Political Blather

[Oren Beck]

On 1/22/07, Bradley Hook <bhook at kssb.net> wrote:
> We tried to use Vista. We (a team of 3 techs) couldn't get a brand new
> HP printer to work. That's a deal killer, and certainly a permanent loss
> of me as a user. (Note that Linux and Mac OSX had an easier time than
> even WinXP with this printer)

And possibly the reason is forced tribute to ms?
Just quietly omit support for non approved" hardware.
And unlike the FOSS world where all it takes is someone to
write the driver - the "approval process" equals yet another cost
increase for the upgrade cycle.
.
Even if it's not by evil intent the result is the same.
A device we own stops being usable when we "upgrade"
Even if we "just bought it"
So the user cost of migrating to next year's OS includes?

Not only the cost of the OS. It then needs new applications.
How does that work? Because  the old applications will not
 play nice with either the new OS or the printer required.
Oh? yes- that printer that no longer is on the approved list.
So - you are now replacing more and more to get up to date.
Where does it stop? I submit that there are quite functional
software tools for daily needs that will run on cheap hardware.
Many of which sadly are legacy DOS or win95/98 yet,
I challenge the FOSS world to get any OS  and Applications
package that equals win95 for raw usability on old gear.
My example is a pentium 75 thru 233 laptop with under 50 mb ram and
under 1gig hd. The  concept of a GUI distro that will have an
acceptable user response time and run on laptops such as
described has not yet been demonstrated to me.
But win98 despite all it's flaws works well enough for most
net interactions at a simple text and browse level.
Much as I do use Livecd's from laptops there is still a lower
footprint for win98 than any user comparable Linux
shown to me so far.. So show me better on such hardware!
I want to be able to displace ms from many more laptops!