Linux in business

On Thu, 2004-01-22 at 07:25, Chris Gehlker wrote:
> On Jan 21, 2004, at 10:33 PM, der.hans wrote:

> After all the criticism that I have taken from Craig for 'Microsoft
> Bashing' it's sort of ironic that I seem to be defending them here. I'm
> really not. I would *love* to be able to make an argument to my
> clients that they can't use MS software without running afoul of HIPPA
> or any of the requirements that they have to maintain confidentiality.
> I'm just unwilling to do that without solid evidence.
---
Say what? criticism for Microsoft bashing from me?

I think I'm fairly consistent about this - I don't bash Microsoft or
Apple - and I see very little difference between them except that
Microsoft has the market share and Apple doesn't.

I tried to send through the complete Windows XP SP1 EULA last night and
it is being held for moderators approval because it was 41K - just a wee
bit over the 40K limit on this message base. Sometimes it seems things
get taken out of context.

It seems to me that the issue about HIPPA compliance that der Hans is
trying to make is moot, merely because of the good citizen moniker that
is automatically given to Microsoft. If it were felt that Microsoft's
licensing terms were in violation of HIPPA, Microsoft would change those
terms and that would be the end of it. The intent of HIPPA wasn't to
exclude vendors.

Now, if we are talking about Microsoft collecting data, they long ago
admitted to doing that with registration of Office. Clearly they are
collecting hardware data during the 'activation' of WinXP. I am not
knowledgeable enough to know the specific fears of giving them control
over DRM when you use Office 2003, the potential threats of Palladium
(or whatever name the technology goes by today) or the intrusions by
.NET and Passport but I know enough to worry about all of this as an
attempt by Microsoft to forever insinuate themselves into the control of
computer operations for the forseeable future.

That being said, most businesses are not concerned about the evils of
Microsoft and when presented with the FSF/open source choice as a means
to escape those evils that they don't see, it rarely resonates. It will
resonate when the actually figure out that changing to the FSF/open
source systems is a sound business decision. It's slowly getting there.

Craig