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Linspire Signs Patent Pact With MS
RLiegh sends us to an AP article reporting that Linspire has signed a patent deal with Microsoft. The company, which started out life as "Lindows," joins a growing list of patent agreements reached between Microsoft and vendors. Linspire will be granted a license to use True Type Fonts and "various code" that would allow for Linspire users to use voice on Windows Live Messenger as well as the usual patent protection for Linspire's customers. In return, among other things, Linspire will make Microsoft's search engine the default search on PCs shipped with their OS. Kevin Carmony, the CEO for Linspire, approached Microsoft a year and a half ago, according to the article.
"We are the Borg. Resistance as you know it is over. We will add your biological and
technological distinctiveness to our own."
"Freedom is irrelevant. Self-determination is irrelevant.
You must comply."
Isn't it about choice? You can choose Linspire if you want to have those features in place. Or, you can choose another distro.
Or, are we going to say, "You are free to choose, as long as you don't make these choices?"
Most "Freedom of X" movements turn into extreme hypocrits at the point where someone decides to be exercise free choice in an opposing direction.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Isn't Ubuntu what you get if you start with Debian and then sell out?
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