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On Monday 06 May 2002 11:59, you wrote:
Adrian Midgley
wishes this was on a Wiki. wrote:
it is at least possible that this user could have installed his previous operating system on his new computer, thus resolving the problems of program compatibility he found.
That of course depends on the media and delivery of OEM software. My laptop comes with a "ghost" style image of Windows 98 - if I ever have to reinstall it needs a partition the same size as the original disk - and guess what is using most of that disk space...
I think you are erroneously (possibly) not distinguishing the licence to use from the method of using. IIRC it is usual to offer installation media for a cost in addition to the automatic return to the status quo at production. It seems to me probable that using a different installation CD (the one that is kept in a department for this purpose for instance) to reinstall a standard configuration of an OS is not fraudulent provided that there is a licence for that OS on that machine. The effect of having to use a serial number different from that on the licence is trivial, and again, provided that there is no mens rea - no intention to commit an illegal act or improperly avoid paying for the use of the IP involved - that no offence can be said to have taken place.
Microsoft won't support OEM OS software they insist you go through the hardware provider, who won't support it on other hardware, so effectively you are stuffed.
One is always on one's own, but free to acquire other support for cash ... I believe I know people who sell it as well<g>
one of the viral things about MS is that it creates jobs. Which offers greater employment for low-grade IT technicians,
Nah in the old days real computers would have a team of a dozen highly paid specialists or so supporting each one. Personal computers have about one person to 50 or 60 computers, and better organised enterprises claim one person to 200 desktops. I suspect the figures include a lot of hidden employee time maintaining their own PC's.
I think it includes a lot of that, perhaps accounting for what I am told is a failure of productivity per employee to increase despite having more windows in offices. Certainly the NHS approach to IT in the administrative sphere seems to be producing more, longer and prettier documents, rather than in moving them quicker or doing cleverer things with them.
Except perhaps viruses and security work, which is forming a disproportionately increasing amount of Microsoft support effort).
Well, you might wonder why the channel didn't tell MS that thye must concentrate on securing the stuff earlier (if indeed the channel is actually telling them that now) But I'll accept your report on the effect of MS on jobs.
One of the tasks for the OS/FS movement is to demonstrate an economic
The chief benefit to other co-workers is to keep them working whilst keeping costs low, so less support being needed is generally a good thing.
But we do need to avoid people seeing OS as a way of removing them from their jobs...
A national lobbying effort is just underway here. I think Europe is slightly more clueful than New Labour.
concur.
New Labour seems only too happy to sit down with BG and friends despite the huge fiascoes already experienced. But then big government projects seem more designed to prop up the IT industry than actually deliver better government services at a reasonable price,
There is also the NSA/UK link which affects the way central gov here looks at deployments more than it does in Europe. Indeed the effect may be opposite in sign there. -- From one of the Linux desktops of Dr Adrian Midgley http://www.defoam.net/ -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.