[balug-talk] Good Letter in San Francisco Chronicle Today

[Michael T. Halligan]

Jeffrey Siegal wrote:
> On Oct 9, 2006, at 10:18 , Michael T. Halligan wrote:
>
>> I don't doubt that techies and reasonably intelligent individuals can
>> use Linux on the desktop. However, if you've ever managed to go through
>> the process of dealing with a towed car, or paying a parking ticket,
>> only to watch our fine local government lose the paperwork, mis-enter
>> payment information, an d then issue a warrant, you'd be rather
>> frightened that these savants might some day have to use anything more
>> complicated than Windows 95.
>
> This is so nonsensical I have to wonder if you are actually some kind 
> of Microsoft shill.
>
> First of all, there is nothing inherently "simple" or even easy to use 
> about Windows 95.  Its just old.    An old OS can often be MORE 
> DIFFICULT to deal with, if that means you can't hook up a replacement 
> printer or mouse or whatever, because the currently available devices 
> do not have drivers for the old OS.  (Not to mention viruses, crashes, 
> filesystem corruption, etc. that are a really, really big problem for 
> Windows 95, even when compared to new versions of Windows.)
>
> Second of all, when someone is processing a towed car or a parking 
> ticket, they're interacting with the (user interface component of) the 
> operating system at all.  They're using some kind of custom 
> application, generally a pretty thin layer on top of a database.  It 
> makes no different in that case what operating system their data entry 
> station happens to be using.
So basically we're saying it would be a "good idea" to:

- Replace a working, known system that their IT group understands with Linux
- Completely rewrite all of their existing applications to work with the 
Linux environment
- Retrain all of their IT support people in an OS that is a 180degree 
paradigm shift (Windows versus Linux)
- Retrain all of their Programmers to write in languages they're 
unfamiliar with (because I doubt, VBscript is not
available in Linux)
- Give all of their IT support & Programmers huge raises to stay 
competitive because the Linux skillset is a lot more valuable than 
equivalent Linux skillsets

That doesn't sound very cheap to me.

Just because it can be done, does not mean we should. Just because some 
of us have socialistic tendencies does not mean that a socialist 
operating system really would be good for the masses.

Talk as much smack as you want to about Windows (And I'll agree with 
99.99999% about it), Microsoft delivers it's customers a crystal clear 
path. Upgrade the software, we'll support you for N number of years. You 
will be backwards compatible for N number of years.   Linux does not 
give you this. There's really nothing clear about Linux with it's 200 
different distribution, 2 different major desktop systems) and two 
different office suites, neither of which are 100% compatible with what 
99% of the world uses for their documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.