Re: Microsoft good press over Longhorn
On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 at 22:34 GMT, Paul E Condon penned:
> On Fri, Oct 31, 2003 at 12:03:16PM -0700, Monique Y. Herman wrote:
>> ...
>>
>> In a company where opensource products are referred to as "freeware"
>> and where many of the tools I *have* to use have no Linux-based
>> alternative, I'm best off using MS crap. My boss would not be
>> impressed if I told him that something looks slightly different
>> because I'm using a "better" tool than the one the company has
>> already paid for.
>
> I've heard that one of the original justifications for the GNU
> software project was to enable software professionals to have
> something to use and hold as they moved from one employer to another,
> something that was not stolen.
Not sure what you mean by "stolen" here?
> But when your employer provides tools, you really should use the
> provided tools. Except, perhaps, in situations where you can save a
> project by using something better. Or in situations where it is
> unlikely that you will be 'found out'. If you are 'found out', deny
> using GNU/Linux on the job. Say you use it to sharpen your skills. It
> is, as everyone in business knows, much more difficult than Windoze.
Yup. When it's source code, I use vim, because I know it and, well,
plain text is plain text. When it's a binary format that's standardized
throughout the company, and my preferred editors don't produce exactly
the same output as the company standards, I'm better off using the
provided tools.
Every company has a slightly different climate. I'm not forbidden from
using linux here, but the prevalence of certain proprietary,
windows-based tools means that it would be prohibitively inconvenient.
Even our intranet is IE-specific.
I've also only been here a year. Once I've been around a little longer,
I will better understand which boats are safe to rock. Others here
certainly are, but the tools they're using for their projects make it
easier for them to do so.
> And 'better' is in the eyes of the beholder. I really laughed at the
> comic strip in which the cartoon character was hacking Linux to
> provide the 'right' shade of blue for the blue screen of death.
Indeed.
To me, an open data format is, by definition, better, no matter the
capabilities comparison. But the suits didn't ask me when they defined
the company standards ...
--
monique
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