13 ms·

Honestly as a sysadmin who has been trying to push FOSS in the workplace, I can say the number one barrier is simply lack of neuralplasticity in older people an

Honestly as a sysadmin who has been trying to push FOSS in the workplace, I can say the number one barrier is simply lack of neuralplasticity in older people and an unwillingness to learn new things. Combined with a lack of backing from management, it's a recipe for an overworked IT team that is probably already getting crapped on politcally and budgetarily, which is what I suspect has happened in Munich. While I think in most cases technically Linux can meet the needs of the workplace, it's the cultural grip of Windows that is the most difficult to break.

madez 10y ago
This is why I see the dominance of Windows as a problem that should be dealt with on the political level. My hope for Europe is lost in this regard, but I think Russia or China could come up with something interesting.
- milesrout 10y ago
  The thing that astounds me the most is that it's the single clearest example of a monopoly in history. There really is no better example of a monopoly in any industry ever. Microsoft had >95% of desktops running Windows, and the many various government organisations all over the world tasked with preventing and dealing with these sorts of monopolies did nothing.
  - bayesian_horse 10y ago
    In all fairness, there is hardly anything to be done about it. You just can't come up with a full MS Office replacement fast enough to be relevant. Short of completely dismantling Microsoft, or even seizing their assets by governments (two options I don't approve of), I don't see a way to break that monopoly as long as this kind of Office Software is relevant.
    - dukeluke 10y ago
      Exactly. An industry with a high barrier to entry is prone to becoming a monopoly.
      - madez 10y ago
        This is why I think governments should fund libre alternative projects substantially and long-term. It is a matter of national interest. LibreOffice Calc is missing features that are required by many users? The government should pay for it to be developed. The ironic thing is that it is not even expensive to break this monopoly. So many countries share this interest in breaking the monopoly. Why the EU spends billions to protect farmers but is not willing to spend millions to finish and maintain a nearly workable independent software infrastructure is beyond me. Most politicians are old and most old people don't understand computers, the internet and it's consequences. They don't get what is at stake. I still hope that some day people will get elected in Europe that understand theses issues.
        tracker1 10y ago
        The issue here, is that even as LO is firming up, the masses are moving to google docs and o365's online options... Which does reduce some barriers to switching, but introduces other development costs. MS is really good at making software, maybe not the best at UI/UX, but meeting needs in a relatively short period of time compared to competitors. o365 seems at first glance to be a bit better than google docs, and MS was pretty late to the party there. Government can very rarely outpace private business in terms of getting things like this done.
        bayesian_horse 10y ago
        The government can fund private business developing free software to outpace another private business. For example Continuum Analytics is partly funded by public sources to work on open data science, competing against commercial offerings from SAS, for example. The Blender Foundation has some public funding for developing new features for the Blender 3D software suite, partly through public film funding.
    - milesrout 10y ago
      Dismantling Microsoft would absolutely be the correct response. That's what they did to Bell or AT&T or whatever they were called, and it was a good thing. Break up Microsoft into a company that makes Office, a company that makes Windows and a company that does .NET.
      - yellowapple 10y ago
        Hell, Microsoft already internally operates like that anyway. Might as well take it to its logical conclusion :)

madez 10y ago

This is why I see the dominance of Windows as a problem that should be dealt with on the political level. My hope for Europe is lost in this regard, but I think Russia or China could come up with something interesting.

milesrout 10y ago
The thing that astounds me the most is that it's the single clearest example of a monopoly in history. There really is no better example of a monopoly in any industry ever. Microsoft had >95% of desktops running Windows, and the many various government organisations all over the world tasked with preventing and dealing with these sorts of monopolies did nothing.
- bayesian_horse 10y ago
  In all fairness, there is hardly anything to be done about it. You just can't come up with a full MS Office replacement fast enough to be relevant. Short of completely dismantling Microsoft, or even seizing their assets by governments (two options I don't approve of), I don't see a way to break that monopoly as long as this kind of Office Software is relevant.
  - dukeluke 10y ago
    Exactly. An industry with a high barrier to entry is prone to becoming a monopoly.
    - madez 10y ago
      This is why I think governments should fund libre alternative projects substantially and long-term. It is a matter of national interest. LibreOffice Calc is missing features that are required by many users? The government should pay for it to be developed. The ironic thing is that it is not even expensive to break this monopoly. So many countries share this interest in breaking the monopoly. Why the EU spends billions to protect farmers but is not willing to spend millions to finish and maintain a nearly workable independent software infrastructure is beyond me. Most politicians are old and most old people don't understand computers, the internet and it's consequences. They don't get what is at stake. I still hope that some day people will get elected in Europe that understand theses issues.
      - tracker1 10y ago
        The issue here, is that even as LO is firming up, the masses are moving to google docs and o365's online options... Which does reduce some barriers to switching, but introduces other development costs. MS is really good at making software, maybe not the best at UI/UX, but meeting needs in a relatively short period of time compared to competitors. o365 seems at first glance to be a bit better than google docs, and MS was pretty late to the party there. Government can very rarely outpace private business in terms of getting things like this done.
        bayesian_horse 10y ago
        The government can fund private business developing free software to outpace another private business. For example Continuum Analytics is partly funded by public sources to work on open data science, competing against commercial offerings from SAS, for example. The Blender Foundation has some public funding for developing new features for the Blender 3D software suite, partly through public film funding.
  - milesrout 10y ago
    Dismantling Microsoft would absolutely be the correct response. That's what they did to Bell or AT&T or whatever they were called, and it was a good thing. Break up Microsoft into a company that makes Office, a company that makes Windows and a company that does .NET.
    - yellowapple 10y ago
      Hell, Microsoft already internally operates like that anyway. Might as well take it to its logical conclusion :)