Free Software As Nigerian Scam 685
djeaux writes "In the November 4 issue of Syllabus, Howard Strauss, manager of technology strategy and outreach at Princeton University, presents 'The FREE, 0% APR, Better Sex, No Effort Diet' in which he scattershoots at open source software. The Nigerian scam is part of his imagery, leading to a great quote: 'While you are installing your free open source software you may want to write Mrs. Ahmed a check. Her $8.5 million will help pay for the real cost of that free software.' Elsewhere, Strauss describes the open source community as 'a smattering of teenagers too young to work at Redmond, hackers, virus creators, and a menagerie of others with whom you will feel great pride in entrusting your IT infrastructure.'" Not everyone at Princeton agrees.
Well now... (Score:5, Funny)
So stupid, it's not even wrong.. (Score:5, Funny)
timothy is an evil man (Score:5, Funny)
Blackboard!!?? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, you didn't. You mean free vending machines for life Blackboard? [slashdot.org]
"Too young", good trick! (Score:2, Funny)
Since Microsoft tries to hire them right out of school, "too young" must be young indeed! I'd rate that article as definitely either a Troll or Flamebait, certainly Overrated.
Great article! (Score:2, Funny)
So, what does he recommend? (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like he's bitching about moving to Windows.
Message for Mr. Strauss (Score:1, Funny)
Sd-
The Open Source Community
Re:So stupid, it's not even wrong.. (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not sure if it's a flamebait. Maybe it was intended as a flamebait but failed? At least I don't even understand what was the point he was trying to make. Yeah, he doesn't seem to like free software but it was more like random mindless babbling than anything like a good parody or a flamebait.
Now that I look what the article says about the author, "Howard Strauss is the manager of technology strategy", I'm thinking just what the heck is that kind of a job title? Is it a somewhat humorous AI experiment some Princeton students have submitted to Slashdot? Or is this one of the cases where one just has to say "60 lines of LISP can hardly be called an AI"?
Re:So stupid, it's not even wrong..hmmm (Score:3, Funny)
Re:So, what does he recommend? (Score:2, Funny)
Counter questioning to an idiot named Howard.
"Windows? What project planning? Do you mean the hotbed for hacking? What quality control? Do you know how many holes Windows have? What code standards? Do you even know what the f*** the codes are? What accountability? Do Microsfot admit their idiocracy and their greed makes for a buggy windows? What version control? I got so many security updates from Microsoft that I don't know what version I'm on. And What support? I asked for support, they say 'talk to your computer manufacturer'. And you're paying them how much for it?"
Re:Article in case of /.'ing (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I let this particular parody get to me .... (Score:2, Funny)
You run across these guys from time to time... good old fashioned IT weenies, left over from the days when the PHB's actually accepted that they had to wait a year or more for the high priests in the big-air-conditioned-room to make a few paltry changes to their little RPG-III payroll application. He didn't get those round lips from eating square meals.
Re:analogies substituted for evidence (Score:5, Funny)
How's that?
Re:I let this particular parody get to me .... (Score:3, Funny)
His brainstorms:
togamatons (wearable computers built into your watch, glasses or clothes)
automatons (built into your car)
refrigermatons (built into your refrigerator door)
bitemematons (Howard, get some fresh air)
Re:I let this particular parody get to me .... (Score:3, Funny)
"Isn't that worth *dying* for?"
Sorry, it just reminded me of a Matrix monologue...
Straightforward Solution (Score:2, Funny)
Princeton, clown college (Simpsons) (Score:5, Funny)
about the buffoon lessons, the four years at clown college.
Cecil: I'll thank you not to refer to Princeton that way.
Re:I let this particular parody get to me .... (Score:2, Funny)
I'll have sex in the champagne room. Yeah, you heard me.
What are the chances... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I let this particular parody get to me .... (Score:3, Funny)
Who could blame him? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I let this particular parody get to me .... (Score:3, Funny)
Linux and MacOS X are based on 30-year old technology.
Windows XP -is- 30 year old technology with new paint and a bigger engine.
Re:I let this particular parody get to me .... (Score:5, Funny)
This is the alluring pitch of BSD software. We may have to give up project planning, quality control, coding standards, accountability, version control, and support, but it's BSD and we get the ability to modify the source code ourselves, something that is extremely dangerous to do, was discredited decades ago, and few people do anyway.
Re:Letter from a Princeton student (Score:1, Funny)
You also seem overly pleased with the fact that your webpage is "strictly conforming" to XHTML 1.0.
Sorry, but I refuse to take advice from someone so hopelessly geeky and anal.
Well that might be a good point (Score:1, Funny)
All it is is some whining about how it is getting harder for him to push through proprietary software purchases, and how student run/create infrastructure is too complex for poor old geriatric him to understand (at least he is honest) and how they are willing to do his and other's work for the price of some free lunch (and for that they cost him his lunch time every so often for meetings too
Im typing this on a student administrated campus LAN as we speak, and I tremble of the thought of letting his geriatric kind near it.
Yeah students are willing to take the bread out of the mouth of people like him for free, that is true and that is sad for those people. Ill agree with him on that much. They dont do a bad job of it though, time and time again people like him have only succeeded in proving they cant do it better but can only ask more money to do it worse.
To mr. Strauss : cry me a river you fucking dinosaur. Students are a resource for univeristy IT departments, I know you would love to do nothing more than just spend other people's money
Re:I let this particular parody get to me .... (Score:3, Funny)
I think he meant crackers.
No, I think he is crackers.
Well, laugh!
Dan Aris
Re:I let this particular parody get to me .... (Score:4, Funny)
Don't you know????
Real men patch live binaries
None of this source code bullshit for me... I eat, breathe and sleep raw machine code. If there's a security hole in IIS that Microsoft is refusing to fix, I can start up BASIC, do a couple hundred POKE statements, and all's well and good.
Source code is for WHUSSES! (You pansy source-coder.)
Re:Wow (Score:3, Funny)
CS students (who have gotten past the Freshman level weed-out courses) are likely to me MUCH more tech savvy than, say, a music or statistics major (who mainly want to just run one or two applications and then read email and surf).
Compare that small group of highly technical users, who probably have owned computers for years and years and are embarassed to have to ask for help with printing, etc. (RTFM!), with the hordes of "mundanes" who just have to write a freakin' paper and don't know what "PC Load Letter" means on the printer or why opening attachments is dangerous.
>CS and EE departments make punishing use of their computing resources.
By which you mean, power users run programs that use a lot of CPU resources. Ooo, scary! Non-CS students physically break computers because they don't know better or don't care:
I need more RAM, I think I'll steal it out of a lab computer.
Hey what's this attachment, hey it doesn't seem to be doing anything, hmm now this computer's slow, oh well who cares, I'll use the next one.
Oops, I spilled my coke in the keyboard. I better not tell anybody or I'll have to pay for a new keyboard, and I bet that's expensive.
How nice that they built a cup holder into the front of this computer. Oops, I spilled my coffee into the cup holder opening.
I'm late for class, this printer is slow, maybe if I yank on the paper as it comes out, it'll print faster. Oops, paper jam, I'm outta here.
I love Napster! I think I'll download a bunch more file sharing apps and run them all the time since all my bandwidth is free.
This 22MB MPEG is soooo funny. I think I'll email it to everybody I have an email address for.