where OSS workstations are implemented on a large scale. He was kind enough to send me your presentation titled "Client OS and Office: is Open Source in Your future?". I find this presentation brilliant, and very useful.
At the European Parliament we often receive questions from Members on "why have we not migrated our workstations to OSS?" and we are examining the possibilities. We definitely do not want to embark in a migration without having verified that others have done it successfully before us, and that the benefits would exceed the disadvantages. In this spirit, we would like to visit 2 or 3 successful sites, if any exist.
We have a base of 11.000 PC's (in the process of migrating from Win NT + Ofiice 97 to Win XP +
Office 2003).
The question is: can you help me obtaining the name and e-mail or adress of a contact person
in some of the main Organizations that have installed, and are working with, OSS workstations ?
I am thinking of the Organizations you quote in your slide:
-city of Munich
-city of Bergen (N)
-Allied Irish Bank
-NSW RTA
and others:
-Bundestag (Germany)
-Ville de Paris
-etc.
Regards
Pietro Bianchessi
And the response the guy from Gartner gave was:
Dear Mr. Bianchessi,
Thank you for your inquiry on desktop Linux and open source office products.
The organizations I mentioned in my presentation are in their infancy, if that, in their open source desktop deployments. I have not spoken to any sizable deployments of Linux on the desktop and only one or two StarOffice deployments. Here is the status of the ones you mentioned.
-City of Munich â" in the planning phase
-City of Bergen (N) â" this organization is not doing Linux desktop. I mentioned these people as an example of the Linux hype. There was an erroneous press report and since then the CIO has been trying to correct it, saying that they are doing servers, not Linux desktops.
-Allied Irish Bank â" Sun and AIB put out a press release last year, but Sun informed me a few months ago that AIB was not doing reference calls. You can ask your Sun representatives to connect you with a reference.
-NSW RTA â" This is another Sun reference, but they are only doing StarOffice, not Sun Java (Linux)
Desktop. Again, Sun should be able to connect you.
I continue to work with my colleague, Andrea DiMaio, to find references at these and other
government organizations. We will keep you in mind as we speak with other organizations that might
be appropriate references and ask their permission to give you their contact information. Unless I hear otherwise, I will assume we are free to give them your information and ask them to contact you.
I would be happy to discuss your Linux desktop plans with you on an ongoing basis if you like and I believe Ms. Heyneman can help you arrange a call with me. I recently spoke with a large bank that
had been seriously considering Linux for a large portion of their users but found that staying with
Windows would be less expensive. There may be other benefits that government organizations have
considered that companies cannot (like economic benefit) and we can discuss that, but I cannot share this organizationâ(TM)s name or contac
Re:Why do we let Gartner Continue? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes there are. They have been in the news. There have been instances in the UK and France since 2006, there are many schools and educational institutions as well as companies that have made the switch. I know in the Netherlands and Belgium government agencies have been looking into it and if I'm correct a lot of the ex-Soviet countries that are now part of the EU (Hungary, Poland, ...) and the Scandinavians have less advertised but nonetheless important conversions.
Gartner is a sock puppet for Microsoft and everybody in the industry knows that (they made the analysis that Windows XP before SP1 was safer than Linux by comparing it to Red Hat Linux 5.3 (not RHEL, the original 5.3))
Re:Why do we let Gartner Continue? (Score:5, Informative)
The study was in 2005, so to show it was wrong you need to find examples of widespread Linux deployments in Europe that existed then. Not deployments that started in 2006, or governments that 'have been looking into it'.
Re:Why do we let Gartner Continue? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Why do we let Gartner Continue? (Score:5, Informative)
Extramdura [europa.eu]. Quoting the paper's abstract:
The fun part is the link that I provide comes from the EU's site! lol
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"Extramdura."
Extremadura, not Extramdura.
And don't forget Andalucía. They have their own big Linux desktop deployments both in government and public school.
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One article ( http://lwn.net/Articles/41738/ [lwn.net]) from 2003 states one computer for every two children were installed so I would say a substantial amount of all schools were running LinEx by June 2003.
An other article (http://www.osnews.com/story/12611 [osnews.com]) from November 2005 states that 66000 computers in schools and education centers and an additional 14000 in p
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I'm not saying you're wrong but you haven't refuted the claim regarding large desktop deployments in the EU.
Here's one [desktoplinux.com] that is large but probably hasn't been deployed and isn't in the EU.
Also, since the study is 5 years old, you would need to find references of large desktop deployments in the EU that are at least that old.
Re:Why do we let Gartner Continue? (Score:4, Interesting)
let's see from the top of my head:
- all government and schools in extramadura in spain
- schools in gran canaria
- french police (still migrating)
- munich
and those are just the ones that immediately come to mind, there's undoubtfully more if you dig a bit.
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all government and schools in extramadura in spain
This started in 2006/2007 [theregister.co.uk] so of course the study in 2005 didn't notice it.
schools in gran canaria
I couldn't find details of this on the web, but are you sure it was up and running in 2005?
french police (still migrating)
This was announced in 2008 [google.com].
munich
I believe the migration started in 2006 [heise.de].
I know we all hate the Gartner Group and all that, but seriously, was it such a gross error to say there were no widespread public (that is, govermnent or municipal)
Re:Why do we let Gartner Continue? (Score:5, Informative)
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french police [google.com]
french railway [google.com]
cern [web.cern.ch]
900 pharmacies [ad-hoc-news.de]
Thats 5 minutes of googling (im sure EU offices of google also use linux) if i got paid to do a study, I'm sure i could find more.
Re:Why do we let Gartner Continue? (Score:4, Informative)
* 1000+ in French parliament : http://blogs.computerworld.com/node/4060 [computerworld.com]
* 11000 at German Foreign ministry.
* 14000 in Munich.
* 13000 at The Federal Employment Office of Germany
* 80000+ in Spain 2003: http://lwn.net/Articles/41738/ [lwn.net]
* 90000 at France's national police force in 2007
In education...
* "Germany has announced that 560,000 students in 33 universities will migrate to Linux."
* "Russia announced in October 2007 that all its school computers will run on Linux."
* "9,000 computers to be converted to Linux and OpenOffice.org in school district Geneva, Switzerland by September 2008"
In business...
* "Peugeot, the European car maker, announced plans to deploy up to 20,000 copies of Novell's Linux desktop."
Read more about adoption of Linux at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_adoption [wikipedia.org]
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The company I worked for immediately after I graduated in 2002 had Linux on all desktops in the branches - and it was already mostly rolled out when I started.
That was something like 2-300 branches and about 1500 staff altogether.
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http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/03/french-police-saves-millions-of-euros-by-adopting-ubuntu.ars [arstechnica.com]
Does this count, Gartner?
Re:Why do we let Gartner Continue? (Score:5, Insightful)
While I dislike Gartner about as much as anyone on this list, we must remember that this report is 5 YEARS OLD. I would be surprised if there WERE any large-scale mature Linux desktop sites back then.
Still, it's a steaming pile of FUD: before companies started rolling out Windows in a big way, how many large-scale Windows sites were there?
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Cern would have been a large scale mature system even back in 2004, and AFAIK most of their desktops run linux, granted it is because they need scientific tools, but if you were paid to do research you could of atleast taken a look at their system.
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Warty Warthog was out in October 2004. I'm not sure when in 2005 that report was released, but it can't have been after Dapper Drake (2006).
Remember those day? All the newcomers would agonize over KDE / Gnome, then break their X Server (or X client - which were always named back to front), and not be able to surf onto the forums for help, so they just re-installed Windows.
Monopolizing Linux (the way Canonical has) sure made things a lot smoother.
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I used to work for a small company that developed an enterprise software package that competed successfully with incredibly expensive products from the big players (IBM, CA, etc.) Yet a certain IT research company never mentioned our product in their comparitive reviews. Until, at their suggestion, we took out a subscription to their BS reports. I've always been amused by this coincidence.
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When it comes to the Machinations of government and open source vs. corporate products, something tells me that Woodward & Bernstein would be more appropriate.
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Gartner is the former DataQuest company, the came company people used to call DataGuess. They're just a place for companies to purchase "Gartner Research" papers using the following form:
1) What is it you want research on?
2) How many pages do you require?
3) What is the target result you're looking for?
4) How quickly do you need the research paper?
5) Price is based on the following formula:
cost= number of pages * $1,000 * needFactor
needFactor = 10 * inverse of #weeks needed
If you want to stop them, advocate
Oh noes! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh noes! (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod me down if you want, but Linux needs to go "full retard" in order to reach the masses.
Essentially, a 6 year old and a 96 year old need to be able to use the system. If they can't, start over.
And that is precisely what Ubuntu is trying to do. It is a matter of opinion as the whether they are succeeding, but I believe that they are.
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> precisely what Ubuntu is trying to do. It is a matter of opinion
> as the whether they are succeeding, but I believe that they are.
At the latest when my GF wanted to burn a simple mp3 file and Brasero mumbled something about an "missing gstreamer plugin" she said, that (Ubuntu) Linux is still too complicated for normal users. I couldn't really argue with her, just explain the Why's and How's of proprietary stuff and the legal issues of their use. Installed the restricted stuff (which she'd have had n
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The catch all with the AIX/Linux argument is that IBM gets you on the hardware. They want you to run AIX because the hardware required to run it is expensive.
Now that doesn't mean you aren't getting your money's worth in hardware, but IBM isn't stupid. They would much rather keep you interested in AIX and see that it's TCO is about that of Linux on their hardware, but then they're locking you into their hardware.
Be fair. Same issue with Windows. (Score:4, Interesting)
Windows Media Player does not play MP3 files by default and I believe you don;t have a CD/DVD burner out of the box.
Lets start from the point where the systems are configured equally for the most common tasks and see how systems fare from there.
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So *this* is, why Ubuntu and Gnome are becoming pretty much unusable for an educated human with an own will? Removal of options, of settings, and the imitation of every Windows-retard-assistant out there... How *genius*. And the best thing: They copy others in a worse way than Microsoft themselves do it.
I'm just waiting until they present a 1980-style badly rendered animated "desktop assistant" called "Tuxxy".
I swear, when this happens, I'm going down there, to gift them with a first-class Hulk-style one-ma
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A modern 6 year old can move between Windows, Linux and MacOS and not even realize they are different operating sytsems.
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That's mainly because they mostly only care about the web browser.
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And you have personally witnessed this?
I have.
I am not some bitter FreeBSD user hiding out in his mother's basement.
Re:Oh noes! (Score:5, Funny)
I am not some bitter FreeBSD user hiding out in his mother's basement.
Goddamnit, for the last time, it's not a basement, it's my command centre.
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And you have personally witnessed this?
I have.
I am not some bitter FreeBSD user hiding out in his mother's basement.
Well, to be fair, PC-BSD [pcbsd.org] rivals Ubuntu in ease-of-use and simplicity for desktop users IMHO.
Of course YMMV, blah blah, yadda yadda...
Strat
Re:Oh noes! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh noes! (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, those two demographics are the easiest to convert. While my mom isn't 96 by a long stretch, she uses Ubuntu and has no problems whatsoever. Her computer literacy is close to 0.
The problem users are those we call "power users". People that have used Windows for years and know the ins-and-outs, but do not know them deep enough. They can pretty much be found in the 20-65 demographics, also known as those of working age. My dad falls in the power-user demographic and he still uses WinXP. That said, he is very open to Linux and understands it well enough to use it.
Do note that you said "use". The system still has to be set up by someone who knows what he does.
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However, did she have Flash, Java and DVD playback up and running after the install?
Is that the case with any operating system? It definitely wasn't the last time I installed Windows XP.
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Actuall a PC system (http://simpc.nl/) created especially for the elderly is based on Linux (Gentoo to be precise). That little device has a UI that is kept very simple and foolproof. Read only system, just some user files locally and remote (synced)
Same concept can easily be used for six year olds. I believe in this way Linux is even more suited for the 6 and 96 year old.
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Actually a PC system (http://simpc.nl/) created especially for the elderly is based on Linux (Gentoo to be precise).
I imagine updating will be fun for them.
[I use gentoo myself and it is awesome, yet not for everyone.]
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Start over.
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My job is an MS only shop. I still use a Linux netbook for presentations. It works just fine, and cost about as much as a non-OEM version of Windows Vista Home Basic alone..
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I think this is completely wrong. Linux needs to go after the closest thing to its natural demographic first: power users who care about software freedom. Its got a lot of slack to pick up there before it starts to go after the much harder "full retard" end of the market. Unfortunately, I think the attitude of a lot of people seems to be that you either know everything (and can be treated as a peer), or nothing (and are therefore an idiot).
win32 apps (Score:2)
They are already doing that, with some success. Of course windows being bundled with new computers and incapability of running win32 apps (and i am not talking about office) are other pieces of the puzzle for which, i believe, we have to wait a little longer.
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I think you must have missed this awesome product called UBUNTU.
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My son used Mandrake\Mandriva since 5 years old.
Lots of old people do use Windows. But I knew a lawyer, soon going into retirement, who said me that Linux was relatively acceptable for use on documents if it was not the fact that one has to deal with lots of M$ Office stuff. Anyway she could not use Linux, not because it was difficult but because it wasn't allowed at her department. Anyway, at home she kept a special Linux box for the most sensitive stuff. "It's a lot more secure there" she said.
So your bro
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Don't you know.... you never go full retard, never.
Do the Chimp test! (Score:2)
Ok you people! Now anyone may call me troll, racist, animal hater or anything worser. But I'm really fed up with people like this one. It is the very same song since the old 90's. And it is one of the reasons why I haven't been here for years.
Now, I have to confess, this is a never ending story - brawling all over what 6 year, 30 year, 90 year oldies may or may not able to use Linux. No one is going to give up.
But I think there is a way... The TEST!
Let a chimp try to use both systems. Really, Sincerly it wo
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Hell no!
As I said before: There is absolutely no reason for Linux to be the main OS for every retard out there! No way!
Repeat after me: There is no NEED for this. It is all some made-up drift.
It's the same bullshit as the rule that every company always has to grow. Even if there is no reason. Even if the market does not support it and is saturated. Always.
it seems, people think: Even if the world falls apart, we *have* to grow. We don't know any reason for it, but that does not stop us!
If you want to build
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My MiL (60-ish) and my son (3 years) both used my Kubuntu desktop without a problem. Granted they were only putting it on to surf the web (Hotmail for the MiL and iPlayer for my son). He does struggle with the mouse as I have it quite fast. The MiL uses Windows regularly at home, I must try J (my son) on Vista and see how he does - I can't imagine he'll struggle as the instructions are identical "just click the [fire]fox", though he won't have tuxcart or "tux-walking" (Supertux) on Vista so I don't think he
Re:Oh noes! - Grandma hates to compile apps (Score:4, Informative)
Ubuntu? Really? Try clicking the "system" option, then "Synaptic Package Manager". As you would've found had you paid any attention, you click the pretty box for the software you want, and your system installs the precompiled binaries along with any dependencies. No files (not even the equivalent of a .exe or .msi) required.
Your description of installing software on Linux is one way to do it, but it has not been the only way and certainly not the easiest way for a very long time.
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To be honest, if it's not in the add/remove app then you can only expect a certain percentage of users to be able to find it. With that said, google has introduced people to the concept of trying multiple searches with different keywords to find what you're looking for (amazing!) so more and more people are probably able to use the search field in Synaptic all the time :)
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Linux, being completely free, can be whatever people want it to be. Linux will remain awesome for you as you will not be forced to use the illiterates' version at any point.
Case for fraud? (Score:2, Interesting)
Isn't there an EU action for fraud, if Gartner was a contracted and paid consultant to the EU for this study? I'd love to see an American company get financially shitcanned by the EU. Not just fined but wiped out.
Fraud and conflict of interest (Score:5, Interesting)
Sue Silver for fraud; also he has a conflict of interest because he is a self-declared Windows tool and Linux is the main competition (sorry, Mac users.) Finally, never ask an all-business BA+MBA for technical information. You will only get statistics.
Re:Fraud and conflict of interest (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Fraud and conflict of interest (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Fraud and conflict of interest (Score:5, Funny)
15% of MBA's will get you the correct statistics though.
So all I need 7 MBAs to achieve 100% accurate knowledge of everything. Great!
(Yes, I know that's flawed math, just making a point)
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Wouldn't that be 300%?
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"15% of MBA's will get you the correct statistics though."
With a 10% level of confidence?
2005 != 2009 (Score:5, Insightful)
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You are correct. A core difference being that in 2005, SuSE Linux was a better respected distribution (based out of Germany, ffs) than it is now.
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You are correct. A core difference being that in 2005, SuSE Linux was a better respected distribution (based out of Germany, ffs) than it is now.
You know the Germans always make good stuff [youtube.com].
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that was just the technique used to get the "right" results. They'd have to go back more than 5 years today to pull the same stunt and will have to use different techniques. Maybe they'd use info from Microsofts "Get the Facts" campaign where it's not obvious that Microsoft gave sweetheart deals to migrate people from Linux or away from Linux.
People still think it was mostly the OLPCs fault they couldn't close any million unit deals even though they had dozens of MOU's. Little do they know that all those cu
"WinFS Arrives?" (Score:5, Insightful)
I love it! Here's our infamous "Gartner" group in prime form. FTFPDF, we see that they are predicting the arrival of WinFS anywhere from late 2008 to early 2010.
Now, anyone who's been around as long as Gartner knows that Microsoft has been promising this "feature" since Windows codename "Cairo," which was announced in 1991, and publically demo'ed in '93. There was a lot of hope that it would be delivered in NT 4.0. That's roughly 16 years folks. WAY more time than they had to develop Duke Nukem Forever, and it's just a _file system_.
If you want to talk about basing your corporate purchasing decisions on "features" like WinFS, then all this slagging off on Linux as not being "there yet" is directly hyporcritical, now, isn't it?
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It's not "just a _file system_". It's not even a file system in the traditional sense. I would describe it as a very fancy metadata and structured data indexing system [wikipedia.org] built on top of an existing file system and relational database.
I suspect that the system would be too complex if fully implemented considering the benefits it would bring - lots of potentially "cool" features, but not a whole lot of stuff that is truly
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Please read the following carefully: WinFS was an abstraction layer THAT WAS GOING TO RUN ATOP NTFS
It's also worth pointing out that Microsoft accomplished everything they wanted to do with WinFS in the file and metadata search platform that's in Vista and 7.
It's also worth noting that I KNOW that WinFS is more than "just" a filesystem, but my comment was intended to point out -- perhaps unsuccessfully with humor -- that I don't perceive the problem to be as complex as, say, coding and creating the assets for a triple-A video game title. After all, just 2 guys coded up a filesystem with database-like features in just 10 months for BeOS, which shipped in '97 [wikipedia.org]. The 10's of thousands of coders at Microsoft have had 15 years.
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(I keep hitting submit when I want to preview...)
The 10's of thousands of coders at Microsoft have had 15 years.
The further point being that Microsoft could certainly do WinFS if they were so inclined. What's annoying about this situation is that they keep talking about it like it's going to make things "better," promise to put it in Windows, their lapdogs in the technical press (e.g., Gartner) parrot this line of reasoning (thereby reinforcing it), and then pull it again, just before releasing something we can look at. It's almost like they haven't really ever been se
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Please read the following carefully: WinFS was an abstraction layer THAT WAS GOING TO RUN ATOP NTFS
So it took them 16 years (1991 to 1997) to release a library with "filesystem" right in the name that didn't even include a filesystem? That's not exactly a bragging right.
For an encore, maybe they can announce WinDB (which is a report generator that runs on top of SQL Server), then deliver it in 2025 as a plugin to Paint.
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WinFS was a database backed application - data would be stored on a traditional file system, unless it was suf
gartner myths of linux on the desktop (Score:5, Informative)
* Linux is free.
* There are no forced upgrades.
* Linux will require significantly less labor to manage.
* Linux will have a lower TCO than Windows because of available management tools.
* Applications will be inexpensive or free.
* Hardware can be kept longer if Linux is used, or older hardware can be used.
* Skills are transferable. - Gartner
RedHat more expensive than proprietary (Score:2)
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A. ) there are no "free goodies", you paid for them as part of the support contract.
B. ) what real reason is there to pay for a support contract through RedHat? What am I gaining (and I am being 100% serious) over installing the software without support?
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Support. I have had network performance problems running RHEL on DL360G4s which RedHat solved after a week. The new patch was then tested, commited and served through RHN - complete with driver patches delivered upstream. I have seen communities work just as commited (postfix is one), but RedHat gives you this on all the software it ships
As an European who's been using linux desktop... (Score:2, Interesting)
for over a year now, I must say I agree. Sadly, linux is not mature.
In the times pre windows nt/2000, yes, linux was more stable and had far better up time. But after windows 2000 came out, stability was greatly improved and is simply a non-issue these days.
When that happened, linux lost its strong point and the direction where it's going. A few weeks ago, Mark Shuttleworthd said "Linux must not be just better Windows" or something like that. That of course, is wrong. No matter what you want linux to be or
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As far as the MS Office issue, Linux can run your app via Wine or Crossover Office. There are also alternatives with varying degrees of quality.
It seems like a lot of your difficulties (No exchange client, no AD integration) have more to do with expecting Linux do things like Windows does when sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes there are ways of doing what you want to do that you just haven't learned about yet.
Re:As an European who's been using linux desktop.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, enough bad analogies.
Re:As an European who's been using linux desktop.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Gartner (Score:2)
Feel free to chime in guys:
"It's from Gartner, so it is wrong"
Yes, this is a repetition of what I'll always say when talking about a Gartner report. But obviously it hasn't been chanted enough.
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If it's unelected then how come I will be choosing who my Member of the European Parliament will be from a list of candidates on June 4th? Do you even have a clue or do you base your entire knowledge of a union of 27 countries on the ill-informed complaints of one fucking taxi driver?
Re:EU sucks. Fuck that kumbayah shit. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well racist troll or not I feel compelled to point you don't know what you're talking about. I'm native of the UK, currently living in Spain, and I can tell you your cab driver doesn't know shit.
Since it joined the EU Spain has received massive investment from the EU, which it has used to modernise in all sorts of ways and has gone from a stagnant low GDP economy to being one of the leading economies in Europe.
The UK on the other hand has benefited greatly from having to take on a modicum of human rights law from the EU which its leaders (and popular press) have hated but IMHO have been a huge boon to human rights in the country. Of course the UK government is doing its best to trample all over those rights still but are repeatedly slapped down when they over-step the mark.
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Woops (Score:2)
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There's a difference. Linux actually supports openGL via wine, whereas W7 (and no other windows virtualization equivalent other than wine) does not.
Re: (Score:2)
yeah, I should have typed that a bit more distinctly, but I agree.
What I meant was that you can essentially run XP software with better support via linux/wine than you can via windows 7's built in shoddy virtualization and/or piss poor "xp mode". I can only pity those trying to run an XP version of games/anything graphically dependant under the virtualization in W7 for example, whereas most windows software and even gaming is basically a non-issue for linux.