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LindowsOS Softens Microsoft-Compatibility Claim

Posted by timothy on from the wise-move dept.

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"

31 of 411 comments (clear)

  1. How Long Before by JohnHegarty · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "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
  2. Quite similar actually by OpCode42 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Promises one thing... delivers another. Its well on the way to MS territory already! ;)

  3. A little too early by Iscariot_ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:A little too early by morgajel · · Score: 4, Insightful

      users come in waves. think of us as explorers, and these people as a wave of settlers. they don't know what they hell they're doing, but they're pretty sure there's a better life out there, and they're willing to try it.

      --
      Looking for Book Reviews? Check out Literary Escapism.
    2. Re:A little too early by rseuhs · · Score: 5, Informative
      You are wrong.

      PCs preloaded with Lindows are not replacing Windows-preloaded PCs (or well, not primarily), they replace OS-free PCs that Walmart already sells for quite some time.

      Lindows-PCs are perfect for those tasks IMO:

      • People who want to put their own OS on it (either an existing or pirated copy of Windows or Linux or something else)
      • PCs used only for email, web and simple office stuff. Yes, I do think that it's ready for grandma, too. It's preloaded after all and I assume they test their hardware against it, too.
      • PC terminals. For example at our universtity, there are tens of PCs used for administrative purposes (students can subscribe to courses, exams etc.) and all those PCs ever do in their whole livetime is run one browser-window that shows the institute's website. The only reason why those PCs currently run IE/Windows is because it was preinstalled.
      • Yes also *gasp* people who want to check out Linux and don't want to mess much with installation. The cheapest LindowsPC costs as much as a full retail copy of Windows XP pro. (300$) Hell, why not?

      Lindows costs not much if anything, I don't see a complelling reason NOT TO put it on PCs that would otherwise be sold without an OS.

  4. is this a suprise? by T.Monk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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!

    1. Re:is this a suprise? by analog_line · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sorry, we Mac users already have a highly functional, highly stable, and highly usable UNIX operating system that comes free when you buy the machine, that also happens to run most free software (beer or speech) you might want to use.

      Thanks for drinking Coke. Play again.

    2. Re:is this a suprise? by analog_line · · Score: 3, Insightful

      1. It's a brand name that hopefully, through the efforts of many people using it, will go the way of asprin and cease to be a trademarked brand name here (asprin is a brand name everywhere except the US).

      2. I certainly do pay for the operating system on my Mac. However, unless you can point out how much that is (not like Apple charges itself OEM licensing costs) or find me a way to buy a Mac new, without the operating system installed, and show the price difference, we'll talk.

      Apple is a hardware company. Iron (well, plastic too). Darwin is free for the taking if I want it. The only thing I pay some small amount for is the interface, which is certainly worth it to me. They don't slap extra charges for each bit of everything that comes with it. Here's what you get. Here's the price. Don't like it? Next customer please. They're in the game the same way IBM is (and they're using FreeBSD the same way IBM is using Linux). To get their iron out the door. A different class of iron, but iron nonetheless.

      Please get your head out of your rear. Apple isn't even trying to play the same game as Microsoft is with Windows, let alone compete. They don't want their OS to work on anything under the sun. The DO NOT WANT their operating system to run on your cheapo homebuilt machine, or your cheapo Dell, or your expensive homebuilt machine, or your expensive prebuilt machine, becuase they aren't getting money from the hardware, which is how they pay their bills, ya know?

  5. Kinda better wording actually. by MarvinMouse · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I think the new wording is better, and perhaps a bit more accurate for two reasons.

    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 ;-), 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.

    To be honest, their new wording is considerably better then the old one. IMHO.

    --
    ~ kjrose
    1. Re:Kinda better wording actually. by fruey · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Clearly, the wording had to go. They were setting themselves up for all sorts of trouble by trying to make the PC look like it was running some kind of "Free Windows"

      What I'd love to see is some kind of mass market push for a Linux system that is actually better than Windows for the users. The issue is really compatibility, as many newbie Mac users know when they get files from their Windows chums which won't launch on their machines.

      The moves are already there anyway. Having too high a %age of one OS is always going to be bad for cross platform compatible programs, since everyone is just *expected* to run Windows, as many of my clients gasp when I tell them I can't open their email because I run Linux on my desktop. People have cussed me for this, but until people like you and me take a stand then it's no good moaning that Linux doesn't support x, y or z. I can get good documents to clients, I can use open standards, and I will continue to do so. Linux doesn't need to be Windows binary compatible, and it has many advantages over Windows in terms of networking tools. I get all my software for free, learn way more, and have only about 5% time overhead for cross-platform tasks, whereas I save time with software like mutt, Opera, Apache and GIMP because I don't need the additional functionality of IE, Photoshop and Outlook. I'm not even going to gripe about Office suites. I do fine with Star Office and HTML as basic tools.

      --
      Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
  6. Re:And the people buying PCs from Wal-Mart.... by ScannerBoy · · Score: 5, Funny

    "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--
  7. The Full Phrase by sehryan · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.
  8. Broken link by ezs · · Score: 4, Informative
    http://newsforge.com/newsforge/02/06/18/1344258.sh tml?tid=23

    --
    Evil ZEN Scientist
  9. The phrase in question by Wingchild · · Score: 3, Informative
    Found here,

    Lindows is an exciting new Linux based Operating System (OS). This exciting new OS delivers the stability of Linux with the ease of Windows. These computer systems are a perfect low cost alternative to computers preloaded with Microsoft Windows.

    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?

  10. The Real Reason is... by idfrsr · · Score: 5, Funny

    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
  11. Re:And the people buying PCs from Wal-Mart.... by thesolo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  12. Claim was out there by Erasmus+Darwin · · Score: 5, Funny
    Linux emulation of Windows is making some impressive strides, but we all know that claim was a bit out there. Hell people commented on it back in the original story. John Q. Enduser wouldn't have been happy when his random, off-the-shelf Windows software didn't run on his new Lindows box.

    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.)

  13. Hmm by ins0m · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Hmm by jonadab · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I concur.

      This is a good thing. Most people have very vague notions about what Windows and Microsoft even are; the advertising campaigns have some of them believing that it's an important part of computing, but only because all computers seem to have these buzzwords "Windows" and "Microsoft" attached to them. Exposure to the idea that computers don't need these buzzwords is a good thing.

      In terms of user experience, users want to do a few simple things:

      • Send and receive email, without understanding anything about how email works. When someone sends them an image attachment, they want it to just display for them, and have a clearly visible "print" button. They also want to be able to exchange inane animated greeting cards (the ones spammers deploy to collect email addresses), so they'll need the Flash plugin. But they don't have even the foggiest notion what a "plugin" is, and they shouldn't have to.
      • Print stuff out. This means mostly pictures, bog-standard word-processing documents (letters, resumés, garage sale signs, ... nothing complicated), and the kind of thing people used to use Print Shop for in the 80s (mostly inane greeting cards with cheesy clip art, but these days they want to do this in color; banners are also popular). Printing pictures is no problem. Word Processing is no problem; Open Office is serious overkill for these people. The thing that remains in this category is the cheesy greeting-card/certificate/banner printing package, and I've discovered that people will crawl over broken glass to do this stuff. The software can be _horrific_ (a la Print Artist) and they'll _LOVE_ it. Quality is not necessary, and ease of use is really not important either, as long as it will let them insert stupid clip art and style bits of text with shadow and outline effects and stuff, and give them prefab templates to modify. Currently I don't know of a Linux app that fits this bill, but maybe that's because I wasn't looking.
      • Surf the web. This shouldn't be a problem. I've been deploying Mozilla for a while now at a public library, where the people who use it have no PC at home and know virtually nothing, and Mozilla works fine; I get very few complaints, and those I do get have to do with printing or with the difficulty of navigating certain sites.
      • Play silly little games. Not a problem. Give em a dozen kinds of Solitaire, Gnome Mines, Iagno, and a handful of others, and they'll be happy playing them quite literally forever. (Yes, there are also people who want cool games, new games, 3D shooters, and such, but those people are younger and know more about computers.)
      • That's pretty much it. Most people don't know they can do more than this with computers.

      I'm glad Wall-Mart is no longer claiming that LindowsOS runs most MS programs. Lindows was not ready for that claim. But Linux *is* ready, or very close to ready, for the consumer desktop, as long as it comes preinstalled and preconfigured. I worry just a little about the silly-greeting-card thing... developers don't do such inane things, and I don't know whether anyone has put together a Print Artist equivalent for Linux.

      --
      Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
  14. more accurate, but death for sales by dirk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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"
  15. Re:Nerd Never Gets the Girl :( by Psion · · Score: 3, Funny

    "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.

  16. Walmart woes by gad_zuki! · · Score: 4, Funny

    "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.

  17. Then why? by mshiltonj · · Score: 4, Informative

    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
  18. Click 'N Run Warehouse -- $99/year for GPL apps by jaaron · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    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 .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.

    --
    Who said Freedom was Fair?
    1. Re:Click 'N Run Warehouse -- $99/year for GPL apps by HiThere · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That's an interesting business model. I bet they let WalMart have the install for free, or possibly at cost (if manuals are included -- beyond the advertisements). Then they offer to sell all this software to people at really cheap prices. Yeah, it's free software, but:
      1) These people don't know how else to get it
      2) They make it really easy
      3) They give away free samples

      So people actually end up paying them $99 over cost for each machine sold. Whee!

      And people said there was no way to make money off of GPL software!
      :-)

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  19. Licensing by Moderation+abuser · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:Licensing by gorf · · Score: 4, Insightful

      License? What license? I don't recall ever signing an license...

  20. Lindows: Going Nowhere Fast by asv108 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    When Lindows was first announced, I thought it could be promising, but they took everything that is great about Linux and through it down the drain. Robertson is basically taking the MS approach towards software but doing under the reputation of Linux. One of the many reasons why people are moving to Linux is that their afraid of M$'s push towards a subscription model. Lindows should be capitalizing on this instead of trying to apply it to Linux. Lindows has some good ideas but the website is full of bullshit marketing claims that make Oracle ad's look trustworthy.

    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.

  21. Why doesn't Lindows just say... by Codifex+Maximus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.
  22. "The rest of us" ain't that rich by po8 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  23. Contracts require consideration by yerricde · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?