“Lindows CEO wants a piece of Microsoft”: Q&A with Lindows.com CEO Michael Robertson who wants to turn the Linux operating system into a real alternative to Windows–but he’s fighting an uphill battle.
ZDNet interviews Michael Robertson, founder of Lindows
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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But if any Linux company’s gonna bring down Windows, it’s a sleezy company like Robertson’s Lindows.
It’s amazing just how good their hype/marketing engine is. Just this past semester at college I took part in a Linux course (easy average helper and a lil fun on the side) and it was amazing all the students (these were all computer majors of some flavor or another) that knew about Lindows. In I’d say at least a quarter of cases, my fellow students only knew about Lindows and/or Red Hat (and the course was taught against Red Hat). The really telling this is that *EVERY SINGLE* student in the class had heard of Lindows.
Love him or hate him, he’s doing *SOMETHING* right.
Sure, but is the end product really up to scratch, and is their revenue stream tenable in the long-term?
For instance, they’re relying more and more on revenue from subscriptions to Click-‘N-Run, but wait until people find out that they can point their sources.list to an official Debian mirror and have access to the vast majority of that software for free…
Sure, there’re *some* commercial offerings thrown into the mix, but the vast majority of the stuff on offer is just rebranded Open Source software.
Thats true, but Lindows is designed for the “common” user, you don’t pay for the software, you pay for the convienience of Click’n Run.
Beleive me, CNR is very nice, compaired to other ideas, its like apt-get but with some logic thrown in ( auto creates desktop shortcuts and the like )
RH had puled a lot of dirty tricks in it’s corporate history, which RH cheerleaders would simply put in the “every company does this to survive”. So why not measure Lindows with the same rule?
“Thats true, but Lindows is designed for the “common” user, you don’t pay for the software, you pay for the convienience of Click’n Run.”
That’s a fair point, but you don’t pay for the software *or* the convenience if you use an official Debian mirror, say.
“auto creates desktop shortcuts and the like”
With a Debian package, provided that the upstream provides a .menu file (and they almost certainly will if it’s a KDE or GNOME application, and often even if not) it gets automatically added to the menu of your Window Manager.
I suppose having it ask you “Would you like a shortcut on your desktop?” would be an additional nicety, but I would have thought that having it in the menu would be good enough for most people. If adding desktop shortcuts really is the best value-added feature, then I’m still not convinced.
You’re right, I’m certainly not in their target userbase. 😀 That said, I think I’m still going to encourage everyone I know to use Debian or an equally Free offshoot rather than buying Lindows. Best value for money and all that, as well as supporting Open Source in a more direct fashion.
“RH had puled a lot of dirty tricks in it’s corporate history”
Such as?
It’s amazing how you guys are pissing over $50 a year. Is your time _totally_ worthless? I’ve been a programmer and tech since before PCs existed. When it comes to my computer I’d rather spend time USING the programs than spending time finding, downloading, installing, fixing the install, and eventually using the program.
Keep in mind one HUGE thing about Click-n-Run. When it’s time to upgrade Mozilla or whatever programs you use. Does Appget work exactly right when you download a new version? Does it clean up after itself? Not in my experience. Click-n-Run does or at least appears to.
I use about 70 different programs. Based on that it costs me less than $1 per program using Click-n-Run to install or install/upgrade programs. AND I get StarOffice and other programs, including a DVD player (which you can’t get for free at all) for a discounted price. Sounds reasonble to me. But then I also own a Mac and run OS/2 and BeOS on computers too.
My thoughts? You guys are just cheap bastards whos time is obviously worthless so you can spend hours each month messing with installs. I have other parts of my life too. Like being married.
start a computer company like apple and add your own os.
Trying to compete with CRIMINALS like Microsoft is a waste of time. They have manpower,resources,government, and industry on their side. Don’t forget SCO.
“I’d rather spend time USING the programs than spending time finding, downloading, installing, fixing the install, and eventually using the program.”
1) Finding = apt-cache search <package name> or else just search http://packages.debian.org
2) Downloading = aptitude install <package name>
3) Installing – just wait, dealt with in 2), answer debconf questions (if any)
4) Using – just type the app name from a terminal or click on the menu shortcut.
I don’t know what you’ve been using, but it’s obviously not Debian.
“Does Appget work exactly right when you download a new version? Does it clean up after itself? Not in my experience. Click-n-Run does or at least appears to.”
I don’t believe you’ve ever actually tried apt-get – since you can’t even spell it correctly, I doubt you could even type the command to call it up. Yes, I have no trouble upgrading to new versions of software within Debian. That’s one of the distribution’s strong points.
“I use about 70 different programs. Based on that it costs me less than $1 per program using Click-n-Run to install or install/upgrade programs”
I use many more programs than that, and for the vast majority I pay nothing for the privilege. Do I win? 😀
“including a DVD player (which you can’t get for free at all)”
Wrong, since I watch DVDs with no problem using Mplayer or Ogle.
“You guys are just cheap bastards”
Yes, yes, ad-hominem attacks, always the last recourse of the desperate troll.
“I have other parts of my life too. Like being married.”
Oh, dear. My sympathies to your wife!
“But if any Linux company’s gonna bring down Windows, it’s a sleezy company like Robertson’s Lindows.”
right, but that’s not just their better marketing, but in the first place, not targeting the geeks or corporate users (who have an admin anyway), but the normal non-linux, non-technical endusers who simply want a desktop which is fully integrated and as easy-to-use (or even easier) as windows.
unfortunatly, red hat has just abandoned their “normal” linux, or more precisely, to invest time (and money) in it to make it suitable for non-technical homeusers, making it a communityproject instead which seems to target the geeks, leaving in effect this emerging market completely to lindows etc.
i find this very shortsighted, and started a discussion at the general rhl.redhat.com-list about it, but my view is unfortunatly not shared by red hat or the majority of the board.
“Love him or hate him, he’s doing *SOMETHING* right.”
yeah, he is (home-)usercentric and has a mid- to longtermstrategy (and does a good marketing)!
Only commercial GNU/Linux distros are competing with Microsoft and Apple. The other distros exist to offer you alternatives. If you like what they have to offer, you can use it for free but if you don’t like it – no big deal.
BTW, because Debian is maintained by a large community, it will be there when the current market leaders have suffocated in their own greediness. So I think it’s a safe bet to start using Debian. :^)
For instance, they’re relying more and more on revenue from subscriptions to Click-‘N-Run, but wait until people find out that they can point their sources.list to an official Debian mirror and have access to the vast majority of that software for free…
Sure, there’re *some* commercial offerings thrown into the mix, but the vast majority of the stuff on offer is just rebranded Open Source software.
Yeah, and some people *GASP* pay for convenience. It’s the same reason why people buy boxed Linux distros. Guess what, I could get all the commercial software that’ll fit on my hard drive under Windows and Mac too…all I need is Kazaa, LimeWire, or BitTorrent.
Also, as others have pointed out, Lindows focuses on the average “Joe User” who won’t be hand editing configuration files and playing with obscure command line utilities such as apt-get. The types that do this sort of thing wouldn’t be happy with Lindows anyway, and they would probably happily use Libranet, Knoppix, Morphix, or stock Debian instead.
If you look at it, the major Linux houses are moving to this “software buffet” system. Excellent examples of this being Red Hat Network and Mandrake Club. I don’t see any real flaws in this revenue stream. In most cases it really is a good deal for what you get, and bandwith is not free. These companies have to earn money somehow, and giving free ISO images away on your FTP servers is a TERRIBLE way to do it.
“Yeah, and some people *GASP* pay for convenience. It’s the same reason why people buy boxed Linux distros.”
It’s not, really. A subscription is an ongoing cost, whereas purchasing a boxed set is a one-off investment. Lindows has it both ways – you pay for the software at the outset, then you continue to pay forever.
“Also, as others have pointed out, Lindows focuses on the average “Joe User” who won’t be hand editing configuration files and playing with obscure command line utilities such as apt-get.”
A fair point. Okay, what nifty graphical configuration utilities does Lindows have that none of the other distros do? I’m perfectly willing to accept that there are some, but the only thing that’s been mentioned so far is “automatically putting shortcuts on the desktop” or some such.
“the major Linux houses are moving to this “software buffet” system. Excellent examples of this being Red Hat Network and Mandrake Club.”
Hold on, it looks like a personal account for Red Hat Network is free. Am I wrong?
It’s not, really. A subscription is an ongoing cost, whereas purchasing a boxed set is a one-off investment. Lindows has it both ways – you pay for the software at the outset, then you continue to pay forever.
Umm, let me ask you a question, do you subscribe to Cable or Satellite TV, cellular phone service, Newspapers, or Magazines?
The cell phone example is a great one I think. They “have it both ways” you pay for the phone (in many cases it’s part of an “activation fee”) at the outset, then you continue to pay for the service “forever”.
Also, you can cancel your subscription at ANY time. You don’t sign away your life to Michael Robertson at any point in subscribing to CnR from what I understand.
Hold on, it looks like a personal account for Red Hat Network is free. Am I wrong?
You are correct, but it’s VERY limited. Basically you just get bugfixes for a *single* machine, sure you can create a dozen e-mail addresses on hotmail or yahoo, but it’s a pain. By subscribing to the “for-pay” version of Red Hat network you get several additional benefits, which I won’t mention here because anyone can go to the RHN site and check it out for themselves.
“do you subscribe to Cable or Satellite TV”
Sure I do. But if what they were trying to charge me for was freely available, or near as damn, I wouldn’t give them a cent of my money.
“Also, you can cancel your subscription at ANY time.”
Sure, but the “Joe user” that Lindows is aimed at probably won’t even know that he could be getting his software for free.
“Basically you just get bugfixes for a *single* machine, sure you can create a dozen e-mail addresses on hotmail or yahoo, but it’s a pain.”
Hehe, fair point, but “Joe user” isn’t going to have that many machines, just a couple at most.
All I know is I had tried Red Hat, Mandrake, Caldera, SuSE, and Lycoris, but not until LindowsOS was I able to switch to Linux full time on my desktop.
I don’t know why people are so down on Lindows.com. Unlike many of the other Linux companies, Red Hat, SuSE, etc., they focus EXCLUSIVELY on the desktop, so it’s natural that they’d have a leg up in that area…and they do.
LindowsOS is a great product.
Z
I don’t know why people are so down on Lindows.com.
I think it’s because l337 Uz3rz like Syntaxis hate sharing “their” world with newbs.
“I think it’s because l337 Uz3rz like Syntaxis hate sharing “their” world with newbs.”
Lol – where did I say that? 😀
The benefit of Click n Run over the debian tree is that you can call Lindows up and get support for those downloads. Lindows is not for a tech savy user that knows how to surf forums looking for the answer.
“Lindows is not for a tech savy user that knows how to surf forums looking for the answer.”
Or, alternatively, check the Bug Tracking System or post to the mailing lists.
For me, those things are the most basic of tasks, but heh, yeah, I guess I forget how low the bar for “tech savvy” has been set nowadays.
For me, those things are the most basic of tasks, but heh, yeah, I guess I forget how low the bar for “tech savvy” has been set nowadays.
And you change the oil on your own car? Replace worn-out tires yourself? Install your own car starter?
For me, those things are the most basic of car-care, but heh, yeah, I guess I forget how low the bar for “owning a car” has been set nowadays.
Lol!
Whilst the two situations are not entirely the same (my computer expertise is self-taught, whereas I doubt I would want to learn to install my own car starter through trial and error) that’s nonetheless a useful analogy for putting things in perspective. Thanks. 🙂
For what it’s worth, though, my motivation is not jealous rage that “newbies” should be able to use Linux, but rather the feeling that, for want of a little know-how, they’re getting screwed, to the extent that they’ll have to pay hundreds of dollars more than myself for their distribution.
Right.
I keep finding it very interesting (being a psychology-student
) how die-hard Linux users just can’t seem to accept that the End-User just ain’t techy enough for the command line.
LindowsOS is, in my opinion, a great product for the End-User, simply because it’s very easy to install (3 clicks!), the software is very easy to install (CnR), because it looks kinda nice from the start, etc.
I myself prefer MDK though, since I’m a bit more experienced.
“how die-hard Linux users just can’t seem to accept that the End-User just ain’t techy enough for the command line”
That’s a gross over-simplification, but yeah. Generally it’s because the command-line isn’t *actually* arcane (not for everything, anyway) but nonetheless puts the fear of god into users accustomed to a nice, comfy GUI.
You do make a valid point, my friend. (And please don’t take my posts as a personal attack on you.)
However, believe it or not, some people actually WANT to get screwed, as Robertson points out in the interview, people constantly pay for that which they can receive for free, such as haircuts.
I could travel with reasonable efficiency on a Moped, but my time is more valuable than that, so I drive a Chevrolet, which for me is the best price/performance point. Your “mileage” may vary.
Choice is a good thing though, and the more people we can get to use Linux the better. Hopefully a couple of these Lindows users start to “look under the hood” and “change their own oil”
Some people just need training wheels I guess.
I bet that those of you who won’t give a cent are at foult for the financial troubles of those distros you use… simply because you are so cheap that you won’t give money to your favorite OS or sofware… I mean, when was your last donation to MDK… RH… or Debian… just because it is free you don’t even help them… economicaly… And what about been present… been there to show that your OS can do what “joe” wants… Been there to push Linux in to a market… even if it is free… GIVE IT ATENTION…
I know how to fix the sours.list in my Lindows machine… and have done so, but I hate to go hunting for good sours.list… ( tell me of one that would alow me to get most apps of it, with out havig too many entries on it, I do’t want to surgically fix the thing because of a “mix system” senario )
One thin LindowsOS is cool, it works and it is extra easy to install… CNR is a good arternative to the usual way you install thins in Debian… and you can use eider… if you know how use apt-get… if not CNR will make your life easier… untill you learn apt-getting around…
What other disto have you seen at your store? Now there are more than none… because if it has no market presence NO ONE on the outside will know Linux exist… Today you can get a good selection of OS from Wallmart.com and other sites… use that momentum to get your OS noticed… and other thing…
STOP been SO communist about LINUX… and be happy, there are more linux than before and MS won’t be esential anymore, MS will be just an option not a necesity… and linux is getting more and more usefull… Grap those ideas that work and implement them in your distro… don’t bash somethig that you have NOT even USED…
Bash yourself in the head… peace or war… some allways die… don’t let it be your distro… support them… support those you like… and let me support the ones I like…
I lost all respect with Lindows that one time there was that interview about file system structure and the questions was brought up about whether they should be more going for a ‘Apple’ style model where the POSIX file system is hidden, but allowing easy management with software in a /Apps folder… The guy said no thats stupid the Linux file system is soooo much better all we need is a geek kid on every street block that actually understands it. Yes thats what we need, one person on every street that went to college for it, or had no life and actually looked it up. Thats when I lost all respect. I personally think they should have more of a LinuxSTEP filesystem or something close, and hide the POSIX part of it. That way you can still figure out hard things when needed too. And as far as software, there should never be no more then 25 files or so per- folder because it’s retarded. This was my problem with Mac OS X with the idea now it’s fine putting everything in /Applications but overtime they will need to be subdirectories based on file type such as /Software/Interent/Mozilla or so on, I don’t really know, but the file system should really almost mask the start menu. This would allow easier software clean up too. Possible take away the home user hidden file and have something simular to Mac OS X Preferences. /Users/John Doe/Preferences/Mozilla, delete that you have never ran Mozilla before.
It’s hard for a Linux/UNIX geek to understand the idiots just don’t understand the file system. I do understand that a UNIX file system has it’s meaning for some situations, but on the home user level I beg to differ. If we are talking about network applications, remote users and permissions and so on. Then yes UNIX files system structure is great, so I am not knocking it down becuase I know how extreme UNIX geeks are when it comes to ‘The history of FHS.’ If you say maybe it could be better this way, they plan for the death of you in mass numbers.
And yes I personally don’t think Lindows or any other Linux will ever achieve success with the home user till this ever happens. If it was my wish, I would vote for one totally Gnome based Linux and one totally KDE based Linux as the two top Desktop Machines leaving the Linux word out of the equation. Both use there own file structure and of course on the software side they prefer there own applications leaving each other out of one another. This of course again is only for the personal desktop side of things, because I’m sure someone will tell me I’m stupid for ever thinking FHS is a bad thing like they have so many times again. I don’t know why people have to be so insane when it comes to Home User vs Coperate User and what is better for each of them.
But, I disagree with him on 2 issues
1. Attending things like LinuxWorld could nothurt the company and isntead will help.
2. I think they should evangelize the OSS ideals, not make it their main business, but tell a visitor a little about it as SUSE does: http://www.suse.com/us/private/products/suse_linux/81/freedom.html
This is one important thing that separates SuSE from Apple or Microsoft.
“I think they should evangelize the OSS ideals”
Perhaps this is too cynical, but, from a ruthless businessman’s point of view:
Even mentioning Open Source on their web site would be giving free publicity to those they’re trying to compete against. Heck, they don’t even publicise the fact that they’re Debian-based, presumably because they view the Debian package tree as competition for their Click-N-Run warehouse.
To clarify the above…
If they’re working on the assumption that the majority of visitors to Lindows’ web site are going to be the less “tech savvy” users who probably won’t know all that much about Open Source in any great detail, it’s not in Lindows’ business interests to enlighten them.
Which all distroes should do anyway.
I’m not saying to have a big section about OSS, just a paragraph or 2, after all they are GPL and Debian based.
And really, why not attend Linuxworld?
“I don’t know why people are so down on Lindows.com.
I think it’s because l337 Uz3rz like Syntaxis hate sharing “their” world with newbs.”
Or maybe it is because Lindows has being acting up like real ass-holes in the past, not giving back the sources as they were supposed to..?!! — OK, that was an easy one, I’ll answer it myself with a confident “YES”.
Btw, did they release the sources by now or are they still acting like asses..? You know, they didn’t invent Linux by creating Lindows, 97% of the work was done by others, so acting like an ass really makes you look like an ass — that’s why people don’t like them, not because they have the finest desktop.
Or maybe it is because Lindows has being acting up like real ass-holes in the past, not giving back the sources as they were supposed to..?!! — OK, that was an easy one, I’ll answer it myself with a confident “YES”.
Ummm, did you look here?…to my knowledge they’ve always provided source to all GPLed apps.
http://help.lindows.com/cgi-bin/visitors.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.ph…
Ohh, and before you bitch about it being buried in their site, this took me all of five minutes to find, if that.
“But, I disagree with him on 2 issues
1. Attending things like LinuxWorld could nothurt the company and isntead will help. ”
Alex sure you are a smart guy too, but why didn’t you get the point Robertson made? Do you really think that it’s cheap to have a booth on LinuxWorld?
But, i think it would be worth it. They don’t have to have the biggest baddest booth, but at least have a presence.
Attending major trade shows can be a pricy affair. I guess he believes that is money well spent elsewhere.
Since the company is more focused on a consumer-non-linux market. They believe that going to a show that is mainly for the business and tech savy user market. I dont think that gells with their current business model. They are not really aiming for that market anyway.
Of course i am probably wrong…
“Ummm, did you look here?…to my knowledge they’ve always provided source to all GPLed apps.”
But that is not the case. They have been holding back code for a long time and were claiming to supply the code if and when their product would be “ready”. However, there hasn’t been any such right. Product ready or not, they always have to submit their code, if they ship it. Lindows received an official warning in this matter as well. I did not say that they haven’t supplied it meantime, because I don’t know. But if you want to know why people learned to hate Lindows, this is one reason. Again, it appears that people tend to forget + forgive things easily.
Another thing why the community turned away from Lindows is because they tried to turn that recent Linux conference into a Lindows-only centric PR-show. I don’t recall the name of that show, but many sponsors kept off due to this behaviour.
A while back when Lindows first became a company, while they only had vaporware I had signed up for the Lindows newsletter to track the progress of the company (I realize…bad idea).
I have tried several times to stop sending me their newsletter. Yet there it is…keeps popping in my box.
I might consider Lindows if they would just stop spamming me.
“I keep finding it very interesting (being a psychology-student
) how die-hard Linux users just can’t seem to accept that the End-User just ain’t techy enough for the command line.”
The average user would be happier with the command line if it could accept commands in plain English (or whatever the user’s native language is), such as “Please update the paint program”.
Formal syntax is the problem. It is a foreign language, and has to be learned, like Latin.
The average user would be happier with the command line if it could accept commands in plain English (or whatever the user’s native language is), such as “Please update the paint program”.
The problem is, human speech (even the written form) is far too complicated for today’s computers and software algorithms to handle in a useful way.
If “natsh” (NATural SHell) behaved anything at all like the text based games of the 70s and 80s (remember the King’s Quest series from Sierra?) computing would usually be fun, but occasionally very frustrating!
Example:
>open e-mail
What is e-mail?
>open email
What is email?
>open mail
Opening mail…
See how frustrating that’d get? It could be done, but it’d take a long time just getting all the synonyms programmed in. Human speech, ESPECIALLY English is very very complicated.
And dont forget the caps..
if its “Email” email will not work