[PLUG] Congratulations to Carla

[Roderick A. Anderson]

Tim Slighter wrote:
> Is it possible that a lot of these issues stem from the fact that a majority
> of organizations do not trust in the ability to ensure and verify the
> integrity of opensource downloads including the Linux operating system and
> vendors are quick to jump on the bandwagon to provide them with
> applications/drivers that will be deployed on "verified" operating systems?
> "verified" as in the administrator has the reasonable expectation that the
> Windows 2003 Server installation CD has not been tampered with.

In the case of PeoplePC it is a hold your customer prisoner issue.  The 
PeoplePC setup puts some MS Windows stuff in that is nearly immpossible 
to pry out.  Back in my ISP support days I had to turn new customers 
away ( or tell them to call PeoplePC to uninstall ) if they'd even tried 
PeoplePC.  We ( and there were some very savy Windows people there ) 
couldn't find, using normal/typical means, how to uninstall.


Rod
-- 

> On 3/7/06, Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com> wrote:
> 
>>On Tue, 7 Mar 2006, TedK wrote:
>>
>>
>>>On a related note, as an old guy I looked into the cheap Internet access
>>>offered by the AARP (PeoplePC deal for AARP members), I called and was
>>
>>told
>>
>>>that the deal was only available for Windows users. Not that they would
>>>only support MS Windows you know not answer questions about Linux, but
>>
>>no,
>>
>>>only MS Windows, sorry.
>>
>>Ted,
>>
>>   This is very common; I see it in the business community all the time.
>>In a
>>way there's a rational explanation for this: most of these folks (AARP,
>>business consultants, natural resource companies, and more) are not into
>>computers other than as tools they must use. As such, they go with the
>>flow
>>and don't even think of looking for alternatives.
>>
>>   Back in 1990 when I first arrived and was working for someone else, all
>>the
>>computers were DOS and not networked (except by sneakernet). Of course,
>>WordPerfect was the processor of choice for all the words produced. I
>>tuned
>>my machine to have a black screen with grey foreground. Everyone else had
>>the
>>default of white on blue and would ask me, "How'd you do that?" Never
>>occurred to them to look at the tool they used all the time to see what
>>they
>>could do with it.
>>
>>   In the intervening 16 years, nothing's changed in most places. This is
>>not
>>to write that I am happy with the situation, but sometimes it's like
>>pushing
>>water uphill.
>>
>>Rich
>>
>>--
>>Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.             |  Quantifying subjectivity for the
>>Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.(TM)  |  benefit of business and society.
>><http://www.appl-ecosys.com>     Voice: 503-667-4517      Fax:
>>503-667-8863
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> 
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