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OpenLindows.com: Wherefore Art Thou?
Joe Barr writes "I ran across a curious website recently: OpenLindows.com. The name alone intrigued me. It gave rise to speculation about a weird mix of free-as-in-beer and free-as-in-speech alternative to the $99/year Click-N-Run software subscription offered by LindowsOS, the most Windows-like/proprietary Linux distribution out there. This is a
report on what I found, and perhaps even more importantly, what I didn't."
Let's pull this apart, shall we?
This is:
A free software, providing an alternative for people who don't want to pay for an alternate Operating system utilizing free software meant to emulate a common interface on proprietary software.
Tell me, if you are tech-savvy enough to get this to work (Even as beta as it probably is), what are you doing wanting the lindows interface?
My $.02 ($.03 Canadian)
This is informative? This should be -1, Troll.
Just because these guys choose not to run your idea of an uber-distribution does not mean that it's no good. These openlindows.com people should be commended for trying to bring the best of the linux community to the lindows buyers. Comments like: "UR dist SUXOR, debian RULEZ!!1!!|" are the worst thing about the linux community, and these kinds of comments should be viewed as what they are.
Was that OpenLindows was a small group (one guy?), maybe one person that didn't like the idea of having to pay for click-n-run to get many free applications. Open Lindows isn't going to take off because there's allready a website for that. www.debian.org And the few Lindows users out there that want to stick with it most likely can compile the software and so don't need OpenLindows. Nice idea though.
Set up webpage
Wait for developers to create product for you
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
But I think the poor chap who wrote this article found openlindows just a little too early.. Its nice of him to publicise them though, its a bit of a baptism of fire unleashing slashdot upon them so early :)
The name suggests a free version of lindows - functioning similarly. Cute but I feel sorry for the Lindows guys myself - mainly because I think they have the right idea charging for linux (to the masses, not those of us who know this type of thing) - if you know anything about marketing you will know that selling a product for free or dirt cheap price does not really equate to "trust" (and more sales) from the customers. Linux undoubtedly is currently "too good to be true" to many people who might consider the change from MS products.
"Why art though" is exactly what the article title is supposed to mean. We already know WHERE it is - it's at www.openlindows.com. Yeesh.
The thing is, lauguage evolves by errors that survive without being corrected. That is to say, if a misuse of the word gets used too much, dictionairies report that meaning has now been associated with the word, and adds it to the definition.
Seems to me the Lindows market is made up of non-expert users who either sick of Microsoft's inadequacies or saw a cheap PC in Walmart.
:/
Such a user is unlikely to discover apt, so sites like OpenLindows are somewhat redundant.
This does not mean I disapprove of their existence - it's nice for someone with the know-how to have the option and it's an indicator of Lindows' good faith that they keep that option open.
Myself, I wouldn't pay to download open source packages (other than donations) so, again, if you got yourself a Lindows box the option is there.
--
fuzzix posting anon. because of dodgy karma issues
"Wherefore art thou" is the most incorrectly used phrase I've ever heard.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Smart biz move, because here were their options:
A: Sack APT, and get a backlash from opensource land.
B: Allow APT to exist, but don't give it any easier interface than what it comes with standard. Those geeky enough to understand it may have it, but those same people are likely too geeky to want to buy Lindows anyway.
Lindows' product is a closed source program that makes Linux a bit easier to use, frosted with a distribution of the open source programs it attempts to help you with. If you know enough to work around Lindows anyway... then what are you doing with Lindows in the first place?
"Wherefore" means "why," not "where." When Shakespeare wrote, "Wherefore art thou Romeo?" he was saying, "Why are you 'Romeo?'" As in, "Why did you have to be born the son of my father's enemy?"
Well the article's been slashdotted, so all I have to go by is the submission itself. Given the author's comment about the site being OpenLindows, yet the OS is proprietary, I'd say his use of wherefore is bang on.
Couldn't take a moment to make sure your assumption wasn't ill based?
"Derp de derp."
Make Lindows run as something other than root, ludicrous to run as root with Linux.
I think this site is just a way of cutting their development costs.
I'm being serious here. The Linux community seems to think that mastery of the desktop is an automatic thing. Distros like Lindows, Xandros, Lycoris - these are all frowned upon for mimicing Windows. Why? Sure, in the last few years, Linux has become more of what it should be, but there is a large, untapped source of people that would be willing to use it on the desktop, but are put off by the inherent dislike Linux users seem to have for Windows users. Don't you want them to switch? Well, to tell you the truth, you seem intent on damaging your own future, like using Linux is the only way, and anyone else is stupid.
Windows sucks. I wish I could get off of it, but I still use it on a daily basis simply because it's what I know. I've been on MS since DOS 3.3, why is it a surprise that I, just like 90% of computer users out there - am just not comfortable with a community that assumes too much?
Linux is great, Windows sucks, tell me something I don't know, like why one distro likes my sound card and another doesn't without tweaking. Why I can print on yet another distro, but the first two can't even see my server.
Linux has a long way to go, just like Windows does. The difference is a basic usability in Windows that is intuitive for those of us that *only know* Windows. Sure, mom can use Linux (except for her bible stuff and her preferred Mah Jong app). Sure, if I wasn't taking care of two kids, I would probably have the time to learn Linux, but right now, I - and many many others - want to make the switch but get very little help from YOU. You even attack your own "approved" list of Distros. Mandrake lovers bitch about RH. Debian lovers hate them both. Where is the love?
The public relations strategy of LindowsOS seems to be to play to the general/Windows trade press and to ignore the Linux press. Given that their target audience is found among Windows users rather than those already using Linux, that may be not a bad plan. So maybe my query to Schwarzman went unanswered because of that reticence. Or maybe they just didn't want to say anything that might give OpenLindows more ink. That would make sense too.
I would imagine the silence might be more of a legal nature. I imagine lindows have trademarked lindows, so their PR guy might not have a statement untill their lawyers have figured out how to deal with openLindows.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
A big question of course, is why Shakespeare didn't instead say "Romeo, oh romeo, wherefore are though Montague?". Much clearer. I highly recommend this season's version of R&J at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.