Many people take as a given that the desktop computer market is ossified and completely dominated by Microsoft. But, taking the global view, the PC market is anything but saturated. Some huge, untapped markets will ultimately decide how the market share pie will ultimately be divided. There will be room for Microsoft, Apple, and Linux, but how will it shake out?
Before I begin outlining why I believe Linux is not threatened by Apple’s move to use Intel processors, let me tell you a bit about myself. My entire life I was surrounded by technology. As my father is an electrical engineer, I was probably one of the only kids in my neighborhood who knew what an oscilloscope was, or why anyone would want to have one for personal use. I tinkered with taking apart electrical devices, such as alarm clocks and small TV’s (the shock from the back of a 13″ TV tube is something never to be forgotten). Much of my time as a kid was spent playing with Legos, reading, and becoming a poor baseball player with poor eyesight. Sometime in High School I developed a love for writing, most likely spawned from my love of reading. I spent 1 1/2 years at the University of Illinois where I pursued a major in Secondary Education, concentrating in English. I also performed in 2 student written plays and had a thankfully short tryst with the ROTC (ah, the lure of money for books, tuition and food). Finding myself in a difficult position financially, I left school to work. It was while taking time off from school that I met my wife, who, being the quite intelligent and sharp person that she is, realized that I had a geek-tech side just bursting to come out. When I returned to school (a lovely, small New England liberal arts college) I promptly dove into Computer Science as my major with Computer (or, as many others refer to it, Management) Information Systems as my minor.
While in school, for the second time, I had a professor whose only flaw was that he was certain that Apple would be bankrupt and out of business in two years’ time, that the company was no longer relevant, and we should all concern ourselves with the dominant platform of the moment, Windows 95. This was about a year or so before the world heard of an iCEO or Windows 98. Well, we all know the rest of that history.
Upon graduation I found meaningful, and somewhat gainful, employment with a government contractor developing software for the Navy. I was responsible for taking legacy Unix (specifically HP-UX, or as my co-workers lovingly referred to it, PH-UX) applications and rewriting them in Java. Mostly front-end GUI work, but fun and educational all the same. I also worked on a large scale simulation system, and helped run our company’s test facility. Meanwhile, my wife had attended RISD, graduating with two degrees, a BFA and a BGD (Bachelors of Graphic Design), and had found herself redesigning Tupperware’s website. Together, we had written two children’s books, one of which came with an interactive CD-ROM that I developed in Macromedia Director. Because of my wife’s schooling and work, I found that Apple was far from dead, that their OS was superior to Windows, mostly because it just works, and that Apple’s hardware is built like a tank. Meanwhile, I was finding many faults with Windows, including Windows 2000, and decided to give this thing called Linux a try. My first distro of choice: Corel. Fun and amusing, but my USB Zip drive wouldn’t work, and I didn’t feel like hacking anything. Next, I believe I tried a flavor of Red Hat. Again, too much under the hood just to make the thing usable. So, I gave up for about two years.
Forward to today. My wife and I own a successful fine stationery company. We recently attended the National Stationery Show and our products are in all parts of the country (and, yes, I am proud). She’s still running the same Macintosh we bought so many years ago, and my PC has about two original parts. But, I run Windows 2000 and SUSE 9.1 (soon to be 9.3) on it. And, I look forward to the day that I replace my desktop with a laptop, and we both get Mac Minis for work.
As you can see, I’ve had a fairly diverse background, but have always been surrounded by, or somehow involved with, technology and the tech industry. I do my best to keep abreast of the industry, its problems and its successes. From my particular vantage point I see three operating systems, each competing with each other, but also quite entrenched in their user bases. Two of the three will grow their market share at the expense of the third, and the reasons are fairly simple.
One thing is certain to happen over the next couple of years: Macintosh sales will slow, not drastically, but more so than many think (or, maybe more accurately, the rate of new adopters will cool more significantly than thought). This slow will contine until Apple gets its OSX-on-x86 act together. Of course, anyone who has any idea about the tech industry and a vague clue as to human nature can see the slowdown in Mac sales coming. To spell it out explicitly, Mac sales will slow because Joe and Jane Smith from down the block don’t understand computers at all. Little Bobby, who lives next door and works at CompuMegaSaleMart, only understands what everyone has told him. Macs have no software available for them and that this switch to Intel processors means that the Macs bought today will be obsolete in 18 months. No one wants to hear that the new computer they just bought, even the $399 Blue Light Special Dell, is ever going to be obsolete, even though they will want something new and improved in 6 months, but won’t have the money for 12, therefore creating obsolescence in 12 months anyway. So, when Joe and Jane Smith go into CompuMegaSaleMart to buy their new email/web surfing/recipe writing/occasional school paper word processor computer, they speak with little Bobby. Who nicely shows them the new DellGatewaySonyWhiteBox-Windows-XP-running computer. When Joe and Jane ask about that cute little Mac Mini/iMac that they’ve heard so much about, little Bobby spews the same disinformation to them that he’s received from all those “in the know.” Not really having a clue about computers, and not wanting to buy a computer that has no software available for it and will be useless in 18 months, they opt for the DellGatewaySonyWhiteBox, helping to ensure that, at least for the next couple of years, Symantec and McAfee will stay in business.
Okay, so you ask, “Where does Linux fit into all of this?” Well, it fits in where it fits in. Meaning, it fits in with people like myself, who are looking for a system that they can use without worrying about viruses and trojan horses and spyware; those who like the feel of Linux, the way it hums along and almost never needs to be rebooted (outside the occasional kernel upgrade), the way you can hack the system to your liking, the way your inner geek gets to come out and play. It fits in with students and small business people who can’t afford new equipment every 24 months and the Microsoft Windows license to go with it. More importantly, it fits in where there are large populations of poor people. Namely, countries like China, India, Namibia, Peru, etc. Large populations for whom a license for Windows XP, Office, Norton Anti-virus, etc. would take up most, if not all, of their yearly earnings. It is the developing nations that will lead the adoption of Linux. But, don’t fool yourself, it does not fit in on the desktop of large corporations looking to save some money. Maybe, one day in the future, but not today, regardless of the extra costs associated with the defenses required by running Windows.
Now, take a moment to think about all those poorer nations, and how they can best become ever more competitive in an increasingly technological world. If the Chinese government wanted to obtain a Linux distro, from Red Hat or SUSE, all they would need to do is buy the $54 Upgrade version of SUSE 9.3 (or, for $99 they could get the full version with the printed manual). Then, as long as they never see any money from this, distribute copies to their entire population. Every man, woman and child. Over a billion people. And they would never violate the license. India could do the same. Again, another population that exceeds 1 billion people, who, for the most part, are exceedingly poor. Of course, I am being a bit na�ve here. It would cost enormous amounts of money and man hours to implement such a scheme. Not to mention the acquisition costs for the hardware to run the software. But, remember, the OS doesn’t cost anything, so the initial investment in software is $0. Plus, most Linux distros come with so much packaged software that most any need is met, whether it is writing papers, developing software, or surfing the web (I know, OS X is comparable, however, Linux will run on most any x86 based hardware; OS X is locked into Apple hardware and you can’t legally re-distribute copies of the OS). Now, here’s a system that costs next to nothing, outside of man hours and support staff, to deploy (especially in a virgin market), combine that with relatively modest system requirements, its good-enough-on-the-desktop-for-most-people-to-use status, and I believe we have a winner. Who cares if they prefer Gnome to KDE? They can have both. Finally, the peasants get to eat their cake. How do you say “Microsoft who?” in Chinese?
Now, let’s take a step back for a minute. Let’s try to remember that from our current viewpoint the PC market is fairly fixed. Therefore, we can all talk about market share winners and losers and the fact that Microsoft owns somewhere around 90% of the market, and no one can break the monopoly, etc., etc. However, the market for PC’s is, from worldwide vantage point, not fixed. There are many untapped markets; again, all those poor nations with poor people who are working very hard to no longer be poor nations with poor people. Microsoft is desperately trying to get into those markets with cheap Windows. Add to that their current advantage of Windows being the standard OS on the desktop, and they are well served and armed in their crusade to maintain their dominance in the marketplace. But, remember, we are also dealing with human nature and new markets with little money. So, why pay for cheap legit Windows when there is even cheaper and/or free Windows from the guy standing on the corner? The perception that Apple is too expensive has too long a history and is entrenched too well into the minds of many to make them a viable competitor to cheap and illegal Windows. Enter Linux, the only other serious threat to Microsoft and Windows in these new and poor markets. Linux is a favorite in Brazil and a serious contender in many a municipalities around the world. Cheap to free and favorable licensing. Of course, we should not forget about Apple. They will make inroads with market share gains in many countries where they already have a good foothold, which will slowly spill over into other countries (especially as price parity between Macintosh and Windows based systems is realized in both reality and perception). And, as other factors such as Windows/Office compatibility, freedom from viruses and other malware., and extreme ease of use (most everything just works), plus the added iPod halo effect, take effect, the Macintosh presence will grow into all markets. The Macintosh will be more prevalent in some places, while nearly invisible in others. But, in fact, their worldwide market share will grow and many of the old stigmas will fade into legend. I predict that in the next five (okay, maybe 10) years they will see themselves become, once again, a dominant player in the PC market, with a market share in the 20 – 30% range. Microsoft will continue to see shipments of Windows increase in the ever expanding marketplace, although their market share will decrease to somewhere around 60% by the time Apple has that 20 – 30% share. Which leaves somewhere between 10 – 20% of the OS market open to someone. And that someone would be Linux.
Will Linux be able to actually gain that market share, or will Microsoft and Apple eat Tux for lunch? Of course Linux will grow in market share, it will survive on the desktop in both homes and offices. Even if usability never gets better. People want an alternative to the expensive proprietary systems from both Microsoft and Apple. People want a secure system, one in which they needn’t spend hundreds of dollars a year (especially when they don’t earn much) on extra security measures that eat resources and need constant updating. Poor countries need a solid, stable, secure system that runs well on older hardware and is inexpensive or free to obtain. But, in order for Linux to actually reach that 10% point (remember, the Mac right now is only somewhere around 3 – 5%) usability absolutely needs to be on par and/or better (mostly better) than Windows. Forget about the Mac. Apple is ease of use. The best anyone else can hope for is to be firmly in the shadow of Apple. Now, what do I mean by usability? Well, the ability to fix things, everything, through a GUI environment. The command line is for geeks like myself and old schoolers (although, I do prefer a good GUI). The ability to switch from Gnome to KDE to Fluxbox to AfterStep to WindowMaker (you get my point) and have the identical desktop icon layout. The ability to plug in any hardware and have it just work (well, at least at the level of Windows). Inconsistencies fixed (hmm, no one is immune from that one). Windows compatibility on par with OS X. Many of these issues have been greatly resolved in just a couple of years. Many of these issues are still only perception, the fix already exists, the ease of use is already there. Some of these issues still need work. I leave it to the marketplace to decide what’s what.
But, my point remains, Linux is today a viable alternative to Windows and OS X. Linux is an excellent environment for those with limited funds. The marketplace is not this stagnant, limited growth place, even today, and even with technology as pervasive as it has become. As the world becomes more advanced, as those nations that are behind the wealthy few gain wealth for themselves, the need and hunger for safe and secure computing will grow. The marketplace is still expanding. Apple and Linux are poised and ready for growth. Only Microsoft stands to lose market share in this new, expanding world. Apple’s switch to Intel processors only stands to hurt Microsoft (the reasons for which many people have already touched upon). Cheap and free Linux only hurts Microsoft. It is the simple reasons of a globally unsaturated market, human nature, economic realities and needs, and security concerns that will fuel the growth of Linux. And, unlike with US politics, there is room for three viable platforms. To each their own.
Removed for privacy reasons; 6th August, 2007.
Boycott companies that are trying to maintain Microsoft’s monopoly.
Companies such as Dell, HP, and Gateway do NOT offer CONSUMERS a non-Microsoft choice.
Do NOT do business with these companies until they do offer CONSUMERS a choice.
Dell and HP, at a minimum, absolutely offer Linux on their machines. Dell also offers FreeDOS on some of their servers, and Red Hat on virtually all of their servers.
Amen, ‘joe consumer’! Works for me. And none of those you’ve mentioned are on my list as I put together my enthusiast computer.
(I’m going Linux)
On a related note: too many corporations do not listen to the consumers at all–the end-users who buy their products. Even well before the products are created, the developers and programmers have closed ears and are closed-minded. They should be more open, because it is the end-user (the consumer) who knows what he/she wants. I would say boycott the companies that don’t listen; or patronize them according to how much they listen or don’t.
–EyeAm
HP does offer Linux in one or two of their notebooks, desktops, and servers. They are also one of the major manufacturers to offer AMD as an (excellent) alternative to Intel stuff.
HP had a pitiful Linux laptop offering.
When you go to configure you machine all of the Linux options go away.
Dell wants to sell you the Red Hat enterprise edition.
These are NOT “consumer” offerings like Walmart and outpost.com have.
I could’nt agree with you more. Until these companies offer better, and more choice, with product quality, and even a good choice of Linux / UNIX distros, I for one will boycott them.
–Jed
It’s almost impossible in my country to buy a decent laptop without paying the microsoft tax. That’s sad.
Again, another population that exceeds 1 billion people, who, for the most part, are exceedingly poor. Of course, I am being a bit naïve here.
Yes you are.Most people there can’t even write much less make extensive use of a PC.One of the third world countries where the poor sell their kidney for $100 or less in order to have food.Ther’re enough wealthcare organisations that could launch educational projects that eventually involve learning proper computer use.Instead of simply giving money or shortsightened food aid maybe something structural can be done.And why not in this regard lean them an OS that’s free and comes with a lot of apps that can be used to make a living.
These are NOT “consumer” offerings like Walmart and outpost.com have.
Or Microcenter. They bundle Linspire (ack!), though it is Linux.
While the offerings from these companies regarding Linux and desktop solutions have been a virtual non-reality, the ugly truth is that they’re NOT in business to appeal to consumers.
They’re in business to make noney; plain & simple. Can we blame them for that? No.
HP and Dell do have ‘server’ packages and support offerings. Why? There’s MONEY to be made with servers powered by Linux. Some big money, too.
In all seriousness, some of the folks with Dells, Gateways and such should contact the respective companies telling them which Linux flavour they use on their machines and why they enjoy that particular Linux solution over MS Windows.
Perhaps boycotting isn’t the answer. Perhaps providing better feedback to the HW mfr’s would give THEM the information needed to implement Linux solutions on more destops & portables.
The good thing about Linux is that it is “free” as in beer. The bad thing about Linux is that it is “free” as in beer. With movies and music becoming completely digital, and protecting patents and intellectual property in digital format becoming increasingly important, paying for patents and royalties is going to be expensive. You won’t be able to have a free operating system and run games, watch movies, listen to music, read books, or even surf the web. The free age of the internet is over. Computers have become a way of life and many industries are going to make money through computers by protecting their intellectual property.
Good idea. I’ll be sure to tell all my friends.
No more Dells, HPs or Gateways for my business until they offer Linux AND BSD across the board. Dell’s CEO wants to offer OSX, huh? Why not OpenSolaris and Darwin?
With a little help maybe we can make their financial statistics reflect how it is a bad decision to play favorites in this game of tech.
Wait until Novell releases there much hyped “better then longhorn” OS for the Holiday’s.
i am very curious about SUSE 9.3/10.0.
Sounds like the same old articles we’ve been reading all along. It was nothing more than a 2 page fluff piece to me. I especially liked this part:
Meaning, it fits in with people like myself, who are looking for a system that they can use without worrying about viruses and trojan horses and spyware;
I use Windows and don’t worry about any of those. And if you have the skills that actually matches your education then you will know what to do and how to protect yourself.
A article of 2,656 words, with 717 of them about the author, not the topic. Where’s the editor?
Also, “it’s” is *never* possessive. It’s a contraction for “it is”. The possessive form is “its”. Again, where’s the editor?
“Meaning, it fits in with people like myself, who are looking for a system that they can use without worrying about viruses and trojan horses and spyware; ”
I always wonder how these people run Linux. I personally use both Linux and Windows. My using Linux has nothing to do with trojan horses and spyware on Windows. I’m technically competent enough to run Windows without those problems. I turn on the built in firewall, run as a normal user, use automatic updates, and use Firefox. I have never had problems with those. Technically stupid people do, but not people who know operating systems. And technically stupid people will have problems with any operating system.
My personal honest opinion is that anyone who has trouble keeping their Windows system clean is pretty technically retarded and Linux just masks their incompetence.
I can’t even wrap my head around your subject line. It makes no sense.
The good thing about Linux is that it is “free” as in beer. The bad thing about Linux is that it is “free” as in beer. With movies and music becoming completely digital, and protecting patents and intellectual property in digital format becoming increasingly important, paying for patents and royalties is going to be expensive. You won’t be able to have a free operating system and run games, watch movies, listen to music, read books, or even surf the web. The free age of the internet is over. Computers have become a way of life and many industries are going to make money through computers by protecting their intellectual property.
They can try…though once the devices are in the consumer’s hands, what makes you think they will remain limited in the way the content provider wishes?
“They can try…though once the devices are in the consumer’s hands, what makes you think they will remain limited in the way the content provider wishes?”
You need to fast forward a few years and think about where the future of computers is really headed. Think bigger than what we have right now. Microsoft Product Activation is just the beginning. Computers in the future are going to be completely integrated into everything, your home, your shop, your credit, and everything else you might be doing. There might even be chips integrated into your tennis racket so that you can improve your swing. Processors, motherboards, IP addressing scheme, certificates, registration, and everything else is going to have a big, fat pointer identifying who you are. Annoymousity on the net is already a myth. In the future, companies aren’t even going to pretend it exists. It is going to be globablly enforced too, throughout China, India, Europe, the Middle East, and the America’s. Maybe the .05% of the “elite” hackers will fight for free ideas, etc. but they will be violating law by playing hacked DVD’s and MP3’s and they certainly will not be representing any sizable market. Look forward to a copy of an operating system to be costing $20.00 minimum because that’s what the OS manufacturers will pay minimum to get the rights to do the minimum of what consumers expect operating systems to do.
You need to fast forward a few years …
Still doesn’t answer my question. (I’m good at speculating too, btw.)
Lack of physical security means lack of assurance of any security.
“If the Chinese government wanted to obtain a Linux distro… Then, as long as they never see any money from this, distribute copies to their entire population.”
And who is going to stop them from “making money”? an open source license?
In reagards to raoul’s comment: “A article of 2,656 words, with 717 of them about the author, not the topic. Where’s the editor?”
I purposefully included that information as too often the character and/or background of an author is attacked. I wanted to make sure that readers understood where I am coming from. Apparently, there is no winning on this point. Next article I will definitely leave all of that information out.
“Also, “it’s” is *never* possessive. It’s a contraction for “it is”. The possessive form is “its”. Again, where’s the editor? ”
Thought I fixed all those types of mistakes before I submitted the article. Looks like at least one got through.
In regards to slash: “I always wonder how these people run Linux. I personally use both Linux and Windows. My using Linux has nothing to do with trojan horses and spyware on Windows.”
I do use both Windows and Linux, oh, I also use Macs. I am very technically competent, however, I do spend more time in my Windows system making sure the system is clean than I do in either Linux or the Mac. Also, I started using Linux mostly because I wanted a much more stable OS, and I like the idea of being able to configure the system in nearly infinite ways. Today, I like the idea that I don’t need a virus scanner (though I do have one), and that the firewall is built in, and on by default. The built-in firewall in Windows XP is not nearly as good as those from third-parties, so why use it? I continue to use Windows because I have business needs that require certain software that I can not use in Linux (read,there is no acceptable alternative). However, I don’t believe in Windows as a secure system, and, no matter how many precautions you take, the possibility of becoming infected in Windows is far greater than in most any other desktop OS.
Other than that, this piece is really my own opinions based upon what the consumer has to say as well as market realities. Any OS can be made to be secure,how far are most people willing to go to do that? How much money can people spend to secure a box they mostly use for non-critical uses?
The fact is that Microsoft would rather just have their stuff pirated in the third world anyway…like has been going on forever. Five years ago we heard these predictions and we’ll probably be hearing them 5 years from now.
Oh, and another myth buster. Most people don’t even care about the ultimate secure system. People keep on trying to project their hobbyist views on the general public and it always fails.
If the BSDs, Solaris, and Linux combined could get 10% of the desktop marketshare in 5 years that would be a huge achievement
PC-BSD sounds pretty cool & they are going for the easy to use desktop market, so when that matures I will look into it again. I have SuSE home 8.1 now.
“If the Chinese government wanted to obtain a Linux distro… Then, as long as they never see any money from this, distribute copies to their entire population.”
Ummmm…maybe you should read the GPL, and numerous other open source licenses. Espescially the parts specifically allowing you to charge for free software.
A very stilted cyber-ecosystem. There are other options out there that may rise to the consumer desktop, because they are designed from the start as desktop systems where things “just work” without all the fiddling of Linux/*nix configurations you have to bit-twiddle endlessly, whilst fighting Dependency Hell in all its various guises. And oh, yes, they’re at least as free as Linux…
It takes much less time to get something up and running properly when it only has one real configuration that’s designed to be user-friendly, and is configurable entirely (or almost) from the GUI. Choice is good, if you have a lot of time and energy to spend on choosing. A good default configuration is better if you simply want to use a system as a tool. If the new markets are opening in all these very poor countries where incomes are so low that even the computer hardware itself is extremely expensive for them to acquire, what on earth makes you think they will spend all the money to get documentation they need to configure some arcane system, which would be the catch-22 for getting the documentation cheaply/”free” since to get the documentation online would first require them to configure the system to get online to get the documentation they’d need to get them online??? It’s the same story as the videotape designed for users to learn how to setup their VCR’s! Seriously, if they’re this poor, they can’t afford the time and energy to get something for “Free” that has the learning curve; they need to spend that time and energy providing for the bare necessities of life: food, shelter, medicine, basic education, etc. and I don’t see computers falling into the category of “bare necessities” in such cases. And besides, using computers to any amount of advantage *requires* sufficient literacy in the first place, which would be a far better goal of providing the resources to teach all willing and able students. It’s simple enough to offer classes, but in order for there to be people to take advantage of such offerings that help them long-term, you’ll likely have to guarantee them support for their needs while learning, as there’s always that pesky addiction called eating to fulfill.
Computers are great tools for automation and saving time, but much like a table saw is much better than a handsaw for improving efficiency and saving time, a tablesaw requires a bit more education and background knowledge to assemble, configure and use, while a handsaw has none of that. Shouldn’t we first provide them with a good handsaw??
what the writer is telling us that mac should go to the home desktops, windows should go to the corporate desktops (with mac laptops for those that need laptops it seems) while linux should help the developing world get up to speed.
i wonder tho what would happen to apple if one of the bigger wintel companys put out a laptop with hardware selected specificaly to work with linux rather then toss a random distro at one of their existing lines (with the only effect of scaring ms into giving better deals on windows and office).
Ofcourse they would pick MacOSX above OpenSolaris.. Who wouldn’t…
Gnome and KDE are just as heavy weight as XP so what kind of machines are the 3rd world running? 128 Meg doesn’t really cut it when you add FireFox to the mix.
Maybe an enhanced Dillo and Fluxbox.
well, there is allways icewm. very windows 9x looking
In regards to slash: “I always wonder how these people run Linux. I personally use both Linux and Windows. My using Linux has nothing to do with trojan horses and spyware on Windows.”
Well one might get the impression you using Linux has something to do with trohan horses and spyware on windows.In the whole article you didn’t mention the additonal benefits you seem to have according to your reply to slash.
Okay, so you ask, “Where does Linux fit into all of this?” Well, it fits in where it fits in. Meaning, it fits in with people like myself, who are looking for a system that they can use without worrying about viruses and trojan horses and spyware; those who like the feel of Linux, the way it hums along and almost never needs to be rebooted (outside the occasional kernel upgrade), the way you can hack the system to your liking, the way your inner geek gets to come out and play.
The good thing about Linux is that it is “free” as in beer. The bad thing about Linux is that it is “free” as in beer. With movies and music becoming completely digital, and protecting patents and intellectual property in digital format becoming increasingly important, paying for patents and royalties is going to be expensive. You won’t be able to have a free operating system and run games, watch movies, listen to music, read books, or even surf the web. The free age of the internet is over. Computers have become a way of life and many industries are going to make money through computers by protecting their intellectual property.
I think your assumptions regarding the importance of computers is accurate; but I don’t see what Linux (open source) or Windows (proprietary) really has to do with it. Linux is a kernel. You CAN buy and install proprietary software and install it on a Linux system. And let’s be real, computers don’t protect intellectual property (as we have all seen), the LAW enforces intellectual property rights. To make a claim like “The free age of the Internet is over” is just plain ludicrous. Living in a wealthy nation makes it easy to make such claims, but in light of your own proclamation of how important computers are to society, you should be more considerate of the have-not’s.
…. Thank you English major for that lesson we’ve already had. Typical.
netpython,
I do believe I go on to say:
those who like the feel of Linux, the way it hums along and almost never needs to be rebooted (outside the occasional kernel upgrade), the way you can hack the system to your liking, the way your inner geek gets to come out and play.
In regards to why use Linux over Windows these are some additional benefits. Not all. But some. And maybe not the most technically advanced reasons, but well grounded and real. I also go on to mention another benefit of Linux due to its pricing and open source licensing. Both things that provide substantial benefits over a proprietery OS. There are many great reasons to use any system, some technical, some personal. It was not the purpose of my article to write a 500 page thesis paper covering the minutae of the current OS landscape and market, which is what would be required to satisfy all the questions and possibilities. I was merely attempting to provide a short analysis of why Linux is not threatened by Apple’s moving to Intel processors and where the current three major OS players (minus Unix as it’s losing the war to both MS and Linux) will most likely be in 5 to 10 years time.
“If the Chinese government wanted to obtain a Linux distro… Then, as long as they never see any money from this, distribute copies to their entire population.”
Ummmm…maybe you should read the GPL, and numerous other open source licenses. Espescially the parts specifically allowing you to charge for free software.
Agreed. I don’t think many people understand that you CAN make money from open source. You can sell the software. You can sell all kinds of support (subscription support perhaps?).
It was not the purpose of my article to write a 500 page thesis paper covering the minutae of the current OS landscape and market, which is what would be required to satisfy all the questions and possibilities
Agreed 🙂
at work I am faced with xp and novel’s netware. No linux, bsd, or unix of any kind. Since I’m not exactly in charge of the decision making I was gratefull to at least be able to have a G5 to work on. At home I’m doing a Slackware desktop with a freebsd file server. Choice choice choice. Pick what you want whether it be for political reasons or personal prefrence, your actions speak more than anything else. Go one step further than boycoting a system manufacturer, build your own system. Run the OS that YOU choose on hardware that YOU want. Thats what its all about on the home end. Well, I guess the business end too if you have the say in what is what.
“but I don’t see what Linux (open source) or Windows (proprietary) really has to do with it. Linux is a kernel. You CAN buy and install proprietary software and install it on a Linux system. ”
Of course, Linux can have proprietary software bundled with it, but then Linux users have to get used to the idea of paying between $20 – $50 just to get their operating system for all the various patented stuff. Also, Linux users will have to get used to using closed source binaries and closed proprietary formats.
“And let’s be real, computers don’t protect intellectual property (as we have all seen), the LAW enforces intellectual property rights.”
You are right and wrong. Law does enforce intellectual property rights, but the fact that Law enforces this has never stopped a store owner from buying an alarm system or locking the doors to his shop at nights. As computers gain more and more traction, the content creators are going to make sure that an OS or hardware vendor can provide them protection for their intellectual properties.
For example, if I am a Music Company, I will get all the other music companies to agree on a standard, and then we will all go together to Microsoft and Apple and make sure that they are protecting my rights. Then we will go to AMD and Intel and make sure they are protecting our rights. Then we will go to each separate vendor and make sure they are doing the same. If they are not, we will simply not provide them with any content of any kind. We will make sure that from top to bottom, the entire thing is secure and accountable. Once we have done that, we will go to law enforcement to make sure that people are not violating our intellectual property.
“To make a claim like “The free age of the Internet is over” is just plain ludicrous. Living in a wealthy nation makes it easy to make such claims, but in light of your own proclamation of how important computers are to society, you should be more considerate of the have-not’s.”
The have-nots will continue to have cheap alternatives offerred to them. These alternatives will not be able to be used to watch movies, play games, listen to music, but it will allow them to do basic work and basic communication. But once they start becoming wealthier, they will start looking for all the same type of entertainment Westerner’s have. They will start buying the same thing as every other industrialized nation uses. And these nations will become wealthier because noone likes to be poor. They don’t do all that work to just keep status quo. In the coming years, look to India and China to start protecting intellectual property. Surprisingly, the pressure will not only come from Europe and America, but also from Chinese and Indian companies inside wanting to protect their products from rampant piracy.
Okay, first off, let me say this, I have read the GPL and the Apache License v 2.0. In fact, I [i]had<i> to so that I could properly license my Open Source software, ClamShell (which is currently distributed under the Apache 2.0 license). My point is that a distro obtained from Red Hat, Suse, Mandriva, etc., can be redistributed freely, as long as you don’t charge for it. You can’t even receive a donut in exchange for it, no matter how much the CD cost you to burn. Google on the subject, go to gnu.org (after all, most F/OSS is distributed under the GPL), and look at the FAQ. You can create your own software, distribute it under an Open Source license and charge whatever you like for it. Call it a “Make me Smile” charge, or simply, this Software cost $xx, do you want the source code with that?
Looks like my closing italic tag didn’t close properly. Please read only “had” as italic, if it matters to you.
Richard
You are wrong.
IRT – @Richard Schwalb
You are wrong.
How is he wrong? Seems like a good description to me.
http://www.linuxcd.org/
Look at that ! Illegal cd store lol
“My point is that a distro obtained from Red Hat, Suse, Mandriva, etc., can be redistributed freely, as long as you don’t charge for it. You can’t even receive a donut in exchange for it, no matter how much the CD cost you to burn.”
No you haven’t read the GPL or at any rate understood it. Read it again. You can charge what you like for GPL software, you just have to make the source code available including any modifications you have made to it when you redistribute it.
Now that is simple enough isn’t it.
No you haven’t read the GPL or at any rate understood it.
To make such a statement assumes that you know me and know what I have read. Actually, I have read the GPL and fully understand it. The mistake I made was confusing the Suse license terms with those of the GPL. I apologize for the confusion, although my statement still stands. You can buy a copy of Suse Linux (specifically) and distribute it to your hearts content as long as you never receive anything in exchange. What the terms of other distros are I do not know. Though, one can reasonably assertain that anything distributed under the GPL, and the GPL only for this argument, could very well be charged for, even if as the distributor you are not the author.
I hope this clears up some of the confusion.
there is way to much hype for linux these days, it will always be how it is today UNLESS mac pulls somthing no one would expect but i dont think that would happen.
Everyone is going Linux lately and its market share is skyrocketing. After a contemplating for a long time I’ve finally switched to Linux myself and I am very pleasantly surprise. Linux is very userfriendly, stable, and fast and as far as I can tell superior to Windows in any aspect. No wonder its the big new thing now.
This is basically just another piece about the commoditization of the software industry, which is an inevitability as in any industry.
The days of actually paying for something as low-level as a general purpose client/server OS are fast going, as far as the traditional sense of term “operating system” is concerned.
Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Apple, Time Warner AOL, SBC, etc. all know the day is coming when the only money to be made will be through providing content to end-users as a service over a commoditized infrastructure. Some of these companies are seeking to capture and own the content itself (Hollywood), others the content delivery service (SBC, AOL), others the platform the content is hosted/delivered on (Microsoft, Apple), and others the interface for managing this content (Google).
So, the future market is subject to these three trends: falling software and hardware costs, and rising content delivery service costs. We can also assume that the amount of content/data out there in going to keep exponentially increasing, essentially making it completely unmanageable one day (or maybe now, if you’re like me
.
So what’s the “operating system” of the future? Is it a kernel and low-level software like media players and word processors? Hardly. Goodbye, Microsoft.
No, the future OS is to navigate and logically organize and infer from this huge pool of data were amassing. Read: Search (or for sci-fi futurists, “AI”).
This is why Search is so important to Bill Gates, and why Microsoft is so afraid of Google. And why we should all be so afraid of Google: both in awe at their foresight and leadership today, and terrified by the power they’ll wield in the near-future.
After all, the “OS” in the most abstract terms is only the interface between a person and a task. The first OS was the hand. Now we have clients and servers, and all the netty stuff in-between (firewall, DNS, router, blah). In the future, we’ll have AI/Search, to make sense of it all for us.
Law does enforce intellectual property rights, but the fact that Law enforces this has never stopped a store owner from buying an alarm system or locking the doors to his shop at nights. As computers gain more and more traction, the content creators are going to make sure that an OS or hardware vendor can provide them protection for their intellectual properties.
For example, if I am a Music Company, I will get all the other music companies to agree on a standard, and then we will all go together to Microsoft and Apple and make sure that they are protecting my rights. Then we will go to AMD and Intel and make sure they are protecting our rights. Then we will go to each separate vendor and make sure they are doing the same. If they are not, we will simply not provide them with any content of any kind. We will make sure that from top to bottom, the entire thing is secure and accountable. Once we have done that, we will go to law enforcement to make sure that people are not violating our intellectual property.
First, the law is the ONLY thing that protects Intellectual Property rights.
Second, coercing computer and software manufacturers under some really bad laws (DMCA, etc) is onerous and forces those manufacturers to past on the costs to people who may NEVER use that particular feature.
Third, the law provides RIGHT NOW the ability to seek redress for violation of intellectual property. What you are doing is confusing Intellectual Property with Copyrights – they are not the same thing no matter how the movie and music industry wants to confuse the two.
What the movie and music industry is ticked over is the “fair use” clause. So they make up numbers about how much money they are losing (which if you go to an accountant, they will tell you if you can not prove it was “stolen”, then nothing was lost). The music industry whines about how music is pirated – while at the same time they screw over artists. It’s like thieves whining about how much they AREN’T stealing!
But the music industry is lazy and wants someone else to do all the work (after all they’re busy screwing over the artists). So they argue they need DRM. Why? Because they don’t want to bother actually finding the people violating their copyrights. They want someone else to spend the time, money, and pass that on to the consumer to limit THEIR rights.
If I buy a copy of a song, it doesn’t matter where I listen to it (or according to the Copyright law it doesn’t). But music companies want to limit your rights.
This isn’t about fairness. It is about big business trampling the rights of the people.
I have to say I understand where you’re coming from on this and I agree to a certain point.
Linux distributions don’t need to bundle any non-GPL programs…and many don’t for that very reason. If I want a proprietary program and want to pay for it, I can do so out of my own willingness as opposed to force. This is a good thing. This is a part of the reason Microsoft
The law, much like computers, often fails at what it has been created to do. If store owners knew without question that the law would arrest and prosecute thieves 100% of the time, do you think they would have any alarms or locks? It’s deterrence and prevention. Not fool-proof.
For example, if I am a Music Company, I will get all the other music companies to agree on a standard, and then we will all go together to Microsoft and Apple and make sure that they are protecting my rights…
I’m with you on developing a standard but you lost me on the rest. It’s like talking to all of these entities somehow will provide infallible assurances that your IP is safe and sound. Microsoft hasn’t even been able to do this sucessfully. And any “standard” developed really isn’t a standard if only one company has the rights to utilize it.
And getting back to the point of all of this is that the standard should not hinge upon the platform upon which it is implemented. Linux does not have a fear of but rather a bias against proprietary formats.
The thing that people dont get about GNU & Linux and more broadly about open source is that it is rapidly becoming present in all areas of the computing-internet world. I think GNU & Linux will triumph ultimately in all areas due to its open transparency.
I do think Linux can and will triumph on the desktop. However, some simple things need to be addressed:
1. GUI configuration. What happened to linuxconf? This needs to be a cross distribution project. Simple python+gtk or kde equivalent and my point number two would work.
2. Probable standardisation on XML config for /etc and user configs. Macos apparently does this. Its a good thing.
3. Secure network file system. More support for Fuse and sshfs and similar projects.
4. Nautilus to somehow just work. No matter how many times I try it just never seems quite right, too much focus on silly features like picture previews and tags. Why not use KDEs konqueror file manager or combine the best features of the two.
5. Gnome website to be transformed into a readable and logical site for users and sysadmins. Hopefully the marketing project will solve this. Forget about pride and let a user friendlyness team rewrite the site, the graphics are great but the text needs restructuring. It’s the key to expanding users on this beautiful desktop.
Special award to Maemo for finally making a cool Linux interface that does not clone Macos or XP. Great design work guys. There is nothing wrong with this. In fact I would love to have free minded designers understand that they can customize linux distributions a great deal more than other OS’s. You are not subject to Steve Jobs’ approval.
5 years linux on 8 distributions, Redhat,Debian,Mandrake,Ubuntu,YellowDog,Suse,Knoppix,Morphix
And yes I’ve compiled from source many of my apps and worked with hardware builds on embedded as well.
I had Macos 10.0.1. Ditched it for YellowDog and still would. Freedom is the key: to run what I want where I want. Opensource is great. Spread the love…
In my personal experience, well, Windows dominates because it comes preinstalled. “Best” distros of Linux are as easy to use as XP ever. In my personal opinion, KDE & GNOME also look better and more modern than aging XP UI. I don’t think that as for a end-user, for the Regular Joe, there would be lot of difference whichever OS he would pick. But, since he already has XP, why change?
Windows overcomes Linux in two fronts; its preinstalled and it has games. People who use computer just to read email and browse web, may not have the interest to change OS just to do that. If they don’t have some Linux fanatic to make the change for them. People who use computer for playing games and watch movies download them over the net, and don’t care that some Linux distros are free. So is XP when you download it or when you get bundled with computer.
Linux gets more marketshare when it comes preinstalled with the computer, period
I will really adress only one point :
“If the Chinese government wanted to obtain a Linux distro”
Your from the US right ?
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=origin
China :
Asianux • Cosix Linux • Hiweed Linux • iBox • Magic Linux • OpenDesktop • Rays Linux • Red Flag Linux • Xteam Linux
Red Flag Linux and Asianux are Government programs …
India
ELX Linux • IndLinux • Luit Linux
To clarify some thing , no you cant legally redistribute SUSE freely and legaly even at no cost , no you dont understand the GPL if you did you would never have add used SUSE or now Novell/SUSE.
While Linux will show up in a variety of places — it already has — I don’t think it will be as broadly used as your title proposes.
1. GUI configuration. What happened to linuxconf? This needs to be a cross distribution project. Simple python+gtk or kde equivalent and my point number two would work.
Linuxconf was unreliable. Webmin/Usermin also has problems.
No real comments on the rest of it, except that I’ve used Linux about as long (min 7).
I have read a couple of comments stating that “if you get spyware or viruses on your Windows computer, you don’t know what you are doing with windows”. Another way it was put, I believe, was something like, “people who use linux to avoid getting spyware or viruses don’t know what they are doing with Windows.”
Whoever said statements like these are not taking into account that the vast majority of people who use linux actually DO know what they are doing on ANY platform. They simply choose Linux for that and other reasons of personal choice.
Conversly, the vast majority of people who use Windows DO NOT know what they are doing on a computer because they aren’t computer geeks! Points such as these should be self-evident.
Most computer users use what they are most comfortable with, which is usually what they were first introduced to.
Adopting a different platform generally means jumping into the new OS direction with both feet and not really looking back. Learning something when they dont have to for the same results. Most don’t want to do that.
The point and goal of a “joe-user” having a computer for should not have to entail having something akin to a Microsoft Certification to keep it running properly.
This will be last time I say this, read the other posts for more information. I stated already that I confused the Suse License terms with the GPL’s. Last I checked, about two months ago, you could legally redistribute the Suse distro (I’m not talking about the Novell branded offering) as long as you don’t take anything in return as payment. There has been an infinite number of discussions on this issue. Google for it if you wish, I am not going to point anyone in the right direction on this. It’s been said and debated and answered, definitively.
I understand the GPL as well as anyone else who lacks a law degree (if everyone understood it well there wouldn’t be a need for a FAQ, or these silly debates that mostly revolve around semantics, not the meat of the issue). Yes, you can get and distribute a complete GPL system, and that’s great for those who care about those things. I know that the FSF would like everything to be GPL’d, but, that is not going to happen considering the current state of humanity. As a species we are too greedy.
Frankly, I don’t care how many millions of Linux distros there are, there are very few that matter because they have the market share, thus the mind share. Thus, mind share + market share = better chance to grow on the desktop. If I don’t know it exists, I will never try it. And, desktop share is the thing that matters, otherwise, who’s going to write software for it.
Now, if India and China have Linux distros specifically for their countries, great. They can get exactly what they need without undue Western influence, if they so desire. Personally, I think globalization can only go so far.
Now, for the record. I confused the Suse and GPL license restrictions. I apologize for the confusion it seems to have caused some people. Again, check the Suse license. GPL is great, but humanity is greedy, and therefore its place will be niche for some time to come (read, proprietory software will have a > 50% market share). This is the last time I will say this. If you really wish to discuss this further, please email me at schwalbrichard at comcast dot net.
Moulinneuf,
Actually you can redistribute SUSE Pro for no charge legally.
“You may make and use unlimited copies of the Software for Your distribution and use within Your Organization. You may make and distribute unlimited copies of the Software outside Your organization provided that: 1) You receive no consideration; and, 2) you do not bundle or combine the Software with another offering (e.g., software, hardware, or service).”
Found that here: http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofessional/eula.html
Maybe you need to do some research before you start being rude and mouthing off needlessly.
To clarify some thing , no you cant legally redistribute SUSE freely and legaly even at no cost , no you dont understand the GPL if you did you would never have add used SUSE or now Novell/SUSE.
I suggest you read SuSE License statement – It states that the if someone has a copy SuSE they may make as many copies and distribute them to as much as they wish – as long as they do not sell them. Or tie them in to aid in selling other software packages.
I know – I read the entire User agrement befor I decided to use SuSE as the OS to install computers we give away to families in need.
to some poor slob in a 3rd world country? Can you imagine having to help out people, new to computers, and having them recompile their kernel. o_O
“Anonymous”
Too coward to write with your real name like me or too stupid to choose and write and use a nickname … moron …
http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofessional/eula.html
“THE
SOFTWARE MAY NOT BE SOLD, TRANSFERRED, OR FURTHER DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT
PRIOR WRITTEN AUTHORIZATION FROM NOVELL.”
I said “Legally”
“no you cant *legally* redistribute SUSE freely and legaly even at no cost “
“The Software is a collective work of Novell. You may make and use unlimited copies of the Software for Your distribution and use within Your Organization. You may make and distribute unlimited copies of the Software outside Your organization provided that: 1) You receive
no consideration; and, 2) you do not bundle or combine the Software with another offering (e.g., software, hardware, or service). The term “Organization” means a legal entity, excluding subsidiaries and affiliates with a separate existence for tax purposes or for legal personality purposes. An example of an Organization in the private
sector would be a corporation, partnership, or trust, excluding any subsidiaries or affiliates of the organization with a separate tax identification number or company registration number. In the public sector, an example of Organization would be a specific government
body or local government authority.”
Please find the rest at
http://www.novell.com/products/linuxprofessional/eula.html
Thanks and goodnight
China is poor? India’s GDP rose by 9% this year, they are not poor. He said he has an inner geed, yet he is afraid to tinker with Linux, what kind of hypocritical crappy person is this?
Hmm.. weird, because most consumers choose microsoft.
There may be like under 3% that choose apple or some other OS.
“Too coward to write with your real name like me or too stupid to choose and write and use a nickname … moron … ”
How immature of you… Names really do not matter much. Anonymous or not, a name is a name and names and atleast its not manipulated. Seems people hate the anonymous thing when they get pissed and want to attack, but love it when they aren’t. Let’s just get rid of all privacy rights
http://www.sub300.com : “We at Sub300 found that Linux was the ideal low cost alternative. One distribution of Linux we found to be the most friendly was Linspire.”
Company such as Sub300 does NOT offer CONSUMERS a non-Linux choice.
Do NOT do business with this company until they do offer CONSUMERS a choice.
I was using FruityLoops on Windows to do my music composition, with analog modeling synths, samples and midi and stuff. It cost me ~$150 for the OS plus $100 for FruityLoops.
This software was buggy and it had this horrid registration thing where it basicly downloaded a registry key that matched the system I was installing it on. So when that OS had to be reinstalled or when I got a new system I couldn’t migrate it over. I could have emailed FruityLoops and asked for new registration, but instead I decided I’d check out the state of Linux audio.
So I wiped the system and installed Mepis. Used synaptic to pick all the multimedia/audio apps and get them installed. I think it also let me add the Demudi apps, so I got jack, rosegarden, ardour, amsynth, zynaddsubfx, hydrogen, etc. All of it for free with no registration or licensing problems.
Now I am back to composing music on Linux with software that didn’t exist when I first started using FruityLoops. If Linux and GNU software in general can improve so quickly to replace codecs and analog modeling synths and midi sequencing software and multitrack recording and editing software, etc, etc, etc. In just a few years.
Can you imagine what this will do for us if it was the dominant OS with commercial support from the same companies I want to buy this software and hardware from? Those companies need to get a clue and stop fighting the revolution or be swept under the coming tides. Its all them. I got my money and my software and I’m willing to support these free projects via paypal until Dell and HP and Microsoft and FruityLoops want to offer me something of quality with free updates, bug fixes, enhancements, etc. Free, after the initial cost of purchase, for my lifetime..
The alternative already exists and is high quality and works well and is getting easier and easier to use every day.
So business can go ahead and hide from reality if they like, but they should know this, more is demanded of them if they wish to compete in this brave new world.
And you MS-using end users.. computers are a tool. I like shiny icons and gradients and easy-to-use interfaces, but I’d rather have a good quality tool that actually does its job without breaking. Windows breaks. It annoys me. It wastes my time. It costs too much. And its as dumb as they can make it, too dumb for me. If you gave me FruityLoops and Windows XP Pro for free, I’d still choose Linux. For I have tasted the fruit.
Hmm.. weird, because most consumers choose microsoft.
There may be like under 3% that choose apple or some other OS.
Yes, Bill Gates used that argument, what 10 years ago?
Brief History Review: M$ successfully marketed their proprietary software to businesses. The employees of these businesses bought computers running M$ software because 1.)They were familiar with it from work, and/or 2.) They needed to bring their work home with them.
Please understand that if all you know about is company “A”‘s product, through friends, associates and mass media, of course you won’t choose company “B”‘s product simply on repuation.
Point: They don’t choose anything else because they don’t know of anything else.
The most successful departments at M$ is the sales and marketing departments. Product is merely secondary. Never confuse popularity with excellence.
Did you realized that you made a fool of yourself with that statement?
Once in a while, you should press ENTER like this…
…so people aren’t shocked at looking at a single massive block of text.
One glance of what you wrote was painful enough that I had to look away. I didn’t read a thing you wrote. That’s a shame since you wrote quite a bit and I’m sure you wanted people to read it.
You want to boycott Dell for lack of Linux support? It is Red Hat/Dell that are taking over the server market against the likes of UNIX. Dell is no doubt Red Hat’s single largest customer.
What diff does it make if Dell, HP etc. ship a linux distro on your desktop in the first place anyway? All most of you (myself included) would do is install our own flavor on the box anyway. So FreeDOS is just as good becasue you are not paying MS.
As far as the desktop is concerned it is supply and demand. Sure lots of people would tell Dell they are interested in Linux desktops but few people actually seem to purchase them. I can assure you that if there was a demand they would be more than happy to respond with a supply.
You have to stop blaming Dell, HP, and Gateway because everyone wants to talk about Linux but nobody actually wants to use it.
Mr , Richard Schwalb
I am going to be nice one last and final time towards you.
Since you have definately proven that your unable to understand and read properly any of the legal documents and its entire contents wich are a binding contract for you between you and Novell let me explain the pertinance ( or lack there of with what your previously offered ) of the information you provide.
You said :
“You may make and use unlimited copies of the Software for Your distribution and use within Your Organization. “”
Yes , but the Governement mass distribtuing CD/DVD to its citizen is considered a service , the citizen are not part or the Government organization they are considered client of the Governement.
“You may make and distribute unlimited copies of the Software outside Your organization provided that: 1) You receive no consideration; and, 2) you do not bundle or combine the Software with another offering (e.g., software, hardware, or service). ”
You cannot ask someone to mass Burn cd for you as this would be a service , you would have to have it done by your employee on there own free time because if they do it will beeing paid by you there receiving consideration …
” In the public sector, an example of Organization would be a specific government body or local government authority.” ”
The citizen or real public is not considered to be part of the Government organization.
If you dont get it by now this means that Novell , unlike the previous company now bankrupt and extinct known as SUSE as only GPL’ed there newly acquired SUSE Software from IBM and that they let you make some copy for personnal use or copy protection or for your friend/associate/partners/others and that you can share it with them.
But there is no way in hell they will let you or even give you the permission to mass burn CD/DVD and mass distribute them freely and legally to anyone you wish to.
you know one way to end this really quickly is to ask me by email for my coordinate and to sue me for libel and for damaging your good words and damaging the good will of a company.
You believe yourself to be right , I know legally that I am right , lets really proove once and for all who is really right.
One last comment : Who do you which your money for this lost case of yours to go to any preference ?
one sugestion : Consult a real lawyer …
“I suggest you read SuSE License statement”
I sugest you consult a lawyer your in breach of contract …
“it states that the if someone has a copy SuSE they may make as many copies and distribute them to as much as they wish – as long as they do not sell them. Or tie them in to aid in selling other software packages. ”
No , have a real lawayer explaint it to you …
” I read the entire User agrement befor I decided to use SuSE as the OS to install computers we give away to families in need.”
Your offering a service ( instalation of the OS , multiple time , menaing this is redistribution and not distribution ) ( even if at not cost ) and are in breach of agreement , the ONLY way you can save yourself is by asking a full written permission to do so from Novell , if they dont sue you for an example they might decide to ship you some fully supported box for taxs ride off.
“How immature of you…”
So your in agreement and in defense of the guy who said ( not its entire work just my favorite example of this discusting individual :
– The people of New-York deserved to be killed on 9/11.
– Its ok for a parent to molest there childs as long as it stays in the familly.
– Woman who wear skirt after the sun is down deserved to be killed or raped.
etc …
Personnaly I have in disgust and fiercely loath anyone who accept to wear and endorse the entity of “anonymous” in any of its shape or form. I also put in the same bag people who are defending people who are inept or too stupid to sign there own text with there real name as I always do or with a nickname of there choice.
Great your a scumbag too …
“Names really do not matter much.”
Names are what define people , its the only thing you freely choose to endorse , you can even change it to hide your previous bad deed and make a better world from now on.
You cant understand , its a honorable thing.
“Seems people hate the anonymous thing when they get pissed and want to attack”
I know why anonymous exist , but in the case of this particular site you can choose any nickname you like without having to register , I loath anonymous everytime I see it , I just whont go and harass everyone who use it , its my personnal prerogative and is my rights to do so, so mind your own business your not anonymous I whas not adressing you at all.
” Let’s just get rid of all privacy rights”
Anonymous as no rights there are not persons , its an entity wich is used by cowards , traitor thief and liar and every know scumbags on the planet in almost every case to make accusation ar spread fud or lies or any bad adjective under the cover of the anonymous identity in the majority of case.
To have privacy rights you must be a person first.
“The command line is for geeks like myself and old schoolers (although, I do prefer a good GUI).”
150% ACK!
The private media, the multinationals and private press are very pro-Microsoft, they are very good at manipulating the opinion of the nation. And the campaign to oust Lula has started, the president that refused for the third time conference with Bill Gates.
It is worth noting that each computer loaded with Microsoft Operating System is equivalent to 60 extra bags of soya that Brazil has to produce and exports. But what do most of the citizens care about Free Source? Despite being praised internationally, at home the President’s popularity is at its worse ever. This is a guy that did not send troops to Iraq but is trying his best despite all obstacles to secure a better future via OSS.
Comparing apples and oranges again, Russian Guy?
Sub300 is a SMB (actually, a very small business). Dell and others (who do actually offer Linux, but on very few models) are very large corporations, with name brand recognition and substantial inventories. You can’t compare the two.
Sub300 caters to a niche market. Dell and all are mainstream PC vendors. Holding them to the same standard is dishonest.
That said, if you want a Windows notebook from Sub300 and are ready to pay the Microsoft tax (plus the time it takes to install Windows, which takes longer than installing Linux…), I’m sure the folks at Sub300 will be happy to oblige. Did you contact them before you claimed that they will not sell Windows PCs?
I strongly condemn the statement that “India is having large populations of poor people”. It’s not correct. I agree that India has large population, but we are a very good developing country.
Regarding the Windows and licenses I have seen in India that many so called rich people also using pirated versions of Windows. This is because of lack of awareness of licences and lack of strict legal policies. Most of the people buy assembled computers and the person who assembles the system simply installs a pirated copy of Windows in it.
That’s why I started evangelising in the recent days about using Linux and on top of it awareness about licences etc.
I did read the whole article. The first half was irrelevant mostly but what irritated me the most was the second bit. I completely agree that Linux can bring down costs for several countries.
But it is high time you stopped calling ‘China’ and ‘India’ poor countries. That is very patronizing. I agree that 25% of Indians and around 8% [official figure??] of Chinese are poor but Again, another population that exceeds 1 billion people, who, for the most part, are exceedingly poor and Now, take a moment to think about all those poorer nations, and how they can best become ever more competitive in an increasingly technological world. If the Chinese government wanted…. are overstatements. Besides according to Wikipedia, these countries rank 2[China] and 4[India] respectively in terms of GDP and are growing at an awesome growth rate.
I am not trying to start a flame war or something over this and stuff but I just want to convey that message :: Call them poor @ your own peril!
all those poor nations with poor people who are working very hard to no longer be poor nations with poor people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP~*~…
And also Linux is not just about Cost, it is also about Open Standards and Code, so the *richer* countries *according to your classifications* could benefit too…
I strongly condemn the statement that “India is having large populations of poor people”. It’s not correct. I agree that India has large population, but we are a very good developing country.
Why is there child labor? Why do most of the childeren have to work at six years old why some of the happy few caste members can go to expensive boarding-shools abroad?
If you dont get it by now this means that Novell , unlike the previous company now bankrupt and extinct known as SUSE as only GPL’ed there newly acquired SUSE Software from IBM and that they let you make some copy for personnal use or copy protection or for your friend/associate/partners/others and that you can share it with them.
What has The GPL to do with a specific distro being sponsored by a major company or not and some other company got into financial trouble and started to beg online for money to survive?
But there is no way in hell they will let you or even give you the permission to mass burn CD/DVD and mass distribute them freely and legally to anyone you wish to.
Where have you found legal prove of that?
What’s the difference between mass distribution of SuSE or distributed *for free* via a net-install?
But there is no way in hell they will let you or even give you the permission to mass burn CD/DVD and mass distribute them freely and legally to anyone you wish to.
Where have you found legal prove of that?
What’s the difference between mass distribution of SuSE or distributed *for free* via a net-install?
The GPLed parts of SUSE can be distributed as source per. the GPL itself.
The non-free parts of SUSE — and there are non-free parts — have whatever licence the copyright holders decide. This includes distribution limitaions; SUSE/Novell can do as they wish with the non-free parts.
That’s why there are distributuions that don’t include non-free parts (free as the FSF defines it).
Red Hat — for all the hell they get for being the dominate Linux distribution provider — only ships free software. They licence support seperately, though, as the GPL encourages.
(That said, I prefer open source to Free software in most discussions of the topic. In this case, free software ala FSF is the most appropriate term.)
What’s the deal when i install SuSE 9.3 on more than one machine at home?.Is it allowed on when “non-free” are not installed?
Why is there child labor? Why do most of the childeren have to work at six years old why some of the happy few caste members can go to expensive boarding-shools abroad?
This is absurd. Not ‘most’ children are working. But yes ‘some’ are working. There is a difference.
And I think your assumption is probably based on what the media reflects.. they only show poor kids working, poverty and stuff, they rarely show the complete picture, only the bad part.
And besides social issues like child labour exist everywhere. Even in the US, they have the ‘dealing-badly-with-prisoners’ stuff… That doesnt make US poor, or does it ????
why some of the happy few caste members can go to expensive boarding-shools abroad
Caste members??? The caste system is ages old and has probably been suppressed. No more you go to a certain school because of your caste or something…Wake up!! But I wont deny unequal distribution of wealth…But that doesnt make a country poor???
And besides social issues like child labour exist everywhere.
Not here in western Europe where child labour is illegal for obvious reasons.
Even in the US, they have the ‘dealing-badly-with-prisoners’ stuff… That doesnt make US poor, or does it ????
Well the treatment of prisoners is a different subject.Criminals should be treated as their victims.
And I think your assumption is probably based on what the media reflects.. they only show poor kids working, poverty and stuff, they rarely show the complete picture, only the bad part.
Yes some people think mankind is lying about the 6 million that have been killed in WOII also.
So you are saying mother theresa didn’t have much work todo?
http://www.google.de/search?hl=de&biw=1584&q=india+poverty&btnG=Suc…
Wake up snob.
So you are saying mother theresa didn’t have much work todo?
India highly regards the work of Mother Theresa. But it is not just because of her work alone that India’s poverty is declining. There are very great leaders who work really for the upliftment of the poor people.
Media reports are not always true. They usually show only one side of a coin.
Besides according to Wikipedia, these countries rank 2[China] and 4[India] respectively in terms of GDP and are growing at an awesome growth rate.
The GDP is hardly a measure of “wealth”, at least when measuring individual income. You probably want to look at GDP per capita, or better yet, at the average income vs. cost of living.
I personally don’t like the expression “poor countries”, I think “developing nations” is a much better description. However, there’s no question that the average Indian or Chinese is much poorer than the average North American on absolute terms.
As per the CIA World Factbook
a href=”http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/
GDP per capita:
U.S. $40,100 (2004 est.)
China $5,600 (2004 est.)
India $3,100 (2004 est.)
Caste members??? The caste system is ages old and has probably been suppressed.
No it hasn’t. Not in most parts of India, anyway – precisely because it is ages old (that’s called “tradition”). When I was there about 15 years ago, the people I was staying with had been married according to caste rules. Presumably, the caste system isn’t as strong as it used to be, especially in more “progressive” areas such as Kerala. However, you shouldn’t dismiss its influence so casually. These things don’t change overnight…
That said, India is changing, and at a relatively fast pace. But it is still considered a developing nation by European and North American standards.
When they see a company they respect like Dell, GW, or HP and etc offering a Linux distro. Currently to those that have heard of Linux think of it as a Hacker or Eliteist OS. I just hope the vendors don’t offer only 1 distro like RedHat Enterprise or Suse. I hope they would Diversify and add heavy hitters like Ubuntu, Debian, or Fedora or hell why not all of’em but the distro of there choosing is installed.
-nX
“What has The GPL to do with a specific distro being sponsored by a major company or not”
They decide the license they whant to ship there tools with , some are closed source ( like SUSE where ) some are Open Source ( like the current Novell/SUSE ) and some are Free software. In most case not using the GPL on GNU/Linux equal bankrupty.
” and some other company got into financial trouble and started to beg online for money to survive?”
Ha yes , the Mandriva myth of financial trouble and of begging.
Let me restate once again that Mandriva never whas in bankrupty protection ( not that some people who cant translate did use that word , mind you ), they where not in financial trouble either , they choose the easy solution in order to get out of a problem which as harmed the company for many years to come. The begging part , I guess is due to your lack of education and of the definition of the word begging. A Beggar get money for nothing in return , thats not a definition that apply to Mandriva ( MandrakeSoft )at all.
“Where have you found legal prove of that?”
What can I say I am an expert and professional ,also just to be on the safe side I add my legal team and personnal legal consel look it up , I also asked Novell directly if now it whas possible to redistribute freely there Novell/SUSE product.
“What’s the difference between mass distribution of SuSE”
To mass distribute you have to be the maker , If your not Novell you are redistributing as you have to acquire it once.
“or distributed *for free* via a net-install?”
Since Novell/SUSE is not Free ( free means freedom ), you mean at no cost. Again its redistribution , if you whant to *legally* redistribute Novell/SUSE over the net you have to become a Novell partner or ask for the permission.
“Anonymous”
Too coward to write with your real name like me or too stupid to choose and write and use a nickname … moron …
“The non-free parts of SUSE — and there are non-free parts –”
Depends on what your definition of SUSE is , since its a boxed product made by Novell called SUSE , everything inside the box as to be considered , unlike some other company the Non free stuff is not separate from the free stuff.
“Red Hat — for all the hell they get for being the dominate Linux distribution provider ”
There not the dominate Linux distribution provider. Debian and the Debian base are by a magnitude of 20 to 1 vs Red Hat . Red Hat is #10 as a GNU/Linux distribution provider.
But part of your point is correct Red Hat does keep it with the spirit of free software.
“That said, I prefer open source to Free software in most discussions of the topic”
Yes , moron , tend to repeat mistake made in the past and never learn from history , all the Dominant player in GNU/Linux are Free software as much as possible or make the distrinction. If GNU/Linux add been Open Source it would have been like BSD and the BSD based easily beaten and irrelevant.
Open Source without without free software and copyleft is nothing but bulshit that can be taken and closed by the dominant proprietary company ( namely at this time : Microsoft and Apple )
“The GDP is hardly a measure of “wealth” ”
No , the GDP is an accurate measure of wealth. Its not the only one as you can have a strong GDP and a poor nation.
“I think “developing nations” is a much better description. ”
China and India are older or have older ancestry then the US. I personnaly prefer the term newly industrialized.
“GDP per capita:
U.S. $40,100 (2004 est.)
China $5,600 (2004 est.)
India $3,100 (2004 est.) ”
Thats a buslhit account of the wealth you take capital inside the country and divide it between the population , But even do Bill Gates gives a lots of his money so does Michael Dell and many others US billionaires do so too , they dont give it all to others. The normal US income is normally around 12,000$
In reality , you have to watch many factor :
1) Currency
2) Cost of living
3) Normal income
4) National Debt
5) GDI – GDP
6) population
etc …
Now let me let you in on a little secret :
There is three Country that keep there Currency very low in order to stay competitive :
CANADA
CHINA
INDIA
The US for all intent and purpose is totally Bankrupt , exept CANADA , CHINA and INDIA and many other country keep it afloat by pooring mass amount of money into the US currency and also keep there currency low and in buying the US debt from the nationnal governments , states and country ( yes there is a difference between the Country debt and the current government debt in the US ). The US is also masively subsidising there economy by doing illegal subventionning.
Now back on subject many people believe that the developping nation will be the one doing the massive GNU/Linux desktop push , its not entirely wrong as they will be the first to embrace it , but , the one who are really going to be driving GNU/Linux on the desktop is going to be US corporation who cannot compete on a global scale or/and nationnaly if they dont use it.
Some people like the ability to quadruple there IT capacity by using GNU/Linux instead of spending the money on buying expansive software license and not have to watch that they dont get missused inside the company.
The nail on the coffin is going to be when corporation really realise that there employee can have the same software on there computer at home and that they can give them a copy if they use Free Software *legally*.
Du calme, pas besoin de t’énerver pour ça…
No , the GDP is an accurate measure of wealth. Its not the only one as you can have a strong GDP and a poor nation.
I said it wasn’t a good measure of wealth precisely because it’s incomplete. You can’t say “this country is rich because it’s got a high GDP”, because in fact the distribution of wealth within that country can be very inequitable.
So in fact we agree – there’s no need to take such an agressive tone.
China and India are older or have older ancestry then the US. I personnaly prefer the term newly industrialized.
We’re talking about modern economic development, not cultural development or history. “Newly industrialized” is kind of a mouthful…I like the word “developing”, because it doesn’t make a direct reference to industrialization (which isn’t as necessary as it was to develop your economy, at least according to some).
But anyway, let’s not squabble on words, we essentially agree (even if I find your tone a bit adversarial).
Thats a buslhit account of the wealth you take capital inside the country and divide it between the population ,
Actually, it’s a measure of purchasing power, and it’s not a mean (moyenne) but a median (médiane) value, so it’s pretty accurate.
But even do Bill Gates gives a lots of his money so does Michael Dell and many others US billionaires do so too , they dont give it all to others. The normal US income is normally around 12,000$
I don’t think so, though if you can provide me with a link I’ll be more than happy to check it out.
From
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_we…
“Real median household income remained unchanged between 2002 and 2003 at $43,318, according to a report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.”
There is three Country that keep there Currency very low in order to stay competitive :
CANADA
Uh, no. Canada’s currency has been going up compared to the U.S. dollar, and there is no concerted effort to keep it down (though it does help our exports – yes, I am Canadian).
I agree with your other points with regards to Linux adoption.
Hi Moulineff,
First, let me say, I run my own company. In doing so I’ve worked with many Fortune 500 companies. I’ve never run into someone who professed such great professionalism and yet was so adversarial. Maybe it is because we are dealing with the written word and the nuances of spoken language are completely lost. If so, than let us say that there is no need for argument or rudeness and remember that it is healthy, cordial debate and discussion that keeps democratic societies viable.
Are you a lawyer? If you are a lawyer, I applaud you. It is a tough job with little respect from those who should give it. If not, may I inquire as to the line of work you are in that lends itself to such a great understanding of the law? Personally, I have dealt with enough contracts and legalese to say that I have a fair understanding of the legal language present in many contracts, be they EULA’s or otherwise. I also have based my understanding of the Novell/SuSE EULA on what has been said in other forums by those who work for SuSE and are in the know. I would also like to point out that as far as I know the GPL is yet to be fully tested in US courts, or any other court.
Lastly, with risk of throwing more gasoline on the fire (and at these prices!), I want to point out that the meat of my argument, regardless of the details, is that due to the Open Source nature and fairly liberal licensing for much of the Linux software, any government could theoretically make available and distribute a Linux distro to every man, woman and child. For example, the US government could take the GPL’d Linux kernel and roll its own distro with other GPL’d software. Maybe even create some software on its own and include that. The US Government would then be free to distribute that USA Linux distro to every man, woman and child. It needn’t be SuSE or Red Hat, or any other currently existing Linux distro. It seems that a fairly unimportant detail (the particular distro) has become larger than itself.
“Du calme, pas besoin de t’énerver pour ça… ”
Je suis pas nerveux du tout , mais bon je suis pas le meilleur écrivains non plus 😉
You said :
“The GDP is hardly a measure of “wealth”,”
its not the same as :
“it wasn’t a good measure of wealth precisely because it’s incomplete. ”
My mind reader is at the workshop …
“So in fact we agree – there’s no need to take such an agressive tone. ”
Yes ( I think we agree ) , I dont see where being in disagreement without insult transform into agresive tone do , can you explain that one …
“We’re talking about modern economic development”
Yes and China and India are more modern economicaly then the US and Europe. There where just not as much industrialized until recently. The value of the people there are different , the work ethics too.
“so it’s pretty accurate.”
I have to disagree , because it dont give an accurate picture “moyenne”.
“though if you can provide me with a link I’ll be more than happy to check it out.”
http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/p60-226.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient
“Real median household income ”
Again your playing the statistical game of the US , for one as I explained ( or hinted at if I am/whas not precise enough ) its not the “moyenne” and as you put it out its the median , also ALL the number of the US are know to be HIGHLY erronous , in order to make them look better both for internal and internationnal purposes , for example in this case they have taken out the welfare , people on states support and unemployed but insured out of the equation.
“Canada’s currency has been going up compared to the U.S. dollar”
No , the Canadian dollars is the strongest currency on the planet , and also the most controlled one , Its not The CAD who whas going up it whas the USD who whas going down , we are purposedly keepping it down in order to be competitive internationnaly and be able to sale our massive production ( we sell 85% of the stuff we make 55% to the US ) , all this due to the fact that where a mere 35 million and that they have a buyer market of 340 milion ( there are 50 million alien or illegal in the US ).
” and there is no concerted effort to keep it down”
Actually there is. One good example is that we have a Ban on our Beef and a wood dispute and some other things and our economy is still going up and showing strong number.
“(though it does help our exports)”
Not exactly , it keep our citizen employed …
Thanks for the link about the Gini coefficient, that was really informative. However, the Census Bureau PDF you linked actually supported my earlier figure. In fact, the quote I posted seems to have come from that report.
Anyway, I’m not here to squabble over statistics…I just don’t think that 12,000$USD is an accurate representation of the average US income! Now, whether or not the Census Bureau plays politics with its numbers is matter for another debate (that wouldn’t surprise me, seeing as how they fudge their unemployment number).
Yes and China and India are more modern economicaly then the US and Europe.
I’m not sure if I agree with this, I think it’s too broad a statement to argue convincingly for or against.
Are we really 35 million now? Wow.
P.S. Étant donné la course à la chefferie du PQ, faudrait essayer de voir quel candidat est le plus pontentiellement favorable au Logiciel Libre… 🙂
“Maybe it is because we are dealing with the written word and the nuances of spoken language are completely lost”
No , its because where discussing Novell/SUSE , I learned from my past mistake , I dont give one once of leaway in discussing this subject anymore.
“if so, than let us say that there is no need for argument or rudeness and remember that it is healthy, cordial debate and discussion that keeps democratic societies viable”
Actually on this very subject , ( I am not a very likable person anyway in any form of debate ) , I am not interested in a cordial debate. The importance of respecting contract and eula make for honorable people and show the distinction between company giving more and those giving less and those who are just trowing gliter.
“Are you a lawyer?”
No , trained as one and I also could easily have my license ( just have to pay for the fee ) , but I dont practice.
“If not, may I inquire as to the line of work you are in that lends itself to such a great understanding of the law?”
No , but I do get to see many different contract everyday for my approval.
“on what has been said in other forums by those who work for SuSE and are in the know.”
There not the one who get sued when the contract are not respected , there is also a lot of lies and erronous fact coming from those same people.
” I would also like to point out that as far as I know the GPL is yet to be fully tested in US courts, or any other court. ”
Your missinformed on this point , the GPL is fully tested in US court , and almost all other nationnal and internationnal courts , why do you think most of the one found in breach of it as of late dont go into court and settle … But where not discussing the GPL we are discussing Novell Eula. The FSF are good tactician and have extremely good lawyers ( some would say better then the one at Microsoft ) they whant people to think the way you do and breach it so that they can make a lot of money from it.
“is that due to the Open Source nature and fairly liberal licensing for much of the Linux software, any government could theoretically make available and distribute a Linux distro to every man, woman and child.”
Yes and no ( I agree and understood your point ), just not Novell/SUSE exept if they made some previous agreement giving them the permission ,. as it is the current Eula dont permit it. Also its because almost 90% of the GNU/Linux distribution are GPL software and not Open Source. Open Source is bulshit by itself as shown by Apple and Micrososft who are both using BSD who is Open source and has been in existance since the 70’s.
“For example, the US government could take the GPL’d Linux kernel and roll its own distro with other GPL’d software. ”
Yes. They already do that for some purpose.
“Maybe even create some software on its own and include that. ”
Some branch of the US government already do that.
“The US Government would then be free to distribute that USA Linux distro to every man, woman and child.”
Yes. But it still would be a GNU/Linux and internationnal distribution exept with US branding and promotion 😉
” It needn’t be SuSE or Red Hat”
Agreed , but you used Novell/SUSE , which explicitely forbide it.
“It seems that a fairly unimportant detail (the particular distro) has become larger than itself.”
Actually its a very important detail , GNU/Linux is trying to give Free Software to everyone and doing it *legally* , if you start saying that you can do that with the distribution and company distributing GNU/Linux who specificaly dont allow it , others will start and use you as a reference.
I actually like the Novell/SUSE distribution and really wished they would really do what the others do so that it becomes another distribution option as its a great product , exept the reality is that there contract and eula are not the same.
Your point apply to all other country too , the problem ( or the reason why its not done more ) is Microsoft who as an almost total illegal control over the computer manufacturer.
One problem I have identified ( I am not the one who did , but I know of it ) is that Manufacturer dont whant to piss off Microsoft so they dont release there spec , manual and source code for GNU/Linux.
But even more important they dont allow GNU/Linux on the prototype wich are going to be released in the next 3 – 6 month unlike they do for Microsoft.
One example is that no *real* 64 Bits OS as been officialy released as of yet from Microsoft , will GNU/Linux as add it since the creation of both chips from Intel and AMD ( Never leave alone GNU/Linux developper with new and cool hardware at a show , there going to test there software on it 😉 )
Sorry if I seem harsh , but I am fed up of this point getting spread , its innacurate.
Actually on this very subject , ( I am not a very likable person anyway in any form of debate ) , I am not interested in a cordial debate.
Actually, you should. Destroying an opponent’s argument with a smile is much more effective than when foaming at the mouth. Don’t mistake politeness for weakness – on the contrary, if you are convinced your argument are better, you can deliver them without additional aggressivity.
That said, this is actually pretty difficult. Many times I’ve been too aggressive myself in these forums…
First, to A num, he moos:
Thank you for your cordiality. I know that my first reaction many times is to be agressive and dictatorial. However, I have learned, from my business dealings as well as from personal life, that it is more often than not best to be the cordial one and let the other make a fool of themselves. It also helps to defuse tense situations.
To Moulinneuf:
I appreciate your latest, cordial reply. I understand the frustration of having to repeat oneself 30 million times and still have misinformation abound. I am quite interested to see the source of your understanding of the SuSE EULA. Again, the last thing I came across, and I wish I remember where as I would give you the URL for it, was in a SuSE forum regarding the ability to redistribute SuSE Pro. I believe the version in question was 9.2 (may have been 9.1). The final answer, as I recall, was that you could redistribute as long as you received no compensation in return. You also are not allowed, as I seem to recall, to distribute via BitTorrent. (Although, just came across something in a forum that said you can now legally distribute via BitTorrent, which I think is wrong.) But, you can mirror the SuSE FTP site, yes? Anyway, again, thank you for the cordial response. In the future I will be careful to use less sensitive examples so as not to detract from my point.
For anyone who cares:
I just emailed SuSE in regards to this question of redistribution rights. If anyone cares to see the response I will gladly forward it.
“However, the Census Bureau PDF you linked actually supported my earlier figure. ”
Its a 1993 report. They are hidding the new ones.
page 10
“The most commonly used measure
of household income inequality,
the Gini index, did not change
between 2002 and 2003. The
share of aggregate income
received by the lowest quintile
declined from 3.5 percent to
3.4 percent, as did the real income
level delineating the 20th percentile
of household income, from
$18,326 to $17,984 (a 1.9 percent
decline in real terms).”
“.I just don’t think that 12,000$USD is an accurate representation of the average US income! ”
Ok, would you agree on 12k to 20k , 32 – 41k per household. I know 12k to be accurate but it bugs a lot of people.
” I think it’s too broad a statement to argue convincingly for or against.”
The US migh have a strong currency but they dont have the population and never add to make an economical comeback , also in term of longevity both those country where dealing with currency problem long before the US even existed 😉
For me there is absolutely no doubt in my mind on this point.
“Are we really 35 million now? ”
Last numbers , I trust , yes , in all of Canada 😉
The surprising thing is the GDP we pull for the population we have.
P.S. : Tout les partie Politiques sont pour le Logiciel Libre , mais ses des politiciens …
http://www.logiciel-libre.gouv.qc.ca/
http://www.pq.org/nv/index.php?pq=4&it=697
If you are skilled enough to lock down a windows machine secure enough, use windows. If you cant, use Linux.
“Your missinformed on this point , the GPL is fully tested in US court , and almost all other nationnal and internationnal courts , why do you think most of the one found in breach of it as of late dont go into court and settle … ”
Actually, this isn’t true. There has only been one court case that I’ve been able to find in the entire world that has explicitly declared that the GPL is a valid license. That one is in Germany:
http://www.jbb.de/judgment_dc_munich_gpl.pdf
There has not been one single successful challenge or defense of the GPL in the US. Of course, the reason that’s true is no sane US lawyer wants to go into court against it. But that’s not the same as having an actual court case that has validated or invalidated it within the US.
I’m personally hoping that the IBM counterclaim in SCO vs. IBM will /finally/ put his particular problem to bed. However, there’s no telling what will happen before then.
My background is not legal, but research. I’ve spent many hours looking for information on F/LOSS for my company, and know it about as well as any generalist can. I can tell you that every lawyer that I’ve personally spoken to about the subject takes the same position. In 2004, so did Eben Moglen:
“But notice that in order to survive moment one in a lawsuit over free software, it is the defendant who must wave the GPL. It is his permission, his master key to a lawsuit that lasts longer than a nanosecond. This, quite simply, is the reason that lies behind the statement you have heard — Mr. McBride made it here some weeks ago — that there has never been a court test of the GPL.
To those who like to say there has never been a court test of the GPL, I have one simple thing to say: Don’t blame me. I was perfectly happy to roll any time. It was the defendants who didn’t want to do it. And when for ten solid years, people have turned down an opportunity to make a legal argument, guess what? It isn’t any good.”
Taken from a speech for the “Harvard Journal of Law and Technology” Link:
http://gnu.open-mirror.com/philosophy/moglen-harvard-speech-2004.ht…