Talk With Michael Robertson

Lindows CEO Michael Robertson is vilified by many Linux advocates. At the same time, he is probably drawing more attention to desktop Linux than anyone else in the world. Is he evil? Or is he just a typical American businessman trying to make it big (for the second time; before Lindows, he founded -- and later sold -- MP3.com)? One thing is for sure: Unlike many CEOs, he'll give a plain-talk answer to a straight question. We'll send 10 of the highest-moderated questions submitted here by Slashdot readers to Robertson tomorrow, and run his answers, unedited, as soon as he gets them back to us.

Comments

Putting Linux in the news

[moorg]

Love him or hate him, he's putting Linux in the news. Thats a Good Thing (tm).

I was able to install Redhat 9 on my parents computer this weekend because they started with conversation with "What's this Lindows thing?"

my.mp3.com

[jmayes]

my.mp3 was a great idea, and it should have survived in its earlier form
now it's just not the same to pay for everything, or to have most albums locked out
and it can't be grouped together with other p2p services like napster, kazaa, etc, because it wasn't really a useful tool for piracy
I remember a report that documented many of the security features that really helped to prevent piracy in the my.mp3 system
we know you aren't necessarily in the mp3 business currently, but do you have any plans or ideas to build a system like the old my.mp3?

Re:Lindows

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it was more of a 'make Linux look just like windows to get people adjusted to the OS' (and, therefore, not have any BSOD's or instability).

Re:What would change it all?

[HanzoSan]

This is the exact question I wanted to ask, but didnt have the words to ask it.

Thats exactly it, So far Lindows is focused on becoming as good as Windows, but it needs to be BETTER than Windows to compete with Windows, not just as good, BETTER.

So far Linux needs to improve the quality, stuff like the fonts, the lack of alpha channel, or hardware rendering, the lack of eye candy, the clickNrun is a good start, it helps with functionality, but Linux is missing that eye candy to make Linux unique in itself, cloning Windows is not going to make people switch.

Also Linux needs that killer appp to bring the masses, kinda like napster was the killer app to make people buy CD burners, or games was windows killer app, even macs have their applications which they do best

Linux needs to find its niche.

Why go with Lindows over Redhat.

[hackorama]

If I am a corporation wanting to standardize on a Linux desktop then I will want to make a bet on a company that has staying power. You abandoned mp3.com when it was clearly not going to make any money, what reason do I have for believing you will not to the same again?

Games and Office

[mao che minh]

I think that it would be a good idea for you to make partnerships with Codeweavers and Transgaming. You could bundle the CodeWeaver's plugin and WineX in a one year license, perhaps call it the "Lindows Extended Media Package". You could then sell a few popular Windows based games pre-installed with the system, as well as offer Microsoft Office support. This would make your Linux distribution much more desirable.

What do you think?

Delon Dotson

[imipak]

I once worked at a doomed dotcom in London. Shortly before it went titsup, we had a visit from someone calling himself Delon Dotson. He claimed to have be co-founder of mp3.com and to have a patent on SSL. In fact, he claimed he received a royalty for every SSL transaction, to which we smiled superciliously and said we doubted it, as we used OpenSSL ;) Cut a long story short, we sent him packing. So, was this bloke for real? Or just a figment of our fevered boom-era brains?

nope, he's wrong

[Ender Ryan]

I know that! But what the hell does that have to do with what Lindows is doing now? That's not their focus NOW, if the question was asked back THEN, it would be relevent.

Re:Lindows

[grammar fascist]

I thought it was more of a 'make Linux look just like windows to get people adjusted to the OS' (and, therefore, not have any BSOD's or instability).

Funny. I've been using XP for over half a year now both at work and at home, and haven't seen a BSOD yet. I'm a software developer/3D artist, which means I punish the poor things. SQL Server 2000 + Gimp + GtkRadiant (with 200 MB of textures loaded) + two instances of VS .NET + a Quake 3 client AND server + miscellaneous browser windows and other crap doesn't kill it. I use RAM and CPU like I'm munching candy, and I'm still getting months of uptime.

Tell me, why should Lindows interest me? No BSODs? Don't make me laugh.

I use Linux for things that Linux is good at: firewalling, SMB (file and print), web services and mail, and getting it running reliably on cheap hardware with only a CLI.

Will you promise to play nice?

[dbreeze]

In light of the overall negative reception you and Lindows have had amongst the /. community to date would you take this opportunity to pledge your intent to be a reasonably good citizen of the open source community? Please elaborate to the extent and/or limit you view this responsibility.

No question, just a word of advice for roblimo

[h00pla]

Insist that Michael Robinson *really* answer these questions and not his publicist, Cheryl Schwarzman as often happens.

Don't really want to see it turn into the William Shatner interview, now, do we?

Re:Price, Quality

[casio282]

If this were true Microsoft's anti-competitive practice would be a non-issue, as would marketing budgets and distribution networks.

Real economics isn't this simple.

Re:Lindows

[NashDude]

Dude, make sure your XP does not have an Internet connection. If you have had months of uptime with your XP that means you have not put any of the security patches on lately. Good luck!