Hari's Corner

Humour, comics, tech, law, software, reviews, essays, articles and HOWTOs intermingled with random philosophy now and then

Of Vista, upgrades, free beer and so on

Filed under: Humour and Nonsense by Hari
Posted on Mon, Feb 19, 2007 at 13:13 IST (last updated: Thu, Oct 30, 2008 @ 08:07 IST)

A few important issues have been churning in my mind of late. I'd like to share some of them here.

Firstly, I've been reading a lot of stuff about Vista recently: things such as "10 reasons why you should not upgrade to Vista." It seems to be the current fad. I read one such article in a tech magazine just recently. Much as I appreciate such efforts, I think they have missed one excellent reason why you cannot upgrade to Vista at present, even if you wanted to - you don't happen to be a personal computing device. I don't think technology has advanced to that extent where Microsoft can start implanting Operating Systems into their customers. Although the initial technological hurdle might be overcome some time in the future, a bigger obstacle might be the fact that the average human being would never have enough memory or graphics processing capability to run Vista without a serious DNA upgrade (deoxyribonucleic acid, not distributed interNet application). I always like to get things straight in these matters. Maybe they will offer brain patches in the near future to make this possible, but that's pure speculation. :P

Secondly, I object to the choice of phrase "free as in beer" commonly used in the FOSS community to describe software which has no price tag attached to it. It makes several broad assumptions and doesn't take into account the following considerations which render the idea of free beer undesirable or unacceptable:
  1. The person who is offered the free beer is a teetotaler and never consumes alcoholic beverages in his/her life either on principle or due to circumstances,
  2. the condition of the person's stomach at the moment the offer is made:
    • It might be full after the intake of a meal and may not be physically able to accommodate any more liquid or solid food,
    • It might be in a state of sickness (diarrhoea or the other thing) which temporarily prevents the subject from consuming any kind of nourishment or,
  3. the personal preference of the drinker: he/she might prefer a different kind of alcoholic beverage (distilled rather than brewed, for instance) and so on.
I have often used the term myself without understanding its implications and I regret it now after this deeper analysis. "Free as in lemonade" would seem have a broader scope at first, but since I don't have any statistics regarding the consumption of free lemonade around the world and the phrase would be subject to similar conditions/restrictions, I think "free as in a gift received" would be a safer alternative. Of course taking into consideration that most people don't pay for the gifts they receive. ;)

Finally I'd like to leave you with this thought:

Q: What did one blonde say to another?
A: Hello

(in case you're still trying to figure it out, no... it isn't a joke: I never said it was one)

I'll stop this braindump before you start searching around for rotten tomatoes :oops:

5 comment(s)

  1. [...] post by hari and software by Elliott [...]

    Comment by Article Feed » Of Vista, upgrades, free beer and so on (visitor) on Tue, Feb 20, 2007 @ 01:40 IST #
  2. I like beer and I especially like free beer. I'm not so fond of lemonade though.One day, when Microsoft's business plans come to full fruition, Steve Ballmer will personally come to everyone's house and upgrade all humans to Vista. With a chair. :)

    Comment by ray (visitor) on Tue, Feb 20, 2007 @ 04:38 IST #
  3. Yeah, Ray. Tastes, vary.Steve Ballmer may not visit people individually. His clones might come though :twisted:

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on Tue, Feb 20, 2007 @ 07:07 IST #
  4. I think that depends on how angry he is on the day :razz:

    Comment by ray (visitor) on Tue, Feb 20, 2007 @ 15:54 IST #
  5. Will he bite Bill Gates' head off when he's steaming angry :grin:

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on Tue, Feb 20, 2007 @ 19:57 IST #

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