Kevin Carmony has taken the heat from some in the FOSS community for offering non-free software in Linspire, and in particular, for attempting to lure the FOSS community into contributing to Linspire via Freespire. Don Parris spoke with Linspire's Kevin Carmony to learn more about his position. Are the community's accusations fair? What other options are there?
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Member since:2006-05-09
Member since:2005-07-22
Member since:2005-10-02
Why pay for a product, when you can get it for free legally?
Perhaps there is a market in USA with it's weird laws, but Linspire has nothing which isn't already on my Gentoo system or has an equivalent.
Most likely not all of that is legal according to US laws, but it's perfectly legal for me.
Freespire has worse video support than Gentoo or Fedora (if you use extra repositories for the latter one).
But I agree that PJ's post on Groklaw was somewhat overdramatized. However, I'm deeply surprised to see anyone actually reacting on her post. She just had a bad hair day or something.
Member since:2006-05-09
Member since:2005-08-28
I'm not one of those folks who get red in the face when linspire is mentioned, honestly I don't care that much either way about them. that said, your post seems representative of the idea that "market share" is what we should be after, not bringing free computing to the world (I wanted to rephrase that to be less melodramatic sounding, but you get the idea...)
saying we want a whole lot of people using linux so that we can have quicken, photoshop, office_whatever, etc., seems to be missing the point to me. why not just use windows then, or get a lower end mac?
we want folk using linux, bsd, free_whatever_os, etc., (though they're also free not to of course, it goes both ways) because we actually care about being able to do with your software what you want it to do, in terms of technology, legality, and ethics, and not be shackled to the whims of a license of some corporate intellectual "property" which will dictate how you may, and may not, use your own computer in all it's various components.
maybe none of this matters to you, but I doubt the thousands of free softare hackers that have spent their own time making systems like linspire (and fedora, and suse, ...) possible didn't do it just to make those few companies CEOs and shareholders rich of off their (often unpaid) labour.
Member since:2005-08-15
But isn't saying that one should only use Open-source software the same as saying one should only by from this or this vendor? I for example want linux (and I use it), but I certainly don't like the fact that I can't play some games. There are some good proprietary sollutions, and while a market dominated by one proprietary software maker is a big problem, a non-monopolistic market with a lot of options isn't that bad either. Linux shows this completely, why are there so many distro's? because there are so many tastes, sure one distro would be better for now, since we have a monopolist, but take that away, and most of the problems will be solved. Besides: anyone IS using non-proprietary-non open code or formats, look in the multimedia area.
Member since:2005-07-13
saying we want a whole lot of people using linux so that we can have quicken, photoshop, office_whatever, etc., seems to be missing the point to me. why not just use windows then, or get a lower end mac?
we want folk using linux, bsd, free_whatever_os, etc., (though they're also free not to of course, it goes both ways) because we actually care about being able to do with your software what you want it to do, in terms of technology, legality, and ethics, and not be shackled to the whims of a license of some corporate intellectual "property" which will dictate how you may, and may not, use your own computer in all it's various components.
See, there's the dichotomy of this whole issue. For people to experience freedom you're basically saying choice should be taken away from them.
Linux or any other *nix has much to offer users as an OS platform, why should the ability to use high quality commercial applications be exclusive of that just because they're closed source or proprietary?
I guess it boils down to whether you see OSS as a means to an end, or you simply see FSF as the end unto itself.
I won't begrudge people that insist on pure software freedom, that is certainly their right but by the same token, I think that same sector of the community needs to come to grips with the fact that closed-source and OSS are going to have to learn to co-exist for the forseeable future.
At the end of the day, I believe people should pick the best tool for the best job. Whether that means using GIMP on WinXP or Photoshop on Suse, people should be able to choose. Take that choice away from them and force them to use something they don't feel is appropriate for them and things start to break down.
maybe none of this matters to you, but I doubt the thousands of free softare hackers that have spent their own time making systems like linspire (and fedora, and suse, ...) possible didn't do it just to make those few companies CEOs and shareholders rich of off their (often unpaid) labour.
No, but the companies like IBM, or Nokia, or HP, or Novell etc. that have made massive investments in linux, whether in terms of R&D, code contributions, licensing or patent indemnification, may feel a little differently. Particularly since without their contributions, linux likely could not have reached it's current point of development.
People contributing code to OSS and licensing it under the license of their choice, whether GPL, BSD whatever should be doing so with both eyes open. For-profit organizations can contribute code to linux knowing that the GPL prevents that code from being appropriated and closed off for use by a competitor. It's the reason these companies spearhead linux versus a comparable "free" platform like BSD. But at the same time, people contributing GPL code must accept that their code may be used for commercial purposes as well, as long as it is within the provisions of the GPL.
To my mind, linux is almost the ideal example of a balanced "eco-system" that can be created when commercial and community interests work together. You don't see Apple doing much to help elevate BSD as a desktop platform (I know, I know, Darwin, whatever) despite the billions they've made by building off of it. But then, they're not required to.
Linux is a multi-billion dollar industry now, and linux isn't dominating global datacenters just because of LAMP. People are running high-end heavy iron apps like Oracle, SAP, WebSphere etc. that cost significant dollars. The fortune 500 have embraced linux and OSS, doesn't mean they're about ready to throw aside conventional business models and embrase FSF entirely.
So it should be with the desktop. Linux isn't a religion, I don't think Linus ever inteded it to be, it's simply an enabler. Hell, even Gnome, the declared "official" GNU/Linux desktop, waves GTK's LGPL licensing as a benefit to developers producing closed source and/or commercial application development without having to pay a license fee or otherwise contribute anything back. Linux is a fantastic platform, but it's hardly going to accelerate an agenda towards universally free and open software, which is probably part of it's popularity. BSD maybe, but linux is made for living comfortably in both worlds.
Linspire isn't my cup of tea, and I've commented before that they give me the impression of being a bit sleazy with their tactics for transitioning Windows customers, *but* that is just my opinion and at the end of the day, I don't really see anything technically wrong with what linspire is doing. Considering in my job I sell a considerable amount of commercial software that runs on linux server platforms, I'd be hypocritical to think otherwise.
Vive la choice, strings or not, that's what freedom should be about. To me, anyways.
Anyways, don't mean to vent, I understood where you were coming from but just wanted to throw in my 2c.
Member since:
2005-07-11
If you don't like Linspire, don't use it.
If you don't like Freespire, don't use it.
Don't take other people's freedom away from them because their cup of tea, isn't yours.
We need an easy to use, supported distribution of Linux for the mass market. Linspire is it.
I've tried Ubuntu, nice.
I've tried MEPIS, nice.
I've tried Fedora, nice.
But none of them are as easy to use for an end user as Linspire.
And none of them are being sold in Walmarts on inexpensive systems.
Geek users can choose any distro they want. But, let Linspire get the number of Linux users in the millions, and suddenly there will be apps like Quicken or Quickbooks, or Turbo Tax and the like.
And then... There will be room for another desktop distro to take the spot.
All this criticism of Linspire seems wacked to me.
If you don't like it, don't buy it.