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If it is not already evident, I think the quotes below from previous columns by the writer clearly expose his bias.

Later on, realizing that the despised "open source" was not going away, the free/libre partisans and their politically correct allies annexed the enemy term to their own and coined the lexicological monster "free/libre open source software" along with its ludicrous acronym FLOSS.

What's corrupt about Stallman's moral sloganeering is that he condemns the pursuit of self-interest by others in order to promote his own equally self-interested goal of replacing the free market by some kind of high-minded collectivism.

It is only a short step from "should not exist" to "must not be allowed to exist." Instead of dismissing Stallman as a crank, it's time for the open source community to take his totalitarian ideas more seriously and to reject them categorically.

By forcing Microsoft to offer an unbundled version of Windows in Europe, the EU believes that it has increased consumer choice. Personally, having already made the choice to purchase Windows, I would just as soon have my media viewing habits subsidized by the putative monopolists in Redmond than put up with Real's annoying pop-up ads.

The EU looks at this normal market behavior and sees something pathological that needs reprimanding. The EU sees Microsoft doing everything it can to steer customers its way and decides that we consumers need protection lest we fall into the clutches of the evil monopolist, as if we were children.

In the dreary conventional view of economics shared by Richard Stallman's side of the open source world and some of his pundit fans, profits are akin to global warming: both are evil. By this logic, common corporate strategies for achieving profits - such as building a better mousetrap, making your brand a household name, or trying to keep the recipe to your secret sauce a secret - are inherently wrong. You see, it's just plain wicked for software developers to go out and create really useful solutions to a really hard problems, and then have the nerve to keep them secret so they can charge people money.

If it is not already evident, I think the quotes below from previous columns by the writer clearly expose his bias.

Later on, realizing that the despised "open source" was not going away, the free/libre partisans and their politically correct allies annexed the enemy term to their own and coined the lexicological monster "free/libre open source software" along with its ludicrous acronym FLOSS.

What's corrupt about Stallman's moral sloganeering is that he condemns the pursuit of self-interest by others in order to promote his own equally self-interested goal of replacing the free market by some kind of high-minded collectivism.

It is only a short step from "should not exist" to "must not be allowed to exist." Instead of dismissing Stallman as a crank, it's time for the open source community to take his totalitarian ideas more seriously and to reject them categorically.

By forcing Microsoft to offer an unbundled version of Windows in Europe, the EU believes that it has increased consumer choice. Personally, having already made the choice to purchase Windows, I would just as soon have my media viewing habits subsidized by the putative monopolists in Redmond than put up with Real's annoying pop-up ads.

The EU looks at this normal market behavior and sees something pathological that needs reprimanding. The EU sees Microsoft doing everything it can to steer customers its way and decides that we consumers need protection lest we fall into the clutches of the evil monopolist, as if we were children.

In the dreary conventional view of economics shared by Richard Stallman's side of the open source world and some of his pundit fans, profits are akin to global warming: both are evil. By this logic, common corporate strategies for achieving profits - such as building a better mousetrap, making your brand a household name, or trying to keep the recipe to your secret sauce a secret - are inherently wrong. You see, it's just plain wicked for software developers to go out and create really useful solutions to a really hard problems, and then have the nerve to keep them secret so they can charge people money.

If it is not already evident, I think the quotes below from previous columns by the writer clearly expose his bias.

Later on, realizing that the despised "open source" was not going away, the free/libre partisans and their politically correct allies annexed the enemy term to their own and coined the lexicological monster "free/libre open source software" along with its ludicrous acronym FLOSS.

What's corrupt about Stallman's moral sloganeering is that he condemns the pursuit of self-interest by others in order to promote his own equally self-interested goal of replacing the free market by some kind of high-minded collectivism.

It is only a short step from "should not exist" to "must not be allowed to exist." Instead of dismissing Stallman as a crank, it's time for the open source community to take his totalitarian ideas more seriously and to reject them categorically.

By forcing Microsoft to offer an unbundled version of Windows in Europe, the EU believes that it has increased consumer choice. Personally, having already made the choice to purchase Windows, I would just as soon have my media viewing habits subsidized by the putative monopolists in Redmond than put up with Real's annoying pop-up ads.

The EU looks at this normal market behavior and sees something pathological that needs reprimanding. The EU sees Microsoft doing everything it can to steer customers its way and decides that we consumers need protection lest we fall into the clutches of the evil monopolist, as if we were children.

In the dreary conventional view of economics shared by Richard Stallman's side of the open source world and some of his pundit fans, profits are akin to global warming: both are evil. By this logic, common corporate strategies for achieving profits - such as building a better mousetrap, making your brand a household name, or trying to keep the recipe to your secret sauce a secret - are inherently wrong. You see, it's just plain wicked for software developers to go out and create really useful solutions to a really hard problems, and then have the nerve to keep them secret so they can charge people money.

Canonical was founded by the billionaire Mark Shuttleworth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth

He's basically putting up all the money for the operation on the vague hope that it will pay off someday. They really don't have a business model, just a really generous investor/CEO.

So... it's basically a charity based operating system.

Which raise the point, why is this douchebag
http://www.interopnews.com/news/is-ubuntu-selling-out-or-growing-up.html
writing an article about how the company is "selling out" by making some very small moves to make money off of an operating system they spend large amounts of money on, and give away for free?

It kind of pisses me off that random internet idiots who don't make software for a living call anyone who tries to a "sellout."

The article mentions that they are trying to recoup a small amount of the money they are dumping into Canonical by selling some proprietary software.

So what? I'm sick and tired of internet morons tearing apart people that actually have to work for a living. It's not enough that they give away most of their software for free and under an open source license, but if they charge for *anything*, if you develop one line of proprietary code and sell it to make a buck, some random jerkoff will mouth off at you about how "software wants to be free," and you're "oppressing" them with your price tag and your non-gpl license.

Free software isn't a business model. None of the distros that don't make you pay money *per install* make any money. Canonical loses money, Suse loses money. The only people who make money making operating systems do so by selling some proprietary code, or (as with red hat) devising schemes to make people pay money for shrink wrapped copies of open source code. Ubuntu has by far taken the least obnoxious approach, i.e. giving away most of their software, and letting you use their repository for free updates (which others don't do), but developing some proprietary stuff they let you buy separately.