Security Bullet In
Communiques from the security front, sir
Tuesday 5 August 2008, 6:18 PM
All our computers are belong to Microsoft
Manila Bulletin Online is reporting that St. Paul College, Pasig, has ditched its Linux-based operating system in favour of Microsoft Vista and Office 2007, due to "incompatibility".
"Our students usually present their class reports using Microsoft PowerPoint," college 'Directress' Sister Teresita Baricaua told Manila Bulletin Online. "When these are given out as homework, they use their computers at home to prepare their reports with PowerPoint."
Hold on though, just what is incompatible with what here? Is this an example of evil Linux being willfully incompatible with poor Microsoft, or an example of evil Microsoft hegemony in action? Or neither? I'll let you decide.
The article goes on to say that since 1996 the college has been running a "literacy program" for staff -- and here I'm assuming they mean "computer literacy" rather than courses for the teachers that can't read and write -- and that going back to Microsoft enables the staff to use their Microsoft skills.
"Our teachers don’t get to use what they’ve learned from the training because our computers had been running on Linux," said Baricaua. "Shifting to Microsoft will give them avenues and opportunities to maximize their training."
Hmm, now that's a pretty poor argument. Surely the school could start giving "Linux literacy" courses instead? Most teachers I know actively encourage learning new skills, including for themselves.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is spending some of its profits on encouraging more people to buy Vista. Last week, Guardian journalists Charles Arthur and Jack Schofield commented on Microsoft's 'Mohave' experiment, in which die-hard XP users were invited to try a supposedly new version of Windows, then, ta-daa, were told it was actually Vista.
"Son of a gun. You got me," said one astounded punter, who had expressed dislike for Vista, but approved of 'Mohave'.
The only problem with this strategy is that it implies that the user is wrong in not liking the wizzy Vista, but as the Guardian points out, of course a demonstration Vista is going to be slick -- it's what happens when the customers get it home and try to use it on their own systems that counts. When customers find they have to upgrade their hardware, or at the very least reinstall a number of drivers to make Vista work properly, that's when the magic could fade.
PreviousComments on this post
Indeed, I would say that to upgrade to vista is not such a great idea.
I do like vista, but it would make sense (to me anyway), to run it on new
hardware.
I think linux will make inroads, and hope it does. Having said this, I do think it's important that children at school learn windows, and also learn that windows is a high maintainance operating system.
The fact that windows can play up has inspired many people I know to
look under the hood of their operating systems and learn things that they otherwise may not have.
If they have been using Linux from 1996, then I can understand there would be some incompatibility to vista. But Linux today is much different than the 1996 version. Because todays Linux can do everything vista can, except get viruses', trojans, malware, and adware. And it can do it faster and more reliably. But, with enough incentives people will make a switch from Linux to Microsoft products very quickly. Money talks loud in the 3rd world.
If this is the case, then we need the corporate world to make the switch to linux based systems instead. From the news item that appeared on this site, it does seem that IBM will be leading the charge to bring to the world computers that have no ties to microsoft, and in fact will be linux based systems. So..I will be wishing them the best of luck with that.
I have a copy of Kbuntu 8.04 KDE REMIX, soon I will aquire a rig to install it on (I do think it deserves its own space).
