On Mon, Jan 31, 2005 at 05:29:42PM +1300, Volker Kuhlmann wrote:
> Billy-Encartas are selling. People are willing to hand over their money
> for something they can't download for nothing. If their was a
> Linux-Encarta right next to it and otherwise identical, I doubt the
> proportion of Linux users who would pay up is nearly as high. Why?
because us older linux users are smart enough to realize that we can get
all that info off the net (whitness wikipedia, any project of that size
will be net based (although someone could package wikipedia into an
offline version, but why bother?)), and because we are so used to not
having this software that we don't miss it.
> It's a hindrance to general Linux acceptance because those who would
> pay will say "This Linux thing, well, can't even get an encarata for
> it, me thinks we'll stay in Redmond"
isn't a problem here also that people expect to have the same program on
linux (not just an equivalent?)
> Ok so it's not ideal to not have "freedom" with some software. You know
> what *really* sucks? Not to have software at all. And there's a heck of
> lot of that still.
is there? this is an issue of choice. some of us choose to only use free
software. don't blame us for the lack of non-free software for linux,
and don't ask us to do something about it either.
my computing needs are met with free software.
i have no interest in spreading linux for the sake of advancing linux. i
do have an interest in spreading free software for the sake of advancing
free software. those goals are orthagonal.
greetings, martin.
--
offering experience: sTeam, caudium, pike, roxen and unix sysadmin
doing: programming, training and administration. anywhere in the world
--
pike programmer travelling and working in europe open-steam.org
unix system- bahai.or.at iaeste.(tuwien.ac|or).at
administrator (stuts|black.linux-m68k).org is.schon.org
Martin B�hr http://www.iaeste.or.at/~mbaehr/
