Path: news.net.uni-c.dk!howland.erols.net!nntp.abs.net!dca6-feed2.news.algx.net!allegiance!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!cyclone1.gnilink.net!spamfinder.gnilink.net!nwrddc01.gnilink.net.POSTED!f1690d82!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3CC790F4.5080203@gte.net> From: Jason Stefanovich User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (OS/2; U; Warp 4.5; en-US; rv:0.9.4) Gecko/20020328 X-Accept-Language: en,ja MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.edu,comp.hardware,comp.os.os2.beta,comp.lang.beta,comp.misc Subject: Re: Beta Testing References: <3CC567A8.6010805@gte.net> <3CC5DF8B.6AD979C8@cox.net> <3CC633BF.5040607@gte.net> <3CC72A49.5171E1A4@cox.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 99 Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 05:09:46 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 67.200.141.227 X-Complaints-To: abuse@verizon.net X-Trace: nwrddc01.gnilink.net 1019711386 67.200.141.227 (Thu, 25 Apr 2002 01:09:46 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 25 Apr 2002 01:09:46 EDT Xref: news.net.uni-c.dk comp.edu:34395 comp.os.os2.beta:76466 comp.lang.beta:13223 comp.misc:82326 _zip wrote: > Jason Stefanovich wrote: > >>_zip wrote: >> >> >>>Jason Stefanovich wrote: >>> >>> >>>>Anteater wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>>I have done Beta Testing before for such companies as Microsoft, AOL, >>>>>etc. I do beta testing for a hobby. I would like to do more beta >>>>>testing. I do not charge anything, or even request anything in return. >>>>> >>>>>If anyone knows where I could register. I prefer Operating Systems, >>>>>and Hardware, but I am open to anything. >>>>> >>>>>Jkeagle13@aol.com >>>>> >>>>>THANKS! >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>Nobody who's worth their salt at it does beta testing for fun. >>>> >>>>Even *properly* beta testing my own code is a pain in the butt. >>>> >>>>Jason S. >>>>Software Test Analyst >>>>US Army >>>> >>>> >>>Cool job. I got suckered into enlisting as a 13F. I ets'd in '96 from >>>the 82nd. Whoa! :) >>> >>>So when you guys gona switch your desktops to linux? Some estimates are >>>that a switch from a M$ centric desktop environment to a freely >>>distributed open source operating system such as linux could save the >>>department anywhere from $800 - $1200 per year per computer. With over >>>half a million desktop pc's in the DOD the savings are considerable. >>> >>> >>I've been running SCO as my main production environment since Oct '98. >>Don't think Win is ever going to go away on the desktop. More because >>of Outlook and Access than anything else. >> > > And mostly because the US Military (I'll include congress here too) > couldn't care less how they spend everyone's money. You'd think they > would at least consider open source software first in their procurement > cycles. But they don't, do they? Not really...I haven't seen Linux on the GSA schedule. Maybe Redhat. We do have a number of Macs and are running some Notes stuff. I think the Navy actually has Notes deployed throughout their entire organization. It's not OSS, but it's not all MS either. > > I remember at fort bragg once a year we would have what's called the > 'million dollar minute'. Pretty much every piece of weaponry at fort > bragg would fire all the ammo they could into the impact area for about > a minute. The artillery would line up about 75 howitzers and fire one > round at a high angle trajectory and then another at low angle right > after that so that all the rounds impacted in the same spot aT THE same > time. Indeed it was a very awesome display of our hard earned dollars > going to waste. Well, you know how it is. If you don't spend all your money by the end of the FY then a) you loose what's left b) you get less next year. > > It's a shame our military limits themselves with proprietary bullshit > software produced by the evil money hungry empire M$haft. Or is that > M$hit? :) > It's so entrenched that changing from it would cost billions of dollars. Not only in software costs, but in retraining. There's 450K people in the Army alone, and that doesn't include civilian personnel. You can't function in the Army anymore w/o having Outlook, Office and IE (many of our intranet sites contain IE specific code, although we aren't supposed to advocate any one browser). It's getting worse too. Since we're becoming more automated and integrating more internet tech into our daily operations. More often than not, our contractors use MS based solutions. It's one of those things where the rules say you're not supposed to favor any particular vendor but then we write the contract requirements so that only a particular vendor's offering meets the qualifications...great stuff, huh?