Toolkit

Story: Windows 'cheaper than Linux'

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Here we go again....

Typically, a rule of thumb would state that measurements taken in any well defined environment would yield well defined results.

In the real world, where each and every programmer has to rely on their environments, the freedom that Linux and the GPL offers is unquestionable. The capacity to utilise, without any restrictions the efforts of individual contributors to an open process does no less than cut "unnecessary efforts"/replication down to a bare minimum. And this is across the board. Why re-write communication logic -(eg VoIP)- for an app, when there are many OpenH323 applications to learn and tap from. Why allow yourself to be chained down to mere APIs when you can strip and redesign -if you so choose- aspects of Clustering algorithms to fit your purpose-OpenMosix springs to mind here. Why waste the time taken to administer an association with a proprietary distributor, with license restrictions and added admin costs, when you can start work immediately. Why wait to be audited?

In addition to the above, with free access to all levels of operation, Open source creates a better knowledge base than any restrictive operation could hope for. This better knowledge base does/will in turn produce/"continue to produce" a more dynamic environment within which to work.

Face it, those who work with open source are a great deal more intelligent about OS operations and their working environments than Microsoft Workers at similar levels, and they are so without having to give themselves big titles derived from Multiple choice questions that are targetted at pre-pubescents. One thinks here of horses with blinkers.

A fundamental fact that will catch up with all people witnessing this transition, is that, in real terms, proprietary releases, much as those released by MSoft, are boring by comparison to work with - much like a rat in a maze or one on a wheel.

The true test of an OS would be this: "If you are strapped in to the seat of a craft about to be lanched in to space, and you glance around and see a placard on a pannel that says - ALL SOFTWARE FOR THIS MISSION IS PRODUCED BY MICROSOFT (trademark)-in case of problems contact your Microsoft Cetified Engineer onboard" - what would you do?

When one sits to compare Microsoft products to the scripting environments of the *Nix, one can only think that maybe the analysis was done on apps that are similar to "Hello World". Could we have a list of the products that were compared please???

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