Re: NHS privatisation + IT (was [Sheflug] Computing)

[Alastair Donlon <nospam [at] netsoc.ucd.ie>]

On Mon, Nov 27, 2000 at 04:25:13PM +0000, Richard wrote:
> Graham
> 
> Graham Spearing wrote:
> 
> > > I'd say that 300MHz with 128Mb of RAM is somewhere close.  Although,
> > > there are people who have said to me that 256Mb and a 450MHz chip are
> > > more useful.
> > > I use it with 128Mb of RAM and a 450MHz AMD cpu.  Works very well.
> > > Loads quickly.
> > 
> > That's appaling! Nay embarrasing...
> > 
> > Perhaps theer are lighter alternatives that are functinaly good which
> > allow a shallower learning curve from MSoffice than going straight to
> > Vi? Perhaps KOffice?
> 
> 
> Koffice doesn't have much in the way of compatibility with MS stuff. 
> However, Abisuite is very good and works on slow machines.  Great for
> laptops with 100 to 200MHz cpus.
> 
> I don't really understand what the problem is here.  The 1.1GHz
> machine can be bought down the raod for not much.  I suppose that we
> have to try to help our medical people by not spending money at all :)
> 

The problem is that not everybody can afford the £1000 odd that it
takes to buy a new machine. The beauty of linux is that it _can_ be
used with the crappy old hardware that somebodies got in their basement.

In particular, this is important for third world countries,schools
and cash stgrapped countries. Second hand machines are worth practically
nothing, because Mr. Gates et al. have forced everybody into a two
year upgrade cycle by producing bloated software that will only run
on machines with a 1Thz processor and 4 billion GBytes of RAM. We
don't need to follow his lead.

Most people do not _need_ the amount of processing power in most of
the new computers on the market. If programs were written with some
thought for the amount of CPU cycles they'd be burning, things would
be a _whole_ lot better. Ditto as regards memory and disk usage.

As far as I'm concerned, StarOffice is almost as bloated and ugly
as MSOffice. That means that the only significant difference between
StarOffice and MSOffice is in terms of license, and that's not enough
to make a practical difference in somebody's choice of platform. What
we need is a _distinct_ speed/memory/diskspace advantage over
Winblows apps to make a significant difference in the world.

People very rarely choose a non-standard platform for issues of principle,
despite what RMS might say ;)

A.D.

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