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Sirtaj Singh Kang on Sunday 25 Sep 2005 05:26 wrote:

> 
> On Sunday 25 September 2005 04:02, Ritesh Raj Sarraf wrote:
> [snip]
>> Hope this helps most of you guys arguments about XXX company is bad
>> because they shipped linux without configuring it.
> 
> Sorry no, it doesn't help us. If the machine is shipped effectively
> without an OS, they should say so clearly. Anything else is called
> deceptive advertising.
> 
> Consumer perspective: Either you are getting a ready-to-use system, or you
> are not. If you were told it came preinstalled with windows, but it dumped
> you to an 8bit 640x480 VGA screen without drivers for any of the hardware,
> are you going to go "oh well, that served me right, I really should have
> expected that I'll need to hire an MCA to set this up for me"? I don't
> think so.
> 
> Linux/Open source developer perspective: They are misrepresenting the
> software we are providing to the world, and we have a right to make a
> noise about it. The value of our brands and trademarks need to be
> protected.
> 
> -Taj.
> 

That's a valid demand but not an easy task to do. Besides individual choices
a company also has to make sure that its product lives and succeeds in the
market. Free Software gives "choice", which is good but not uniform.
Something which is preferred by you isn't at all preferred by me. When I
bought my laptop, it came shipped with Mandrake Linux, which I'm sure you
like, but wasn't my preferred choice. So what do I do, say that the company
is evil that it doesn't provide me the freedom to choose the distribution
of my choice. No, certainly not.
I really get surprised when people start shouting that Red Hat is evil
because it changed "Red Hat" to "Red Hat Enterprise Linux".
Just by selling Documentation you can't survive. Engineering requires
resources and money.

GNU/Linux is still not a single entity. Any vendor prefers a SPOC to work
with. That's one reason why Microsoft succeeded. None of the Unixes in the
early 90's had a common standard. So if a vendor was to support Unix, he
had to support multiple variants and work with multiple vendors. And that's
the same case we're facing today again. If we really need to fix such
issues, we need to "fast" and "properly" work on standardization (stuffs
like LSB 3.0, LCC et cetera)

BTW, whatever distribution ACER shipped with its laptop, does it cover
support ? If yes, bug them.

rrs
- -- 
Ritesh Raj Sarraf
RESEARCHUT -- http://www.researchut.com
Gnupg Key ID: 04F130BC
"Stealing logic from one person is plagiarism, stealing from many is
research."
"Necessity is the mother of invention."
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