--- Phil Waring <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Okay. As luck would have it, LINUX, being very > poor, has not the clout > or $ to acquire codes required to run certain > hardware. So, who is hurt?
Linux is not a company. It is a community developed operating system. Nobody owns it. You have just as much freedom to offer your own contributions as anyone else. > Further, representations/documentation made by > vendors of code called > generically, linux, has been found to be often > incorrect and/or > insufficient. Some, if not all, such vendors > irresponsibly offer no > support or recompense, hiding behind legalese > "software agreements" or > bankruptcy. Again, who is the loser with respect to > the stated > situation? Can you provide some specific information about exactly what problem you are having? And which distribution you are attempting to install and use? > Rumblings have been heard about certain > remedies that have > been, might be, could be, have been, etc. sought > against a monopolistic > software vendor. The hardware codes that belong to > vendors, which have > been delivered, apparently, to Microsoft, have they > been delivered to > other vendors as well? Licensing hardware specs costs money. Microsoft has money. Specific Linux distribution vendors may have money, most do not. > Does Big Blue complain that > its unix or linux or > mainframe will not run certain hardware, or are > their fixes that the > public may not know about? No, IBM writes the code necessary to make it work on problem hardware, which is not a problem for IBM, as they make lots of hardware. IBM has lots of money too. IBM is bound by their agreement with the General Public License to share their modifications to the Linux kernel for free if they make those modifications available to the public, say as a product. > References on linux: Which version? Debian (http://www.debian.org). It is not produced by any Linux distribution vendor but instead the Linux community for free, so when it breaks, you won't have anything to complain about. > Do such > references offer a cookbook > to get included software up and running? If you are lucky. In most cases, no. You really should use Google to research the efforts of others who may have gotten your problematic hardware to run with Linux. > Let the > buyer beware. Speaking > of "books that do not work" (who wrote that stuff?), > historically,some > books have worked while others have not. Are you sure Linux is right for you? The first thing you should realize is that learning to install and use Linux can be difficult and sometimes exasperating. But as with all worthwhile things, effort is rewarded. I strongly recommend you read: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html ===== John Hebert 'cat /dev/random | perl' __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html
