Often times the US seems to stuck in following the crowd and believing the advertising and the hype.
It is a sad day sometimes, when I wake to find so many of us in this country shout freedom and follow the blind with no thought of our own. Well actually no I think the above is wrong. I speak for myself, and I know several people and companies who have already converted away from the status quo, and in some cases you just have to keep on demonstrating until they have no more holes to hide in.
The situation is not as bad as you think, it's just that in a society so driven through media such as television, it's often hard to see the real picture, which is that Microsoft is loosing the ground slowly. But these things are exponential.
We have to work at those in the organisations and charities who have no money, show them how it works. Imagine how much money these organisations throw away because they don't know there is another way, that is actually better. I am prepared to give of my time and experience - such as it is - to help those in greater need through no fault of there own. Indeed the example above is very good. It and the other artical about that town in Spain, are about people in tough situations finding a route out without the support of others, who see them as a honey pot from which to feed. Linux has enabled them to already suceed, what microsoft could offer cannot compete with what they already have. They learnt the way, if it ain't broke don't fix it. You don't need someone else to tell you how to run your business, you know what works you know what fails, take the road of knowledge and life just gets easier - well thats my view, I'm very optomistic about what happens in the rest of the world and what happens here.
10 years ago, Linux was nothing and look at it know, it is in more places than M$ was after 10 years, and it didn't have a burgeoning business to grow into, it came out fighting against an opponent that dominated the scene and it still hasn't even started to breathe heavily.
And you're right Bazoukas, the europeans do have more of an edge, thats primarily due to the fact the most people in Europe consider laws more in terms of guidelines, and that's something big business has troubles with, because they can buy questions and lobbying, but that does not mean the population will follow, they will provide lip service yeses and then ignore it in private and do what the fuck they want.
[ November 03, 2002: Message edited by: pkd ]
