Linux is Useless in the Real World

[postfs1]

To reedit up to date.

[aarf]

here is a story about how useless Linux is.
[quote]Microsoft Sues Motorola Over Android-Based Phones
By Susan Decker and Hugo Miller - Oct 1, 2010 9:06 PM GMT+0000

The Motorola Droid mobile phone, powered by Google Inc.'s Android mobile operating system. Photographer: Ronda Churchill/Bloomberg

Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software company, filed patent-infringement claims targeting Motorola Inc.’s Android smartphones, in the latest skirmish in the growing market for versatile mobile devices.

The nine patents relate to synchronizing e-mail, calendars and contacts, scheduling meetings, and notifying applications of changes in signal strength and battery power. Microsoft filed two complaints today: one with the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington, which could ban U.S. imports of the phones if a violation is found; and a second in federal court in Seattle in which Microsoft seeks unspecified cash compensation.

Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, is overhauling its mobile-phone operating system to Windows Phone 7 this year to stem market-share losses to Apple Inc.’s iPhone and phones with Google Inc.’s Android software. Its Motorola dispute is part of a burgeoning battle over smartphones that includes Oracle Corp. suing Google and Apple fighting HTC Corp. and Nokia Oyj.

“There’s a lot of patent lawsuits between handset vendors, and Motorola and Microsoft just add to the many already ongoing,

[DMcCunney]

here is a story abut how useless Linux is.

Microsoft Sues Motorola Over Android-Based Phones
<...>

The nine patents relate to synchronizing e-mail, calendars and contacts, scheduling meetings, and notifying applications of changes in signal strength and battery power. Microsoft filed two complaints today: one with the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington, which could ban U.S. imports of the phones if a violation is found; and a second in federal court in Seattle in which Microsoft seeks unspecified cash compensation.

Save that Linux is irrelevant to the suit. M$ is suing based on reputed patents covering stuff that would need to be done regardless of OS. It wouldn't surprise me if M$ had litigation ongoing with Nokia over stuff in Symbian.

If by some chance M$ wins on any of the claims, the likely result will be royalties to M$ for the stuff covered by patents. Android won't go away.

M$ is after Moto because the Droid is a runaway hit, and has put Moto back in the smartphone game. (There were rumors Moto was looking to exist that line of business.)

Windows Mobile is reportedly undergoing a rewrite. It will be curious to see what design wins M$ might get with it. Their share of the smartphone market is small these days, and since Android is free and open source, and Nokia made Symbian open source, they'll have fun coming up with something vendors will pay for.
______
Dennis

[sunburnt]

The only thing I can see that Linux doesn`t do is Windows games because of DirectX.

It`s reported that the Wine people are expecting to have DirectX10 and 11 compatibility.

http://wiki.winehq.org/DirectX-ToDo

To install DirectX9 into Wine. ( Looks complex...)

http://howto.landure.fr/gnu-linux/insta ... using-wine

[droope]

Linux kicks windows ass.

[jafadmin]

As an IT professional I think I can address the seemingly contradictory responses concerning the linux/windows debate.

First off, both are "ready for prime-time" OS's. The problem is that they are two different OS's. In other words, we're comparing "apples and oranges".

Corporate isn't going to roll out Linux desktops anytime soon because in a commercial business networking environment they are lacking. Ongoing issues such as interfacing with clusters, replication shares, Active Directory permissions, Group Policy, and even worse, network printing, and Exchange integration keep the linux desktop out of the corporate environment.

Most people who work with computers in their jobs use windows networking as their LAN environment and expect it to be intuitive. Linux is far from intuitive in this situation. People who primarily use computers for work consider linux a toy.

On the other hand, if one wants a personal computer for non-corporate use and could care less about integrating with corporate networks, desktop linux versions kick ass. They're better at it than windows.

Most people don't have the attention span to be prolific at 2 OS's, so they use windows for home too.

In my work we have several versions of linux in the server room for firewalls, spam gateways and such, and every engineer I know has several puppy toolboxes. It just does things that are impossible with windows. Linux IMHO has the largest engineering toolset in computing.

FWIW, all online banking and secure stuff I do on the internet, I do with puppy just because I don't think it can be compromised in all the usual methods.

[jpeps]

Strange...I talked with a friend who works for Google..who said they've moved exclusively over to linux, mainly because of better security.

[DMcCunney]

Strange...I talked with a friend who works for Google..who said they've moved exclusively over to linux, mainly because of better security.

The Google servers you access when you do a Google search are all running Linux.

But it's not really a surprise that Google moved to Linux on the desktop. There are almost certainly Windows machines in use, simply because the vast majority of folks accessing Google and its various services are doing so from Windows, and they must thoroughly test what the end users will encounter when they do. But consider who works at Google. Most of them are programmers and engineers, used to Linux, and possibly running it at home as well as at the office. Going all Linux on the desktop isn't a wrenching switch.

For corporate desktops it's a different matter. They run Windows, with Microsoft Office for word processing/spreadsheet/presentations, Outlook for email and calendaring, and Exchange as the MTA. You can get equivalents of all of those under Linux, but they're different. Switching to Linux would involve everybody learning a new OS and new applications, in a situation where it may be all they can do to keep up with their actual work in a normal day. Won't happen.

I've been a corporate IT guy, with Windows on the desktop and *nix in the server room. Yes, Windows is less secure, but somehow, we managed, and the biggest issues were insecure practices by users, not insecurity in Windows.
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Dennis

[aarf]

forum member MU, an IT professional, is installing debian 4 his new company (and see also) and i am fairly sure that the german govt runs on Linux and i think i read that the chinese govt are implementing and mandating a red hat Linux

[jpeps]

Cloud computing should also help. Here's a way to get Quickbooks Online with a Firefox Browser:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1098175

[DMcCunney]

MU is installing debian 4 his new company and i am fairly sure that the german govt runs on Linux and i think i read that the chinese govt are implementing and mandating a red hat Linux

I don't believe the German government is monolithic on this. As I recall, some German state governments are mandating Linux, not the German government as a whole.

And China is pro-Linux because they want control. Using an open source OS, they can tweak it as they like, and don't have licensing costs. They don't want to be dependent on what Microsoft chooses to do.

It works if you're in a position where you can mandate that users switch, like it or not. That's usually not the case in the US.
______
Dennis

[aarf]

It works if you're in a position where you can mandate that users switch, like it or not. That's usually not the case in the US.
______
Dennis

i have read a number of times on the internet that it is mandatory to use m$ office in barbarian schools and as far as i know, that m$ office isn't going to be running on Linux now is it.

[aarf]

July 3, 2002 By Jim McKay, Justice and Public Safety Editor
The German government recently signed a contract with IBM to move its federal, state and local agencies to Linux and open source software to facilitate the country's standardization on Linux, according to the German Federal Ministry of the Interior.

..

German Government Drinks to the Greatness of Linux

Nov 03, 2008 By Justin Ryan

It's been nearly a month since the strains of the 175th Oktoberfest died down, but the reasons to celebrate live on. Behind the scenes at the Auswärtiges Amt (Foreign Office), the diplomats are toasting freedom — not with beer, but Open Source software.

The German Government — at all levels — has been a leader in adopting Open Source software for quite some time. The Bundesministerium des Innern (Ministry of the Interior) partnered with IBM to offer Linux systems to security forces in 2002, while in 2005, the state of Lower Saxony loaded up Red Hat Enterprise Linux to the tune of 11,000 boxen. The City of Munich opted to take its systems out of the proprietary loop in 2003, and despite delays, began its implementation in 2006.

Now the Foreign Ministry's former IT head, Rolf Schuster — now a diplomat at the German Embassy in Madrid — reveals that the Foreign Ministry has rolled out Linux desktops to half of the 230 German consulates and embassies worldwide, and that it plans to have the remaining sites converted by mid-2009. A grand total of 11,000 desktops are involved in the switch, which has been ongoing since 2004 — the move came after a three-year transition of back-end systems to Open Source software was successfully completed. Schuster said that the reduction in cost — a 66% savings over the average for other ministries — was the primary motivation for the change, though other agencies have cited increased security as a prime selling point.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the greatest difficulty in the implementation was the proverbial "problem between keyboard and chair": convincing the Ministry's 200 IT workers that the change made sense. Apparently, though, a swift sashay through Linux and Apache was all it took to bring them on board.
Special thanks to Linux Journal reader Chrystal Edwards for bringing this story to our attention.
Do you have a hot tip? Submit it to Breaking News by email or on IRC.

[linuxsansdisquedur]

I don't think the real world is something useful with Linux let it run for itself and let us play within

[r1tz]

Though i will share this...
http://jeffhoogland.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... world.html
http://www.focus.com/fyi/information-te ... ot-expect/

[Bruce B]

And China is pro-Linux because they want control.

Dave,

I want control also!

The Chinese government has similar responsibilities as any government.

It is responsible to run infrastructures and data archival and military on
secure systems people can't easily hack into.

It is responsible to use the best of the best. And by the nature of FOSS
they can make it better and more suited to their needs.

It is responsible to not throw huge sums of one's gross national product
to foreign nations if they don't have to.

What about trust and security?

I hope you've read about the worm that hit Iran's nuclear project. Why
not? They trusted in Microsoft and got what they deserved.

There comes a point when people should know that it is an ethical issue to
trust a con. If anyone wants this explained just ask.

Bruce

~

[Lobster]

Thanks r1tz,
(I too am crackers)
great read

Maybe Linux is quite useful in the real world?
Microsoft has generated an artificial world
to provide its dangerous and unstable products.

Puppy Linux
Expect more in less

[abushcrafter]

It is responsible to run infrastructures and data archival and military on secure systems people can't easily hack into.

Words To Avoid - Hacker

[Aitch]

abushcrafter

Linux education for the unwary - Good Link!

Aitch

[Bruce B]

For the past nine or ten years I've found Linux very useful as a personal computer operating system.

Moreover, at the rate it keeps improving, I expect it to be much more useful in the future.