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Michael Robertson Interview about Lindows
unclegus writes "I ran across this article talking about Michael Roberston and Lindows. Says a "Sneak Preview" will be available in a few weeks. Release 1.0 will be $100 for single user ..." Dan Gillmor, the author of it, has said that it appears to be the real thing - I'll be interested in getting my hands on it.
Fuck you, all of you motherfucking LambdaMOOers! Piss on you all!
Hello,
Consulting for several large companies, I'd always done my work on Windows. Recently however, a top online investment firm asked us to do some work using Linux. The concept of having access to source code was very appealing to us, as we'd be able to modify the kernel to meet our exacting standards which we're unable to do with Microsoft's products.
Although we met several technical challenges along the way (specifically, Linux's lack of Token Ring support and the fact that we were unable to defrag its ext2 file system), all in all the process went smoothly. Everyone was very pleased with Linux, and we were considering using it for a great deal of future internal projects.
So you can imagine our suprise when we were informed by a lawyer that we would be required to publish our source code for others to use. It was brought to our attention that Linux is copyrighted under something called the GPL, or the Gnu Protective License. Part of this license states that any changes to the kernel are to be made freely available. Unfortunately for us, this meant that the great deal of time and money we spent "touching up" Linux to work for this investment firm would now be available at no cost to our competitors.
Furthermore, after reviewing this GPL our lawyers advised us that any products compiled with GPL'ed tools - such as gcc - would also have to its source code released. This was simply unacceptable.
Although we had planned for no one outside of this company to ever use, let alone see the source code, we were now put in a difficult position. We could either give away our hard work, or come up with another solution. Although it was tought to do, there really was no option: We had to rewrite the code, from scratch, for Windows 2000.
I think the biggest thing keeping Linux from being truly competitive with Microsoft is this GPL. Its draconian requirements virtually guarentee that no business will ever be able to use it. After my experience with Linux, I won't be recommending it to any of my associates. I may reconsider if Linux switches its license to something a little more fair, such as Microsoft's "Shared Source". Until then its attempts to socialize the software market will insure it remains only a bit player.
Thank you for your time.
It looks impressive to me (so far)
No it doesn't. It looks stupid.
I really hope this project fails, because I'm positive that it's destined for failure, and failure is not something that I associate with linux.
I don't want to be wearing a linux shirt and have
someone say--"Hey that linux thing sucks! My version
crashes all the time!"
and I say, "What do you mean, what distro are you running?"
"Distro? What's that? I run Lindows"
Listen, I am All For Linux on the Desktop. As a matter of fact, I don't use windows for anything anymore. At all. My machine is 100% Multimedia Linux. But this Lindows thing that just appears out of nowhere sounds bad for the entire Open Source community. I'm sure it's going to fail, but I just hope it doesn't stain us on the way down...
We dance to all the wrong songs.
--Refused.
I hate to say it. I think competition would be GREAT on the desktop, but this won't fly.
Why? I'm a network admin and I wouldn't switch for ~$50/machine. What happens when one of our apps doesn't work? What happens when the VP of whatever gets a new widget and there is no driver? Now I'm supporting a couple of operating systems.
Also, what happens when an app is flakey. You think the vendor will support me when I'm running Lindows? Good luck! It sounds good in theory, but I just don't see it. One thing people need to realize is that the cost of software is very small compared to support and other things. Saving ~$50/machine is not a big deal. Sure, you may save a lot if you buy 10K machines at a time, but if you do you can get some good deals from other vendors as well.
I think the OpenSource community will have much better luck with a *GOOD* Office type application, not so much on the operating systems. That's where the real money is spent. Since the OS comes on the system the price of that is usually overlooked, and low enough not to matter when a $100 competitor comes out. Give me a good supported Office app for $100 and I'll switch from my $350/user app.