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LindowsOS Softens Microsoft-Compatibility Claim
jukal writes: "As seen originally at newsforge: On Friday we reported the appearance of Microtel PCs with LindowsOS pre-installed at Walmart.com. Then, Walmart.com and Lindows were claiming that LindowsOS 'delivers the stability of UNIX with the ease of Windows and the ability to run most Microsoft programs.' Today, that last phrase has gone missing and there is no more talk of running any programs designed for Windows, let alone Microsoft products"
actually, honestly expect that phrase to last?
I am surprised that the MS lawyers weren't over then in minutes.
-- You don't shoot to kill, you shoot to stay alive.
"most Microsoft programs"
How long before "most Microsoft programs" have little bits of code added to shot them working on anything but offical microsoft windows.. that really would be the end of lindows
Cruise TT
Promises one thing... delivers another. Its well on the way to MS territory already! ;)
Is it just me, or is giving linux to the consumer this early a bad thing? I'm sure Lindows is great and all, but your average Joe buying a PC from wallmart for $700 is NOT going to want to run linux applications, much less deal with managing the OS. I still think linux (or in this case Lindows) has a long way to go.
Am I wrong? Do people that buy PCs from walmart frequent this site?
Go here for teh [sic] funny.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
i mean seriously, there's no way they could've gotten away with that kind of campaign.. MS would've tied them up in litigation just for using the word windows with a capital W until their money ran out and they went bankrupt. On the good side, Wal-mart isn't really afraid of Microsoft, so Wal-mart is in the unique position of being able to weather MS's wrath and make an offering of something like Lindows... now if we could just get them to package something decent like a BSD variant and KDE3, and build the computer out of lots of translucent brightly colored plastic, we might have some appeal. Go after that Mac market!
I think the new wording is better, and perhaps a bit more accurate for two reasons.
:-)
;-), but Linux doesn't have as difficult of an aura around it. Thus, it is more accurate, and also more likely to sell to the ordinary computer user.
1. It doesn't accidentally promote windows products or even microsoft products. It lets you know that Lindows is a completely new OS, but it "delivers the stability of Linux with the ease of Windows." As well, it now lets you know that instead of having to return to the old Windows products, which were known to be buggy. There are new products made specifically for Lindows that will fit your needs (Which may or may not be buggy, but there is the chance that they aren't). This is the first really good reason for the change, because now a new user will feel that instead of just getting another computer like the rest of the world, he's riding the wave of a "exciting new OS".
2. As well, now it is more accurate. Originally it used a lot of terms making it appear as though Lindows was a UNIX operating system, when it is really a Linux one. This would deter customers since UNIX has a sorta connotation of difficulty to it for newbies (who have just kinda heard of it from users who just touched it and saw commands like egrep, col, ls, and wc
To be honest, their new wording is considerably better then the old one. IMHO.
~ kjrose
"And the people buying PCs from Wal-Mart....Need to run Linux? Their boxen would get r00ted faster than people who didn't patch their apache yet."
Uh huh, and just last week you were complaining that these same people are zelots and run windows because its spoon fed to them. Why don't we just kill them and forget the whole thing? Oh wait, that would be mean.
--Should work--
Since the link is broken in the article, the full phrase is:
"The low cost alternative to computers preloaded with Microsoft Windows. These PCs ship with an exciting new Linux based Operating System (OS) named Lindows. This exciting new OS delivers the stability of Linux with the ease of Windows and they include a trial membership to a library of over 1,000 software programs so they can be outfitted for any purpose whether business, home, or entertainment."
The link
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
Evil ZEN Scientist
Correct as written - there's no phrase explicitly about being able to run Windows applications. ..but is it sinister? Or just a precursor step to keep Microsoft from bashing the living hell out of any merchant agreement they might have?
It will run "most Microsoft programs"....
The phrase had to be removed, because not even Windows can run "most Microsoft programs".
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -Tom Waits
It isn't here. The text is as Newsforge ("read the page source, Luke! Read the source!" - the link that Slashdot's mangled is http://newsforge.com/newsforge/02/06/18/1344258.sh tml?tid=23 ) claims it to be.
KMSMA (WWBD?)
Wait, with XP and the ability to get raw socket access, we're in trouble anyway.
OT, but here we go. You know, with the increasing ease of creating a worm or a virus that can take over a machine, kill routers, flood mailservers, etc., how long will it be before computers start getting treated like cars? i.e. They have their purposes, but you need to have a license to use one legally.
Frankly, I'm just waiting until this happens, or rather until someone at least proposes the idea in a bill. Of course, if the CBDTPA passes, we essentially wouldn't have computers anymore anyway.
And yet despite that, we've already got plenty of people raising the possibility that it's due to evil legal manuevering by Microsoft. Sometimes I wonder just how paranoid some of the Slashdotters out there really are.
(Disclaimer: I'm secretly receiving money, women, and youth rejuvenation treatments from Microsoft in exchange from posting pro-Microsoft comments here. I've also been instructed to bribe both RMS and Linus into joining our organization.)
No, I doubt many people who buy prepackaged comps from walmart actively follow /. However, what I do think is great is that the concept of linux is being offered right next to the Blue Light Special on aisle 5. Seriously, even if the "W" word is missing from the current marketing campaign, the fact remains that the hybrid-ish OS is widely available to people who may never have heard of *nix, or may have only heard of it in context with the "geek" community.
So long as Lindows remains in that sort of distribution circle, I have a feeling that more people are going to gain exposure, and even if touted as interoperable with most MS programs, most people only care about surfing websites, word processing, and gaming. So long as Lindows can perform with Win* on that regard, they should be fine; if the comparable cost of a PC pre-installed with "L" vs. "W" is low enough, it should be a success.
Hell, people may just be excited when they see that their fav porn sites pop up quicker. But for a moderate linux user (freebsd is my fav. os), I find that Mandrake is not hard to install or configure; anything easier than that will definitely have a mass consumer base. It's just a matter of keeping it on the shelves; I applaud the move of removing "Windows" from their promo, so long as they aren't going to get hosed for name-brand recognition entirely by doing so.
Never attribute to Hanlon that which can be adequately attributed to Heinlein.
Why was this posted in the Linux category? This has more to do with Microsoft than Linux.
I'm no elitist (see, I didn't even spell it right), but I totally agree. I work in a computer retail store that is on campus at a rather large southeastern university that is trying very desperately to move away from it's former Agriculture days and into the Tech society (they even changed thier name to reflect this). Nonetheless, day after day I deal with this: Them: "Uhm, I like, uhm, need to by some like, um, ink for my like, um, printer?" Me: "Allrighty, what sort of printer to you have?" Them: *pause, widen eyes* "Uhm. Uh, uhm. Uh. It's like, uhm, Beige?" And of course who can forget the myriad of people who walk in and say: "Uhm, uh. I'd like to uhm, by a copy of Microsoft Windows Office Word XP Mellenium Edition Home Pro 2000?" One day, in absolute frustration, I asked this customer, "Would you ever consider walking into a car lot and asking for a 'Toyota Lexus Marquis Miyata Ranger Jimmy'?" Thank Zaphod he had a sense of humor.
Why do I M2 everything negatively?
Does anyone know if they make the sourcecode available online and if so where? Under the GPL they could probably make it available "upon request", but I hope they're being nicer about it than that.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The new wording is more accurate, but not stating it runs Windows apps will be a killer for many sales. This box is meant for Joe Enduser, who probably has never heard of Linux, and thinks Windows is the greatest OS around. All he really cares is if Word, Quicken, and Quake 3 will run on it. Most users don't want thousands of applications, they want the 2 or 3 they use. While this is a great line for geeks, that isn't the market for the PC. I predict this line of PCs will last about 4 months before they are pulled or have Windows put on them unless the marketing is changed ASAP.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
what the?
He types the link thats in the story and works just fine, and gets modded up as informative?
Come on Moderaters, at least read the story if you're not gonna read the article first.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
"6) True love exists -- at the bottom of a liquor bottle"
So...that dead worm is True Love? [pokes it with a stick] Eeew. I think I'll stick with one-night-stands.
He types the link thats in the story and works just fine, and gets modded up as informative?
The link was originally broken when the story was first published, due to bad HTML. The editors have since corrected the link. The comment in question was posted while the link was still malformed, which explains why it was modded up.
SuSE and Mandrake, however, come pretty darn close.
You get the idea 8-)
do you still run it as root in the default installation? If so, it loses a key advantage over windows: stability and safety.
THat never made it into the shipping product. However, it was there in the prerelease sent out to reviewers, causing them to conclude that dr-dos wasn't yup the the task.
THis was a factor in the half-billion dollar settlement . . . though I thought that trebling ten per cent of the current market would have been a more interesting remedy . .
hawk
As some other people said, selling Lindows can be damaging to the public image of Linux. Maybe it won't be that damaging, or maybe many people won't buy it, but it will be a little damaging. I think they would do a much better job using a easy-to-use distro, like Mandrake or Lycoris, simplify it so they don't confuse users (remove GNOME or KDE, etc), and bundle it with CrossOver Office. That way, they could market the fact that it runs Word, Excel, and Powerpoint (crossover doesn't run Outlook and Access very well), and also market the fact that its Linux.
that's why lindows is using it's lamer click-n-run application library, so your average user won't have to deal with any complexities of software installation.
by the way, in a few years from now all OS's will be almost unrecognizable compared to today. don't expect MS to stand still while linux makes progress, they will have revolutionary changes too, and windows XX will probably be the first os to get the annoying file system out of the user's way - I figure *nix won't ever go that route and that will turn out to be a mistake.
"I know a genuine Panaphonics when I see it. And look, there's Magnetbox, and Sorny!"
Anyone consider the fallout from this when a few hundred Walmart shoppers rant about how Linux is a cheap rip-off of Windows? Lindows may end up being a huge propaganda loss for Linux.
If Lindows is not windows compatible, then what are users paying for? Why not just put Mandrake (or other desktop-friendly distrib)?
Lindows (tm)
"Our name sounds like Windows and starts with an 'L'. We are clever."
Software Wars
You make a pretty good point. I don't think these Lindows machines will do a great job of breaking the stranglehold on Microsoft because the AOL client only runs on Windows and Mac, as far as I know.
However, if AOL were to get a Linux client working and made some sort of deal with Walmart using these machines, it could become a very, very good business model for both AOL and Walmart.
Then the less tech-saavy people can have a cheap computer without the MS tax and still go online with an ISP they know.
Rather than Walmart trying to push their own ISP, if the average Joe saw a PC for cheap and an AOL deal included with it, it might be an even more attractive buy.
I guess that the rumors for some time have been that AOL would like to free itself from Microsoft's desktop, and this might be a way for them to do it.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
When Wal-Mart also sells OS-less PCs right next to the Lindows PCs? If you want to install an illegal copy of Windows you can just buy a box with nothing on it.
Hmmm, I wonder about the company image. In fact, I also wonder about the sales potential. Living in San Diego, I've had the joyous experience of seeing Michael Robertson drive around in his porsche with his "MP3 COM" license plate. That about as much I've seen of him in the community, literally or on-line. I see two issues with Lindows.
1) It doesn't seem to have any linux community support. Outside of the lindows.com site, I haven't seen one positive statement. That is, it looks to be more of a land grab by Mr. Robertson (ala mp3.com) than a worthwhile company to promote a viable alternative to Microsoft. What I'm saying is that what with the outlandish claims of "WINE just needs capital to be pretty much fully Windows compatible in under 2 years", Lindows screams "fly-by-night" to me.
2) The business model is: For maybe $100 less per workstation, we will give you an OS that will mostly do what you want it to do. Now, this might appeal to the home market, but most businesses that I've worked with would rather pay the extra money to have something that works. Arguments that Microsoft doesn't work is crap, it runs Excel which everyone and their brother has a plug-in for.. now if Reuters would work under Open Office. . . but then, when someone wants to write a program, they write for the biggest audience, not a posix compliant OS with a really slow Java front end. Solve the issue of compatibility and yes, you have gold. Solve it only 75% and what you have is worthless.
--paul
This comment is guaranteed*
*not guaranteed
If you read the article or check Lindow's site you'll notice the part about they're Click 'N Run warehouse. With a $99/year membership you can get any software out of it you want. When you buy Lindows you get three free downloads to start.
.debs and install them yourself, (2) you can of course get the tools to make the software yourself from source, or (3) you can get it from the warehouse. Now why would you want to do that? Because it's "one click and you're up and running." No worry about configuration or install scripts. Considering this, I think Lindows is justified in charging for the software since they really are adding something of value (convenience) to the end user. Linux geeks can still install the software the old fashoned way too.
The whole Click 'N Run Warehouse confused me when I first read about it. $99 a year to download essentially GPLed applications? If you check the warehouse, you'll notice most of the applications there are the sort that you'll usually find included in any large distrobution. Everything from gcc to OpenOffice is there. Now why in the world would you pay $99 a year to access applications that are already free? Well, that was my question, so I emailed Lindows and they responded promptly saying that: (1) Lindows is a debian based distro, so you can download
Who said Freedom was Fair?
Check the license requirements on your Windows software. You may well find that you are *not licensed* to use it on anything but a Microsoft Windows operating system.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Uhm takin' this thang back ta Wal-Mart. Sheeit!
Probably the worse course of action Lindows has taken so far is ignoring the development community that has made Robertson's 1/2baked idea possible. I especially love the idea of repackaging OSS programs and charging for them. Great model guys, let me know when you will be auctioning off your equipment and office furniture.
Except that WINE is an emulator. It certainly meets the definition of emulator.
Dinivin
(silence)
Despite all this elitist bitching, total dumb anti-computer types don't buy no-name PCs. They buy Dell or Compaq or IBM because they know these companies.
People who buy ultra-cheap no-name PCs know what they are doing - at least to the extent that they know that they will need to pirate Windows if they have to run Windows-programs.
I've seen the AOL-icon on some Lindows-screenshots, so maybe AOL does work just fine in Wine/Lindows?
You know the technology well now, so you think it is the 'natural' way for things to work. It's not. If I want my MP3's in my 'Shared' folder, but also want them in my 'Music' folder - what do I do? Do I make duplicate copies of several gigs of files? That's stupid. What I want is for single copies of the files to be available from both locations. There's nothing wrong with 'folders' as an organizational metaphor, but as a rigid file system it blows goats.
With your "Documents -> Marketing -> Presentations -> BigAssClient -> VeryImportantProject" example, maybe I want the file to be accessible under my 'Resume Projects' folder, my 'Power Point Presentations' folder, my 'Recent' folder, etc. but have only one actual version of the file, so that I open it from one location, save changes, and the next time I open it from another location it has those changes since it's not a physically separate file. See some uses for that?
CBDTPA? what is it? how about a link?
CBDTPA stands for Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Protection Act, and is the formal version of the original SSSCA bill. The seemingly innocent name hides the horrible truth of the bill; it would require copy control devices in every digital device; from your computer to your camcorder to door locks on hotel rooms. The bill is authored by Senator Fritz Hollings from South Carolina, who receives a very large contribution each year from the major media companies like Disney, Viacom, and News Corp (Fox).
You can read more about this atrocious bill and ways to fight it at the EFF Action Alert site.
If this bill disgusts you, call your members of Congress today!
Your second example works too with symbolic links. However most people have a "way" of organizing stuff. They tend not to think in different organizational structures every time they access a computer. It's akin to people sorting they socks by colour. It's weird, but most people I know (not geeks) do have quite a good concept of what is in their "My Documents" (but not beyond...). They eiter have all files cluttered in one directory with huge filenames describing the content or they have folders classifying about anything. Most people classify...
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
I cannot find a way to download the OS from the site without signing up for the $99 membership.
They are selling GPL software, are they not compelled to have a free download available?
emulate
:-) Emulation doesn't necessarily involve imitating hardware :-)
3. Computer Science. To imitate the function of (another system), as by modifications to hardware or software that allow the imitating system to accept the same data, execute the same programs, and achieve the same results as the imitated system.
how i love semantic hairsplitting.
Me too!
Dinivin
how long will it be before computers start getting treated like cars?
As soon as using your computer recklessly can kill someone.
-Erik
As soon as using your computer recklessly can kill someone.
In this day and age, taking down a large corporation's mail server could probably put you in a hotter pot of water then a hit-and-run could; you could certainly face more fines from the former than the latter.
If Lindows ships with the source included (or if they provide some other means to get it for the cost of distribution), then they have no obligation to make it available for free download. They can charge $1M for downloads if they like. Of course, people who bought Lindows can make it available for download, at whatever cost they like.
That being said, I have no idea whether Lindows includes the source or not.
I'm sure glad they cleared up that ambiguous full term by parenthetically including the unambiguous abbreviation.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
From the article:
After that the users are encouraged to sign up to access the thousands of applications available in the warehouse for $99
Yup, all the stability of Linux with all the sense you are getting screwed we've come to appreciate from Windows. Excuse me, but paying $99 to have access to free software is just a little ridiculous. Basically seems like they are taking advantage of people who don't know any better. Nice business model, eh?
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
And if that is true, will the name change as well, or will the Lindows folks work harder on FUD than on having the OS run Microsoft apps?
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
Absolutely not. An imprecise summary of the GPL rules --
1. Don't take credit for what you didn't do.
2. If you provide somebody a binary, you have to provide the source to them as well (if they ask) for a nominal fee (at most).
3. If you received software under the GPL, and you redistribute it, you must provide them the same rights and obligations you received.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Common misconception if I am not mistaken. You are allowed to sell GPL software all you want. However, you cannot stop people from redistributing it. So, if your friend buys Lindows, you can install it on as many computers as you want, legally under the GPL. Also, they are required to provide access to the GPL'd source.
Lindows may also employ proprietary parts that are not directly linked in with the GPL parts of the code, and Lindows is not required to release that freely or with source at all, assuming it isn't GPL'd.
Then again, I'm not a GPL expert.
will run Certain Certified Microsoft Programs.
I agree that running as root is a Bad Thing(tm). However, the vast majority of people are still running Win9x so it's not a tremendous stretch.
I agree that Lindow's policies can alienate some users. However, the target market is composed of people who largely would not have ever tried Linux anyway. (Let em get thier feet wet!) So... getting Linux into thier hands will at least expose them to it and maybe garner a few more users for Linux. They will probably graduate from Lindows to a more mainstream Linux distro.
Not exposing these potential users to Linux is a You get Nothing from Nothing proposition. Exposing them to Linux will generate a larger userbase. It's guerilla marketing sort of but... maybe it'll have a long term positive effect. We already know it's gonna have a short term negative effect.
Bottom Line: Many users want to be spoonfed.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
In this day and age, taking down a large corporation's mail server could probably put you in a hotter pot of water then a hit-and-run could
This is ridiculous. First, anyone who can drive a car can assault and kill another person with that car very easily. Taking down the mail server of a corporation big enough that the damages you would do would outstrip murder or manslaughter is something that requires significant knowledge.
Secondly, in no way shape or form do monetary damages to a corporation compare to maiming or killing an innocent person. It doesn't matter how much money is involved, any resonable person can see that murder is a far serious offence than what amounts to corporate vandalism.
-Erik
Try, "Most Linux programs won't run on Windows, Microsoft must be dying." Actually they are, but that's beside the point. Lindows might just be enough for most people. When they get tired of it or it has problems, we can be sure that someone will be good enough to put Debian on it. Oh yeah, that will kill Micrsoft. Oh well.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I think his point was that the punishment does not fir the crime. Yes, it is worse to mow someone down with a car, but it seems like you get in more trouble for hacking a computer. IIRC, there was a story not long ago about getting more jail time for killing a dog than a person by way of sentencing guidelines...
Murphy was an optimist.
"Maybe they will also thrown in that, "Lindows just works more like my Brain does."
Ouch! Be sure to cast your spokesman correctly, you don't want Robin Williams saying that!
"Derp de derp."
You *are* kidding, right? You must be a troll. Ah well, I'll bite.
There have been two times (count `em), when Apple had to stop supporting old hardware. First, when they went from 68K to PPC. Even with emulation, Apple had to cut the cord some time. Mac OS 8.1 was the last that ran on 68K hardware. And that wasn't too long ago. Then we had the Mac OS 9 version. Apple released Mac OS X, which runs on hardware that's 3 years old. They did the best they could, but you need a bit of power to play the graphics games that OS X does.
Except for Linux, I can't think of many OSes that have as good of sustainability on older hardware than Mac OS.
Wrong.
Walmart has sold OS-free PCs for several months now.
Obviously somebody has bought them, otherwise they would have been discontinued by now.
Somebody who buys OS-free PCs knows what an OS is, that it has to be installed etc.
So obviously your statement "These machines aren't destined to be a big hit." is wrong as the OS-free PCs seem to sell quite well.
This elitism on slashdot is starting to annoy me. The average computer user knows very well what an OS is and can understand the concept of Lindows not being 100% compatible. Yes, there are people who don't, but those are clearly much, much BELOW average and don't shop cheap no-name computers.
When Apple's $300 OSX box comes out, I'll be first in line to buy one. Until then, I'm afraid JQP is stuck with commodity HW and free SW. Guess he'll survive somehow.
The point is that a major company is vending computers (aside from those in China with Red Flag) with a Linux variant preinstalled for the masses. Even if people say, 'screw this lindows shit" and install Windows, the name is getting out there. Five years ago I didn't know a thing about AMD, but now I run a Duron in my main box. You don't start at the top.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Windows doesn't even run Microsoft products.
"Where is the free version of the LindowsOS Distro? (Score:3, Troll)"
I think this is the first time I have ever seen Score:3, Troll in my life. If this had been a serious attempt at trolling my hat would be off to you.
In the worst case, the customer will do the same what he would do with an OS-free PC, in the best case the customer will use Lindows and be happy.
If there is a market for OS-free PCs (and there is), there is also a market for Linux-preinstalled PCs.
That was my point.
Your third point addresses the issue. No, lindows does not have to give you the binaries for free, but I believe that anyone who has the binaries CAN redistribute them for free, provided they also make source code and GPL license terms available.
I'm $o fucking $ick of people writing Micro$oft and Window$. If you ba$tard$ $tart writing lindow$ too I think I'll be $ick.
It's a general design decision. Should a file be known to the OS by it's location on a physical disc? Or should it just have some unique identifier which isn't disc-specific?
It seems clear that if you planned it out ahead of time, you wouldn't choose to make the physical location of the file its unique identifier. That approach doesn't offer any advantages I can think of, other than it was easy to build at the time.
What happens to shortcuts when you delete the original file? The shortcut doesn't know about the event and continues to point somewhere useless. Same if you move the file. That doesn't make much sense from a user perspective. From a conceptual perspective, you pointed the shortcut to a FILE, not to a disc address. I don't know what happens to symbolic links, do they handle this case any better?
There have been two times (count `em), when Apple had to stop supporting old hardware.
Make that five. 5.something was the last to run on the Fat Mac (512 KB of RAM). 7.5.5 was the last to run on black-and-white 68000 machines, 68020 machines, and 68030 machines without the latest version of soldered-on ROM chips (i.e. "32-bit dirty" ROMs). 7.6.1 was the last to run on 68030 machines. Then you mentioned 8.1 and 9.x (last for 68040 and pre-G3 respectively).
Except for Linux, I can't think of many OSes that have as good of sustainability on older hardware than Mac OS.
What about the BSDs? What about MS-DOS (for classic games)?
Will I retire or break 10K?
You may well find that you are *not licensed* to use it on anything but a Microsoft Windows operating system.
You assume that Microsoft EULAs are completely enforceable. Don't be so sure of that. To be enforceable, a contract must be legal, and as alienw mentioned, monopolistic product tying isn't. In addition, a contract must require both parties to give something up, such as money or rights. (In legalese, this is called "consideration.") In the United States, a EULA doesn't give the user any rights that 17 USC 117 and other applicable law doesn't already give the user.
Where's the beef? In particular, where's the consideration that would validate an agreement forbidding a user from using a Microsoft Windows application with LindowsOS or any other Wine distribution?
Will I retire or break 10K?
What ever happened with Lindows and their source code?
I seem to recall discussions that they hadn't released GPL covered sourcecode because they were "still in beta testing". It doesn't matter weather that claim was legitamate or not because now they are clearly distribiting commercial executables. Is the source included or available?
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I don't think that walmart adding lindows to computers they sell is bad.
1.The average person that would by a buy a walmart computer is not going to be very computer savvy. They probably wont know the difference between windows and linux. What happens when that person buys windows software and assumes that it will run on his or her new computer?
True enough, but that also can be said of the next version of Windows(C)(R)(TM). I've got certified built for Win98 software that doesn't work for shit in XP, compatibility mode or no.
I think the fact that a company like Walmart is considering doing this at all is great for open-source in general, at least in the long-term. Yes, there will be some people who can't handle a change from Windows. Microsoft knows this all too well, and thats why Windows has had the same basic GUI since Win95. Whats more, this is the real first step to unveiling Linux to the masses, make no mistake about it. Sure, it won't be all roses, but it wasn't for Microsoft either, and look where they are these days - antitrust suits aside, I mean.
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its