Much ado has been made over the adoption of open-source software in government operations, and how that potentially impacts the adoption of proprietary software in the private sphere.
There are two primary issues that I see with this interpretation of events:
1. Government operations need to run with as much transparency as possible, so as to work in the citizens' interests.
2. Private sector businesses tend to follow the actions of larger, public sector businesses. The latter category includes the government.
Enough text has been typed - oftentimes half-baked, seldom fully-formed - on both sides of this issue to fill the libraries of the world many times over. The simple fact of the matter is that government should use the most open solution to any given problem possible to remain accountable to the public. If those solutions are polished enough to be adopted by the general public, then perhaps those are areas where proprietary solutions deserve to fail. The effective lifetimes of proprietary solutions should not be artificially kept afloat, lest public standards grow stagnant and obsolete. Many a government web site has fallen by the wayside simply because the administrators decided on a decades-old management model, then fell victim to proprietary lock-in that kept it from being developed into the ruthless model of efficiency that - as a government site - it should be.
I take issue with the notion that open source software costs proprietary software in the public sphere. Under any circumstance, source transparency must be maintained to provide governmental transparency. Despite all that I've implied, what happens in the private sector need not affect the public sector, nor vice-versa.
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Sigh... Time for a Good Rant!
http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/software/soa/Is-it-Windows-7-or-KDE-4-/0,139023769,339294810,00.htm
Okay, anyone bothering to read this, listen up. Windows 7 is a real threat, KDE 4 is making real inroads for GUI usability issues, and ZDnet is a bunch of idiots for not passing that knowledge along. Here's another one: hardcore Windows gamers, shut the hell up. I get that you HAVE to have the latest and greatest titles running at optimal efficiency, and that even a two-day wait (take a gander at the WINE AppDB times on major titles some time) would make you commit seppuku. The world doesn't begin and end at a damn EXE. Don't get me wrong here, I think the average computer user wouldn't know Linux from a hole in the wall, but the simple fact of the matter is that you guys are in the minority. The average user just wants to email, type, and maybe watch a few DVDs or kick back to some tunes. Anyone that thinks Linux can't do this - and do this easily - obviously has ignored distributions like Ubuntu and Mint, as well as the progress on Firefox, Evolution, OpenOffice, mplayer, VLC, amarok, gtkpod, and a whole host of others. The ignorance of those who not only desire, but demand the latest gaming titles should not be used to justify the dismissal of throngs of technological neophytes.
Where is Linux failing? Gamer fanboys who honestly have nothing better to do than criticize anything that isn't Microsoft's latest pandering to their interests. Incidentally, Gabe Newell - that name should be familiar to anyone playing ANYTHING based on DirectX right now - blasted Microsoft for locking DX10 to Vista. You remember Vista, right? The bloated turd that took another few hundred megs worth of a six-month patching effort to be considered reasonably usable?
Where is Linux succeeding? The server room, and the desktop is next. To hell with your pissant laptop (mine worked after some futzing around with ndiswrapper for wireless, which really ISN'T as big a deal as some might say, and certainly less strenous than trying to get the drivers for that cheap, junky MP3 watch you just scavenged off Lian-Li to do their job), the future of Linux is on professional workstations, a realm which is held by Microsoft in homes, and Apple in any serious A/V studio.
The simple fact of the matter is that change is around the next bend, and that scares the fanboys, who have to keep moving the goalposts for adoption farther and farther back. Should Blackcomb/Vienna live up to publicised DRM shortcomings, will they then still back Microsoft over a simple majority, rather than a complex one that discards several other players?
Okay, anyone bothering to read this, listen up. Windows 7 is a real threat, KDE 4 is making real inroads for GUI usability issues, and ZDnet is a bunch of idiots for not passing that knowledge along. Here's another one: hardcore Windows gamers, shut the hell up. I get that you HAVE to have the latest and greatest titles running at optimal efficiency, and that even a two-day wait (take a gander at the WINE AppDB times on major titles some time) would make you commit seppuku. The world doesn't begin and end at a damn EXE. Don't get me wrong here, I think the average computer user wouldn't know Linux from a hole in the wall, but the simple fact of the matter is that you guys are in the minority. The average user just wants to email, type, and maybe watch a few DVDs or kick back to some tunes. Anyone that thinks Linux can't do this - and do this easily - obviously has ignored distributions like Ubuntu and Mint, as well as the progress on Firefox, Evolution, OpenOffice, mplayer, VLC, amarok, gtkpod, and a whole host of others. The ignorance of those who not only desire, but demand the latest gaming titles should not be used to justify the dismissal of throngs of technological neophytes.
Where is Linux failing? Gamer fanboys who honestly have nothing better to do than criticize anything that isn't Microsoft's latest pandering to their interests. Incidentally, Gabe Newell - that name should be familiar to anyone playing ANYTHING based on DirectX right now - blasted Microsoft for locking DX10 to Vista. You remember Vista, right? The bloated turd that took another few hundred megs worth of a six-month patching effort to be considered reasonably usable?
Where is Linux succeeding? The server room, and the desktop is next. To hell with your pissant laptop (mine worked after some futzing around with ndiswrapper for wireless, which really ISN'T as big a deal as some might say, and certainly less strenous than trying to get the drivers for that cheap, junky MP3 watch you just scavenged off Lian-Li to do their job), the future of Linux is on professional workstations, a realm which is held by Microsoft in homes, and Apple in any serious A/V studio.
The simple fact of the matter is that change is around the next bend, and that scares the fanboys, who have to keep moving the goalposts for adoption farther and farther back. Should Blackcomb/Vienna live up to publicised DRM shortcomings, will they then still back Microsoft over a simple majority, rather than a complex one that discards several other players?
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