January 03, 2004
Oy, These Prices! Are You Meshugganah? Also here and here.
Good on them, really. Using Microsoft just seems to be throwing public money down the drain.
Also, it seems to be catching.
Here in Oz, the ACT parliament managed to pass a bill requiring that open-source software be at least considered for government projects. Microsoft went completely apoplectic — "reducing choice!", "killing innovation", etc., etc.
Like, fuck off.
Like, the open source fanboys never ever wax hyperbolic....
All Catskills schticks about "never buy retail!" aside, the Israelis are certainly a very frugal nation. Anecdote follows.
One afternoon, standing in the checkout queue at the REI flagship store in Seattle, I found myself behind an Israeli tourist and her local host. The Israeli, marveling at the raw quantity of the goods being bought (it was a long queue), wanted to know whether in English we had a benediction to use to a person receiving a new piece of gear. I tried, "Congratulations on your new car," but that wasn't it: she wanted something that you'd say upon seeing that somebody has new shoes, etc. After some discussion back and forth, I learned that in Israel, the act of acquisition is fairly uncommon, and so worthy of a minor "Gesundheit!" style social celebration.
If I can generalize from my single encounter, there is little notion in Israel of upgrading a possession to have the latest model or the most recent set of features. They'd rather save some money in exchange for investing a good amount of their own labor, repairing that torn tent, etc. Open source would seem to be a good match.
So, how's that whole open source thing working out?
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