I'm genuinely interested in why you take that position and what you define as proprietry
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- Thread starter knock
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I'm genuinely interested in why you take that position and what you define as proprietry
knock
Bluelighter
I am, by and large, in agreement with Richard Stallman on this issue so I'll link to Why Software Should Be Free and the collection of "philosophy" essays on www.gnu.org.
I better comment here that "Free Software" is the original term for what is now often called "Open Source Software", the latter phrase was invented as a "marketing ploy" because people often misunderstand the word Free which immediately appears to mean "no cost" but was intended to mean "without restrictions", i.e. ensuring freedoms for those who would use software.
Under "copyleft*", a side-effect of the freedom to share is that freedom also means "no cost". "But wait", you say, "people charge money for open source software, like Red Hat Enterprise Linux, you have to pay a license fee". Well, you're only paying for RHEL because they've added proprietary branding, RHEL may be obtained for free without Red Hat branding as CentOS, and when you pay for RHEL you are effectively paying for a support contract.
While the term "Free Software" is intended to highlight your freedoms, "Open Source" is intended to highlight a development model which is touted as producing higher quality software. I understand both ideas to be correct. And this, in summary, is my reason for eschewing proprietary software, I value freedom of all kinds and I believe open source software is generally of higher quality, and in the long term is logically of higher quality, for the same reason that science based on shared knowledge leads, logically and indeed historically, to knowledge of higher quality than some imaginary science based on secret knowledge. Imagine if the great thinkers kept their knowledge to themselves. Newton could not have stood "on the shoulders of giants". Free Software, Open Source Software, call it what you will, is software that "stands on the shoulders of giants". You might say it also stands on the shoulders of dwarves, whatever, as long it's on shoulders of some kind then it is more efficient and effective than standing on the ground. The success of Free Software systems like Linux, Firefox, Android, Apache, BIND, countless other applications and huge swathes of software libraries used by all manner of developers everywhere, is empirical evidence for the truth of this.
* Copyleft (a play on the word copyright) is the practice of using copyright law to offer the right to distribute copies and modified versions of a work and requiring that the same rights be preserved in modified versions of the work. In other words, copyleft is a general method for marking a creative work as freely available to be modified, and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free as well.
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You could try running Ubuntu "live" from the installation media (USB stick or dvdr) without without installing it. That way you can find out whether all your hardware is compatible and it does all the stuff you need it to before committing to an install.
You could also try Mint, which is based on Ubuntu, uses the same software sources, but has a more windows-like user interface than Ubuntu and Unity, which I didn't get on with.
knock
Bluelighter
Yes, Mint is good, a very good option.
NB, however, that with Ubuntu you may install the Gnome desktop and use Gnome Classic which is, maybe not totally Windows-like but it's very Mac-like and not that far off windows like if you stand on your head. i.e. the "task bar" or "panel" is at the top, not the bottom.
NB, however, that with Ubuntu you may install the Gnome desktop and use Gnome Classic which is, maybe not totally Windows-like but it's very Mac-like and not that far off windows like if you stand on your head. i.e. the "task bar" or "panel" is at the top, not the bottom.
I'm no expert in the ins and outs of how Open Source OSs get developed and released, if Linux does the job for you that's fine.
I agree that MS managed to become the defacto OS installed on PCs and that this has not all been good, however the generic IBM PC format along side first DOS and then Windows changed PCs from things only accessible by those in the technology industry to something most people could get to grips with, I refer to that kind of thing as a consumer device.
These PCs along with the internet have revolutionised peoples lives in so many ways, the easy compatibility of peripherals and software is very important, if you are knowledgeable in tech then these things do not present an problem but for many they do.
It does seem to be a time of change MS are loosing their grip, but it is mainly Android in Tablet devices that is the primary reason with most desktops still running MS.
The advantages of widely distributed OSs is that we create a largely standard environment leading to cheap hardware and compatible software. The user only has to grapple with one UI and in the case of Windows most of the techy stuff is done for you. This also leads to a wealth of information about the OS being available and vulnerabilities being exposed fairly quickly. Every business user I know uses MS Office and Windows, where I work innovation is encouraged but I can't see why anyone would suggest running Linux on the desktops, the reality of that would be a disaster.
The vast majority of users are not and have no interest in thee deeper details of their machine, they just want to turn it on and use their applications and for those applications are compatible with everyone else's.
I'm not sure what you are really suggesting in terms of your alternative model, in the industry I work in they tried to introduce a standard that would provide special drivers for the hardware so it should have been possible to utilise other vendors software, total disaster as they all tweaked the standard and made the process far to complex.
I don't see the OS as the battle ground for freedom, you may as well complain that most of the processors are produced by Intel, or all the screens some from Taiwan. The freedom has come from the ease of access to information and like minded people across the world, not creating an elitist group who are the only ones that can operate the stuff, we left that behind many years ago.
I agree that MS managed to become the defacto OS installed on PCs and that this has not all been good, however the generic IBM PC format along side first DOS and then Windows changed PCs from things only accessible by those in the technology industry to something most people could get to grips with, I refer to that kind of thing as a consumer device.
These PCs along with the internet have revolutionised peoples lives in so many ways, the easy compatibility of peripherals and software is very important, if you are knowledgeable in tech then these things do not present an problem but for many they do.
It does seem to be a time of change MS are loosing their grip, but it is mainly Android in Tablet devices that is the primary reason with most desktops still running MS.
The advantages of widely distributed OSs is that we create a largely standard environment leading to cheap hardware and compatible software. The user only has to grapple with one UI and in the case of Windows most of the techy stuff is done for you. This also leads to a wealth of information about the OS being available and vulnerabilities being exposed fairly quickly. Every business user I know uses MS Office and Windows, where I work innovation is encouraged but I can't see why anyone would suggest running Linux on the desktops, the reality of that would be a disaster.
The vast majority of users are not and have no interest in thee deeper details of their machine, they just want to turn it on and use their applications and for those applications are compatible with everyone else's.
I'm not sure what you are really suggesting in terms of your alternative model, in the industry I work in they tried to introduce a standard that would provide special drivers for the hardware so it should have been possible to utilise other vendors software, total disaster as they all tweaked the standard and made the process far to complex.
I don't see the OS as the battle ground for freedom, you may as well complain that most of the processors are produced by Intel, or all the screens some from Taiwan. The freedom has come from the ease of access to information and like minded people across the world, not creating an elitist group who are the only ones that can operate the stuff, we left that behind many years ago.
knock
Bluelighter
I don't see the OS as the battleground for freedom, I see it as a battleground, one which is fairly easily won, one which was won for me over 14 years ago.
The IBM PC and easy compatibility has indeed been a good thing, no argument. Linux has colonised that environment, quite successfully in my experience.
The main reason linux on the desktops is not a goer for corporations is that they tend to have a lot of weird custom Visual Basic applications, corporate tools which pertain to "human resource management" and such like. Also they are populated by Microsoft Certified Professionals with vested interests. Conversely every company I've ever worked at has moved or is moving to Linux for servers. The only thing keeping them on Windows is Active Directory, but it's entirely possible to implement a functional equivalent with open source LDAP and other glue software. The migration to web-based applications is making the VB app thing less of an issue, but corporations move slowly.
These are not issues for the home user, most home users just want web browsing, email, word processing and game. Well, email, web browsing and word processing have long been fixed in open source and SteamOS is about to fix games.
The IBM PC and easy compatibility has indeed been a good thing, no argument. Linux has colonised that environment, quite successfully in my experience.
The main reason linux on the desktops is not a goer for corporations is that they tend to have a lot of weird custom Visual Basic applications, corporate tools which pertain to "human resource management" and such like. Also they are populated by Microsoft Certified Professionals with vested interests. Conversely every company I've ever worked at has moved or is moving to Linux for servers. The only thing keeping them on Windows is Active Directory, but it's entirely possible to implement a functional equivalent with open source LDAP and other glue software. The migration to web-based applications is making the VB app thing less of an issue, but corporations move slowly.
These are not issues for the home user, most home users just want web browsing, email, word processing and game. Well, email, web browsing and word processing have long been fixed in open source and SteamOS is about to fix games.
It's an interesting area, I will need to catch up on the latest developments in alternative OS, I like to reassess my stance on a regular basis and the success of Android proves that users will adapt and accept new UIs.
I don't think they run any Linux servers where I work, they are in the process of virtualising allsorts of stuff as part of a data centre move but its all MS as far as I know, your point about the IT people all being trained in MS rings true for me.
I'm not sure I understand the benefits of running multiple OS, I assume you don't mean we should all move to Linux variants as that would just create the same situation but with a different OS.....or I am not knowledgeable enough about such things.
What would be the key advantages ? would there not be issues with drivers for periphery devices ? and if numerous variants were being freely distributed could this lead to insecure versions and issues that were left unaddressed for longer ?
I don't think they run any Linux servers where I work, they are in the process of virtualising allsorts of stuff as part of a data centre move but its all MS as far as I know, your point about the IT people all being trained in MS rings true for me.
I'm not sure I understand the benefits of running multiple OS, I assume you don't mean we should all move to Linux variants as that would just create the same situation but with a different OS.....or I am not knowledgeable enough about such things.
What would be the key advantages ? would there not be issues with drivers for periphery devices ? and if numerous variants were being freely distributed could this lead to insecure versions and issues that were left unaddressed for longer ?
knock
Bluelighter
Everyone moving to Linux distributions wouldn't create the same situation. Linux is Free Software, open source. Windows is not. Mac OS X is based on Free Software - Darwin is based on FreeBSD - but they have made many proprietary changes, which remain proprietary because FreeBSD is not copyleft, i.e. it's license permits modification and redistribution but does not require that source code is made available to recipients.
So the situation would be quite different, everyone would be running a system based on freely distributable, modifiable source code.
There are two arguments here, which are related but not the same. There is the argument about freedoms pertaining to the source code, which I think I've covered, and there is the argument about a monoculture, i.e. everyone should (or should not) run the same system
I am not particularly bothered about the monoculture argument. There are good arguments for both sides. I tend to think a monoculture is not really possible because people have different requirements. For instance, I recommend Ubuntu (or Mint) to the less technically inclined. But I run Arch (in the form of Archbang) on my laptop, and I run Ubuntu Server and Debian on my servers (I have a virtualisation setup). I intend to run SteamOS on my living room PC for games and videos / music.
The problems of compatibility can be solved through proper open standards. For instance, we can all surf the web and have pretty much the same experience, despite using different systems to access it. This is because the web is based, overwhelmingly, on open standards.
Microsoft have a tradition of defying open standards to achieve vendor lock-in. This is well documented elsewhere, and it's one of the reasons I don't have any time for them.
Incidentally, I wasn't always like this. I used to be very pro-Microsoft. But I also used to have very different political views. I have come to my current positions on a range of things through life experience and self-education.
So the situation would be quite different, everyone would be running a system based on freely distributable, modifiable source code.
There are two arguments here, which are related but not the same. There is the argument about freedoms pertaining to the source code, which I think I've covered, and there is the argument about a monoculture, i.e. everyone should (or should not) run the same system
I am not particularly bothered about the monoculture argument. There are good arguments for both sides. I tend to think a monoculture is not really possible because people have different requirements. For instance, I recommend Ubuntu (or Mint) to the less technically inclined. But I run Arch (in the form of Archbang) on my laptop, and I run Ubuntu Server and Debian on my servers (I have a virtualisation setup). I intend to run SteamOS on my living room PC for games and videos / music.
The problems of compatibility can be solved through proper open standards. For instance, we can all surf the web and have pretty much the same experience, despite using different systems to access it. This is because the web is based, overwhelmingly, on open standards.
Microsoft have a tradition of defying open standards to achieve vendor lock-in. This is well documented elsewhere, and it's one of the reasons I don't have any time for them.
Incidentally, I wasn't always like this. I used to be very pro-Microsoft. But I also used to have very different political views. I have come to my current positions on a range of things through life experience and self-education.
I understand a little better now what you believe this would bring and in essence would support it.becuase
With ATMs they tried to do something similar because while the OSs where (and are) almost all MS the actual device application was proprietary which is a pain if you are using multiple vendors, the standard was/is called XFS, the end result has been the vendors tweaking the standard to ensure the playing field isn't level, few have managed true multi vendor.
If we all ran versions of Linux I suspect there would be ways found to charge, support and hot fixes for example what would be the SLA for those and how would we verify the OS images were ligit, the idea that anyone could cook up a version would bother me, there are some very dubious folk about these days.
I guess time will tell, MS has certainly lost ground but the alternatives seem uncertain, the smart phone had turned out to be a massive influence on user behaviour which has migrated to tablets, I'm interested to see what comes next but have no intention of trying to predict it.
With ATMs they tried to do something similar because while the OSs where (and are) almost all MS the actual device application was proprietary which is a pain if you are using multiple vendors, the standard was/is called XFS, the end result has been the vendors tweaking the standard to ensure the playing field isn't level, few have managed true multi vendor.
If we all ran versions of Linux I suspect there would be ways found to charge, support and hot fixes for example what would be the SLA for those and how would we verify the OS images were ligit, the idea that anyone could cook up a version would bother me, there are some very dubious folk about these days.
I guess time will tell, MS has certainly lost ground but the alternatives seem uncertain, the smart phone had turned out to be a massive influence on user behaviour which has migrated to tablets, I'm interested to see what comes next but have no intention of trying to predict it.
knock
Bluelighter
Code:
SA: Action: scanned but message isn't spam: score=0.5 required=5.0My newly installed spamassassin is working.
knock
Bluelighter
16 spams killed in under 24 hours. SpamAssassin rocks! Spamassassin kills spam. DEAD.
Just got donated an unwanted and uncared for Acer Aspire One, I fixed the hardware issues being a wires and bits kinda fella
I've restored the XP load from the existing recovery partition but given time is running out for XP support and my preference for Windows 7 would make this thing run like a snail on roofes + the Android effort sounds like a disaster fro Acer a version of Linux seems the top solution.
I've run Ubuntu and Xbuntu (?) in the past and for my purposes (browsing and email with the odd bit of graphics work) they were fine. I search on the net suggests either Ubuntu or Mint. Any views from those clearly more versed in such things than I ?
I've restored the XP load from the existing recovery partition but given time is running out for XP support and my preference for Windows 7 would make this thing run like a snail on roofes + the Android effort sounds like a disaster fro Acer a version of Linux seems the top solution.
I've run Ubuntu and Xbuntu (?) in the past and for my purposes (browsing and email with the odd bit of graphics work) they were fine. I search on the net suggests either Ubuntu or Mint. Any views from those clearly more versed in such things than I ?
knock
Bluelighter
The default install of Xubuntu is probably a bit lighter weight than Mint. But that's because XFCE is lighter than Cinnamon, XFCE is the default desktop environment of Xubuntu.
You can install XFCE on Mint and use that instead of Cinnamon, so it's not as if you're stuck with your choice.
So why not take a look at Cinnamon and if you like the look of it go with Mint. If it's too slow install xfce, reboot and select that at the login screen.
For a really lightweight install, crunchbang and archbang are excellent choices using Openbox. I've used both. They're highly configurable but the default installs are completely fine. These are, respectively, Debian and Arch with some configuration to make them more immediately suitable for general desktop use, as vanilla Debian and Arch installs usually need a bit of tweaking to get them just right. "Just right" is subjective! They're just right for me though.
You can install XFCE on Mint and use that instead of Cinnamon, so it's not as if you're stuck with your choice.
So why not take a look at Cinnamon and if you like the look of it go with Mint. If it's too slow install xfce, reboot and select that at the login screen.
For a really lightweight install, crunchbang and archbang are excellent choices using Openbox. I've used both. They're highly configurable but the default installs are completely fine. These are, respectively, Debian and Arch with some configuration to make them more immediately suitable for general desktop use, as vanilla Debian and Arch installs usually need a bit of tweaking to get them just right. "Just right" is subjective! They're just right for me though.
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mydrugbuddy
Bluelighter
Have they got you on commission, or did you create it ?
It sounds like a good advert for a good App, some email providers like gmail filter out stuff that isnt actually spam though, but at least they put everything in a spam folder, so you have to go through that folder and mark some things as 'not spam' and it will remember next time.
knock
Bluelighter
It's Open Source software. It's free. I run my own email server, and it integrates very nicely with that, I have no idea what it's like running on a desktop.
I've had a total of three spam emails get through since the 27th which compares nicely to about 20 every day! And you can train SpamAssassin, which is what I've done. It would not surprise me if GMail uses SpamAssassin "under the hood".
I've had a total of three spam emails get through since the 27th which compares nicely to about 20 every day! And you can train SpamAssassin, which is what I've done. It would not surprise me if GMail uses SpamAssassin "under the hood".
Sammy G
Ex-Bluelighter
There you go again! I can see where MDB's coming from.
Though I suppose you can't really be an open source shill, can you? Just an evangelist and a bore. :D
mydrugbuddy
Bluelighter
Yeah i dont know what gmail use, but it does seem quite effective. There's been many hotmail accounts ive had to abandon due to spam floods.
What's the difference between a desktop and a server, if its not too complicated and long winded and puts you out too much to explain, i thought they were essentially the same thing, just networked to do different things for different purposes
What's the difference between a desktop and a server, if its not too complicated and long winded and puts you out too much to explain, i thought they were essentially the same thing, just networked to do different things for different purposes
knock
Bluelighter
I'm sorry. But I can't help it if the truth is boring, or if people ask questions which lead me to tell the boring truth.
A desktop (or a laptop... a more general term is client, but that assumes you are using servers) is the PC you interact directly with, has it's own monitor and keyboard. A server is a computer which provides services over the network. Bluelight runs on a web server. GMail does too. You access web servers via HTTP/HTTPS. A mail server lets you access your email over IMAP/POP3. GMail is a web interface to email, it most likely access your email via IMAP, which will run on another GMail server. You can access your GMail using email clients like outlook or thunderbird, via IMAP and POP3, so it seems very likely the GMail web interface is just a front end for IMAP.
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Sammy G
Ex-Bluelighter
The truth is invariably boring.
Besides, you're making a more entertaining fist of it than most.
Besides, you're making a more entertaining fist of it than most.
mydrugbuddy
Bluelighter
Ah i see, thank you, I'll have to try remember that if i get asked it an interview if i decide to apply for any more IT support type jobs. Dunno if i will, its not really where my true interest lies, but it's just something i drifted into and have some experience in.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")