Submitted by Xandros CEO Andreas Typaldos said his company’s technical and marketing agreement with Microsoft will help increase Linux adoption rates because users will have access to improved technology and won’t have to fear lawsuits from Redmond. “What’s good for adoption rates is good for Linux,” Typaldos said in an interview.
This is all PR, like anyone would come out and say “We sold our soul to the devil. You don’t have to like it.” Everyone knows why Novel and now Xandros did this. It’s about the almighty dollar.
I have no better solution or proposal though. I just think it’s funny this makes news. Might as well run a headline “SUN RISES FROM THE EAST!”
What’s good for adoption is not always good for Linux. For example, what if some distributor decided to include a page 3 girl on its desktop? Maybe this would increase adoption but it would be tasteless and would hurt the Linux brand.
As to the Xandros deal itself, as the article says they will probably lose the right to distribute GPLv3 software. One would think that they would have foreseen this and that they have a plan. It would be interesting to know exactly what that plan is.
As to the Xandros deal itself, as the article says they will probably lose the right to distribute GPLv3 software. One would think that they would have foreseen this and that they have a plan. It would be interesting to know exactly what that plan is.
Take the money and run.
The Microsoft protection racket:
Steve “Tony Soprano” Ballmer “Thats a nice product you have there, something nasty could happen to it and your customers. You need protection. Take this large wad of money and we’ll protect you”
They sold themselves to MS. That’s it, not more not less.
MS stated before that they want to profit from Linux sales, too. Now they do.
I hope other distributors continue to do their “technical and marketing agreements” with the people that really do the hard work: the open source software developers!
MS is getting these guys to roll over and spread eagle. Absolutely amazing.
What’s more bothersome is that, since Xandros is based on Debian, is this MS’s way of getting their hooks in Debian as well? How long before Red Hat gets down on all fours for the evil empire?
If you can’t beat ’em, sue ’em.
Correction for the quote ” What’s good for Xandros Linux adoption is good for Linux. ”
I wonder how many more cash strapped distro makers sign up for this MS deal and how long before MS presents these deals as proof that linux is not safe to the general public except ofcourse those distros that have a covenant with MS. Seriously such companies should have never marketed Linux in the first place.
“””
I wonder how many more cash strapped distro makers sign up for this MS deal and how long before MS presents these deals as proof that linux is not safe to the general public except ofcourse those distros that have a covenant with MS.
“””
Indeed. Microsoft has two goals WRT these deals. They want to generate fear, uncertainty, and doubt about Linux. (A much abused phrase which I am using quite literally and appropriately, here.)
And they want to pit the Linux community against itself.
And while I hate to fall into their trap, regarding attacking our own, and while I am usually the last to scream “BOYCOTT!”… it does occur to me that an effective way to stop these deals is to do whatever we can to demonstrate that entering into one of these arrangements is *very* bad (read: disastrous) for business.
Xandros would be a good company to make an example of because, face it, they are insignificant to us. They could go belly up and hardly anyone would notice. Linspire would easily take up the slack in that niche, and would know to steer clear of these kinds of deals.
I’m guessing that few of us run Xandros ourselves. So perhaps the best way to proceed would be to voice our displeasure at those manufacturers, like Microtel/Walmart, who preload it. I’d prefer to see Linspire, Ubuntu, or some other desktop oriented distro included, anyway.
What a horribly negative post I have just typed out. But somehow, in this situation, it makes sense to me to be so. I guess it’s not so different from the body’s immune system erradicating cancerous cells.
Edited 2007-06-07 15:54
The webform to contact their customer service is here:
http://support.xandros.com/contact.php?contactname=shop
You don’t need to supply the support code. If you choose to contact them, remember, sounding polite and reasonable is important if we want to be taken seriously.
I just sent this (hopefully) polite note:
—
Good Morning,
I am writing as a courtesy to inform you that I am contacting the supplier of many of the workstations that we use, Microtel, to request that they discontinue preloads of Xandros and offer Linspire, Ubuntu, or both.
I cannot ethically continue to buy machines with Xandros preloaded in light of your assisting Microsoft in their campaign to legitimize the idea of paying royalties to them to run OSS operating systems.
I am very disappointed with the poor judgement that your othewise excellent company has shown in this matter.
I do hope that some day we can do business again.
Sincerely,
Steve Bergman
—
Edited 2007-06-07 16:22
Hmm…I remember when Xandros mattered…wasn’t that around 2001? Maybe 2002?
All of these new agreements, including Dell and Xandros, they already know that GPL 3 will not permit this kind of covenant agreements in the future. So what are they thinking, forking every GPL software out there and continue on their own?
I hope 95% of Linux distros would just die…they just create confusion to the market without introducing anything new and scares away half of the potential adopters.
GNU-puritanians are actually greater threat to linux than microsoft could ever be…without gnu-puritanians linux would be a desktop os of choice and far more widespread…they’re the ones holding linux back by fighting evolution of the OS at every turn…they hate the fact linux is evolving…they’re the amish of the IT-society.
I would buy Suse Linux instantly if they’d replace every GNU part of the OS..thank god Linus is too intelligent and most of all REALIST to keep out the kernel from the GPL3 crusade.
GPL3 only serves to hold linux back…I wish it would just sink and sink all those GNU-puritanists with it.
I totally agree with you. While I love SuSe and Ubuntu, this fragmentation with 500 different distributions doesn’t do anyone any good, IMO.
We are used to PR people making good sounding ridiculous statements, but this guy has made a mistake mentioning technical merits behind the agreement – “users will have access to improved technology”, he said.
I wonder if he is ready to disclose what technology did he mean. Or is it the same strategy as Steve’s 200+ patents FLOSS infringes.
I actually agree with some of your sentiments, but not to that extreme extent.
Yes there is a small, rabid minority of puritans, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say that they are a bigger threat than the Mutually Assured Destruction of a patent war with Microsoft.
Yes there are too many distributions, but there is no real problem with lots of choice. The worst that will happen is the inevitable conclusion of having too many products on the market: some will get totally ignored and/or lose their funding and then die. That’s the beauty of the free market (no pun intended).
Perhaps in the end there’ll only be Slackware and it’s derivatives left, I haven’t heard of any bigger company that has built it’s product around Slack. “The Man” certainly isn’t up for purchase, and the other small fan spin-offs are all community based AFAIK.
Debian will probably survive as well. Red Hat? No idea, but they have enough backing from the likes of IBM and money of their own to fight and resist.
For me, I don’t understand these agreements; if they got full documentation for all Microsoft protocols and file formats, and Microsoft consultancy for implementing them – then sure, it would be a bloody awesome thing to occur.
What is appears to me is that payment is being made for non-existant, quite frankly, bullsh*t patents, and using ‘we know, but we’re not going to tell you’ extortion technique. Sorry, but unless end users actually see benefits out of it, like improved CODEC support and improved file compatibility, its giving them no competitive edge to win over customers.
Judgeing by the reaction of people in the community one can only gather that the saying “Linux users use Linux because they hate Microsoft” is very appropriate and dead on. So ask yourself, do you use Linux because it truly is the best OS for you, or do you use it because it is anti-MS?
People are so rabid in their hatred towards the evil empire they completely fail to see many important issues:
1.) Xandroa and Microsoft’s discussions are private, certainly done under a Non-Disclosure agreement. Point is too many are jumping to conclusions that just is not there.
2.) How does this hurt Linux, or better yet how does this help. I think it is quite apparent that this is helping to move Linux away from the “geek” crowd into the corporate world, where it will need to be if Linux is ever to have any success beyond their current pitiful market share. If you want your OS to have a tiny little share, then do not complain when hardware MFRs do not support your OS…period!
While many in the anti-MS and now anti-Novell crowd can scream all they want, fact is Novell has been quite pleased. Fact is these companies really do not give a s**t about the geek community. What they want is the corporate community to embrace them, and these deals are doing that. After how many years and a “free” OS can only scrap together a tiny little share? Does this just not compute with anyone as to the reason why?
If the MS-Novell deal helps to get my Suse servers to work together better with Windows, then I am all for it. Obviously too many people screaming about these deals simply do not have to deal with this on a professional level. Ideas are all fun to play with, but at the end of the day reality has to set in. To be quite frank about this, if Linux and Microsoft can NOT work together better, then I think Linux needs to go the way of the Newton and another OS needs to step up to the plate (Solaris?).