On Thu, 2002-07-11 at 11:31, Derek D. Martin wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > At some point hitherto, Paul Iadonisi hath spake thusly: > > 1) I refuse to pay full price for a piece of equipment that I'm > > not certain is 100% Linux compatible. (Winmodems+NonGPL Linmodem > > drivers != 100% Linux compatible in my book.) > > Why? You have a driver that works well, so why not use it? Why > should this be considered not Linux compatible? I would agree that > having a free driver would be better, but I don't understand the > sentiment of throwing out good software (or at least usable software) > just because it isn't free...
Dem's fightin' words, but I'll not pursue it. It's possible we just have a different set of values in a few areas, but this is an absolute must for me. To make it short, I stand more in the Richard Stallman / FSF camp than in the Eric Raymond / OSI camp. (Though I'm not 100% in either camp.) > > 2) I refuse to pay the Microsoft Tax and though it's possible to > > avoid that with desktops, AFAICT, it is impossible with laptops. > > http://www.tuxtops.com/ > > I'd be willing to bet they're not the only people who will sell > laptops without MS OS's pre-installed. I just don't care to do the > research. Note that they do charge for installing a linux > distribution... They also have an option to dual-boot Win2k, which > costs an extra $179. Thanks for the info. I'll check into it when I'm in the market for my next laptop. On that one, I stand corrected, but the input to IBM still stands, of course. Follow that example, and I'll be a potential customer of yours for a laptop. Otherwise, I wouldn't be interested. I'd have to do some statistics gathering first. For instance, are tuxtop's laptops more expensive *in general* to defray the cost of licensing Windows for *all* of the machines they sell? Or are they truly only charging more for those they sell with Windows? If they are generally more expensive, then I'd be suspicious that they purchase them all with a licensed copy of Windows and resell them without it if that's what the customer wants, but bump the prices of *all* their machines to pay for it. No accusations, just curious. I'm actually too lazy to do the research right now, since I'm not currently in the market for a new laptop. -- -Paul Iadonisi Senior System Administrator Red Hat Certified Engineer / Local Linux Lobbyist Ever see a penguin fly? -- Try Linux. GPL all the way: Sell services, don't lease secrets ***************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *****************************************************************
