We ahve one hell of a strong local M$. They've infiltrated our shools in such a way that our secretary of schooling has a _contract_ with M$ giving it a monopoly over our schools. That hurts, especially when I come to school and hjave to work either on mess dos 5.0 (ouch!) or WinNT (ARRGH!) 4. That has a ph.D. in sucking. Our goverment uses only M$ products (and we _do_ have high corruption) inside. HrOpen, a local open systems group, though considered very important, wasn't asked a single quiestion when a study about the development of Software firms was being done, and, interestingly enough, the CEO of Microsoft Hrvatska was in the comitee... OUCH!
I think that is very much a situation around the europe. At least it is in Finland - more or less. That's why I think FSFE is quite important organization. Problem really is that most of the people doesn't know anything else than Microsoft systems. That is the situation mostly because lack of organizations promoting free (or any other alternative) software at the same time when corporations like Microsoft spends millions of dollars to promote their software. I think FSFE will have good changes to turn this situation around.
That's why I see FSFE very welcome.
-M.T. -- In the source code I trust, others pay cash.
On Mon, 27 Nov 2000, Marko Turunen wrote:
Our goverment uses only M$ products (and we _do_ have high corruption) inside.
I think that is very much a situation around the europe.
Hello everybody. I just subscribed this list, being very pleased to read about the birth of FSF Europe.
Well I agree about the fact that this situation is common around Europe and that a lot of people think that OS=Windows; when you say that something which is different from Windows exists, people looks amazed at you and don't even dare to ask "and what is it?" This even happens in Engineering and Science faculties over here (I write from Palermo, Italy).
It's up to us to believe and be strong in our 'battle' to change this situation and of course a free software foundation operating in Europe is the right thing, because of the differences between the USA and Europe even about free software (e.g. software patents -unfortunately- allowed there).
Regards, Onofrio de Bari.
On Mon, 27 Nov 2000, Marko Turunen wrote:
We ahve one hell of a strong local M$. They've infiltrated our shools in such a way that our secretary of schooling has a _contract_ with M$ giving it a monopoly over our schools. That hurts, especially when I come to school and hjave to work either on mess dos 5.0 (ouch!) or WinNT (ARRGH!) 4. That has a ph.D. in sucking.
organization. Problem really is that most of the people doesn't know anything else than Microsoft systems. That is the situation mostly because lack of organizations promoting free (or any other alternative) software at
here in yugoslavia (zdravo sinisa :)) the situation is different, although somewhat similar. i believe we do have a micros*ft office here, but as some of you probably know, there is a poor legal system in effect (which is about to change) which allows and even supports piracy, so noone's pushing windoze ahead, but still, most of the people do not know better. the situation in my country is improving, and in no time, micros*ft will grab ahold of the market. therefore, i am inviting all of you to aid in our struggle to promote gnu and free software, primarily by means of marketing products (eg. t-shirts and posters) as we are still a poor country and noone has the money to promote this. all we can do is talk.