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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?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Especially Ubuntu.
It's funny, back in the day (I'm starting to sound like my father), when package based Linux distro's (Debian, Red Hat, Slackware) had just finished conquering non-package based distro's (Yggdrasil and others), one of the key points between the now age old "Red Hat vs. Debian" argument was that Debian's volunteer community would still be around when the corporation behind Red Hat sells out.
Even though Red Hat haven't (arguably) sold out, I still find this a major reason why I personally wont use Red Hat where possible because they could at a future point. But bigger than that, I actually find this an even more compelling reason to not use Ubuntu.
Red Hat has at least a history of good deeds towards the community. I can't confidently say that about Ubuntu with all the thunder they blatantly steal from the hard work of the Debian community.
The problem with corporately maintained distributions is that eventually the company can sell out and your left with... Fedora.
So you have to ask yourself next time your inserting that Ubuntu CD in to your CD-ROM, how far up the road will you let 'Shuttleworth the Piper' take you before you realise your standing on the edge of a cliff and it's too late to turn back?