No, no, no, no! We should focus on getting something that WORKS. If it's open source, that's fantastic, but the thing with mass-market closed-source products is that they get the job done, and are stable enough and easy enough to use that you don't have to have serious IT skills to use them.

Very rarely can the same be said of open-source products (though there are notable exceptions). 

Harry

From: WereSpielChequers <werespielchequers@gmail.com>
To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Saturday, 14 January 2012, 23:57
Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Laptop recommendations?

So far four operating systems have been mentioned, but only one is open source. I would hope that the trustees would first be looking at Open source solutions. As for the hardware, can I suggest that we  try to be a little user friendly and get some mice, also a card reader would be cool - that way we could take images straight off someone's camera and load them up - great for outreach work.

WSC

On 14 January 2012 23:40, HJ Mitchell <hjmitchell@ymail.com> wrote:
Now there I disagree with you. Windows is used so exclusively because it's the default on just about every computer you'll buy off the shelf and most people are either not savvy enough to switch OSs (or even know that they can, never mind how to), or just can't be bothered. Rather like why so many people use Internet Explorer instead of upgrading to a browser that actually works (and doesn't insist on displaying Wikipedia in "compatibility mode" because it's too stupid to display them properly, meaning our editors have to waste time tweaking the Common.css). 

But alas, we're getting slightly off-topic!

Harry

From: Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@gmail.com>
To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Saturday, 14 January 2012, 23:25

Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Laptop recommendations?

On 14 January 2012 23:15, Michael Peel <michael.peel@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
> For context for my position here: I use Mac OS for my laptop, since that has all of the benefits of Linux combined with a somewhat nicer user interface. Linux is the next best thing, and I use that for my (dell) desktop. I've used Windows for many years in the past, and generally view it as being rubbish software that's not reliable in the long run (I used to have to reinstall my computer every 6 months when I was using Windows; nowadays I reboot my Mac laptop and Linux desktop with that same frequency.)

I've been using Windows almost exclusively for years and the only
times I've ever had to do anything as drastic as reinstalling it have
been times when I was messing around and broke it.

The one time I seriously tried to use Linux, I never got it to work
properly (although that was a few years ago and I understand hardware
drivers for Linux are a lot better now).

The reason Windows is used so extensively is because it's actually
rather good. It works out of the box, it's easy to use and it's
(fairly) reliable. (There are a few monopolistic business practices
going on to prevent people switching, it's true, but it only got
monopoly because it worked.)

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