The news is good but at least in Mexico HP has one of the worst technical support team.
I'm only speaking on my own experience. they usually know nothing about the problem I bring to them, they usually hang up the phone in the middle of a conversation and they usually disapear when calling again.
To tell you the truth I dont know if this has changed because long time ago I made up my mind not to work with HP and if somebody has HP hardware, then to try to solve the problem alone.
GPL does require you to do one of the followng 3 things:
1.- include the sources
2.- include a written offer, valid for 3 years to provide anybody who wants the sources for the cost of no more than the cost of putting the sources in the appropiate media
3.- only in the case of a free distribution, to accompany the offer you recieved to distribute the source code (I'm not shure if including a CD in a magazine as a value added ment to sell more magazines is considered a free distribution).
I think it's not valid to give a CD with binarys and not offering also a CD with the sources.
BUT this is not the most important part of all, what I think is they may confuse and miss the point of the free software and the only ones who will loose are the people in India, cause they will miss the point and be not well-informed.
At least I hope the magazine includes a printed copy of the GPL inside its pages.
I'm just wandering if they include the sources in a 2nd CDs with the magazine, or they offer everybody who wants the sources a way to aquire them, just as the GPL states.
It is good to have more people taking a look at Linux and other GNU and free software, but is not good to forget the license who made it possible in the first place.
Linux has gained enough momentum that everybody wants to jump in, but they will have to take it all the way just as it comes, and not forget half of the deal.
everybody (including me) will have to be careful reminding everybody else about it.
This is good of course, I don't want to sound sarcastic, but they are not the first large retailer to use Linux and Open Source in the world.
In México, there is a large retailer 189 stores with 6,000 employees called "Telas Parisina" who uses Linux, Postgres and Perl.
We choosed Linux not because of the price, but because the price/benefit ratio, we ended spentding a lot of money because we had to train our employees, develop our own code and do the needed things to connect ourselves with our suppliers, but it was money with a good justification.
I was the CIO and never, never used the word free (as is spanish "gratis") I always tried to show the performance part of the project, because I knew the CEO will always try to cut the assigned budget for the "computer projects", (you must understand that in Mexico not everybody is used to the computers and information technologies do not play such important role in the people's life than in the U.S.)
Today the project is a success, it allowed the business to grow from 40 stores to 189. And now I'm fixing a little biplane aircraft, and teach at the university in Mexico City, I seep well and I know that the CEO and the administrative people like me because of the results the Open Source has given (note that I don't work as CIO at Parisina anymore I only do consulting once in a while).
Please everybody be careful about how you say "it is going to be cheaper" because that is not the main reason of the free software after all, the main reason has to be: "it is better because we have full control by having the source code"
Slashdot Mirror
The news is good but at least in Mexico HP has one
of the worst technical support team.
I'm only speaking on my own experience. they usually know nothing about the problem I bring to them, they usually hang up the phone in the middle of a conversation and they usually disapear when calling again.
To tell you the truth I dont know if this has changed because long time ago I made up my mind not to work with HP and if somebody has HP hardware, then to try to solve the problem alone.
GPL does require you to do one of the followng 3 things:
1.- include the sources
2.- include a written offer, valid for 3 years to provide anybody who wants the sources for the cost of no more than the cost of putting the sources in the appropiate media
3.- only in the case of a free distribution, to accompany the offer you recieved to distribute the source code (I'm not shure if including a CD in a magazine as a value added ment to sell more magazines is considered a free distribution).
I think it's not valid to give a CD with binarys and not offering also a CD with the sources.
BUT this is not the most important part of all, what I think is they may confuse and miss the point of the free software and the only ones who will loose are the people in India, cause they will miss the point and be not well-informed.
At least I hope the magazine includes a printed copy of the GPL inside its pages.
I'm just wandering if they include the sources in a 2nd CDs with the magazine, or they offer everybody who wants the sources a way to aquire them, just as the GPL states.
It is good to have more people taking a look at Linux and other GNU and free software, but is not good to forget the license who made it possible in the first place.
Linux has gained enough momentum that everybody wants to jump in, but they will have to take it all the way just as it comes, and not forget half of the deal.
everybody (including me) will have to be careful reminding everybody else about it.
This is good of course,
I don't want to sound sarcastic, but they are not the first large retailer to use Linux and Open Source in the world.
In México, there is a large retailer 189 stores
with 6,000 employees called "Telas Parisina" who uses Linux, Postgres and Perl.
We choosed Linux not because of the price, but because the price/benefit ratio, we ended spentding a lot of money because we had to train our employees, develop our own code and do the needed things to connect ourselves with our suppliers, but it was money with a good justification.
I was the CIO and never, never used the word free (as is spanish "gratis") I always tried to show the performance part of the project, because I knew the CEO will always try to cut the assigned budget for the "computer projects", (you must understand that in Mexico not everybody is used to the computers and information technologies do not play such important role in the people's life than in the U.S.)
Today the project is a success, it allowed the business to grow from 40 stores to 189. And now I'm fixing a little biplane aircraft, and teach at the university in Mexico City, I seep well and I know that the CEO and the administrative people like me because of the results the Open Source has given (note that I don't work as CIO at Parisina anymore I only do consulting once in a while).
Please everybody be careful about how you say "it is going to be cheaper" because that is not the main reason of the free software after all, the main reason has to be: "it is better because we have full control by having the source code"