Is Lindows just an MS wannabe?

[grumpus]

I took a good look at the lindows.com website to what all the hype surrounding it was about, and I hate to say it but it left a rather.. sour taste in my mouth.  First of all, the website screams "microsoft wannabe," and something about its look made me queezy.   I looked at the screenshots and all it was was KDE with the Lindows logo on the "start" button instead of the K with the gears behind it (Not that KDE is bad, far from that, but from looking at the screenshots it doesn't look to be worth $99, the most expensive price I've ever seen for a Linux distribution)  I can buy Windows XP for that, and run ALL my winblows programs perfectly (except the ones that Windows XP doesn't like yet   ) The website never really said what would make Lindows so much better than another distro, such as Mandrake or Red Hat, except for its "alleged" ability to be able to run all your windows software. (which I'll believe when I see) Confused about what made this version of Linux so different, I read the FAQ where I stumbled across my answer: a question about deals on "volume licensing."  Evil!  I thought only proprietary M$ bullshit used that foul phrase... Guess I was wrong.  Besides, it's Linux... its illegal to ream people in the ass with this fucking "a cd for each computer" bullshit, how can they do this?  Also disgusting was the way they beat around the bush about issues excatly like what the licensing options were, and if a free downloadable version would be available, or if you could distribute it to your friends.  And the fact that they hardly used the word "Linux" anywhere put up a red flag, as if they were trying to avoid being associated with it.  I don't know what to make of lindows, I hope its not going to be like Saruman, wanting to become the new Dark Lord of OSes or something.  Personally, I think it will go nowhere if all it ends up offering is a product that is just as expensive as Windows except it can't run Windows programs as well as Windows... My advice to Lindows is to keep it open source and free (as in freedom, not price; I will gladly pay money to support open source efforts and have done so in the past; I payed $80 for my Red Hat Linux for instance) Lindows loses the moment it even tries to become like microshit; restricting people's freedom and profiting off of the hard work that has been put into Linux and all the free software that runs on it is not going to win it any favors from the Linux community IMO.  
As for me, I don't need no steeenking winblows software (except games, but TransGaming is the one working on that, not Lindows) and am perfectly happy with using Redhat Linux.  If I wanted to run some shitty M$ program like Turd or Outhouse (the latter of which is good for nothing but infecting your computer with worms and attaching viruses to your email) then I would boot into my win98 partition and spread viruses like no one's business, or type a memo in a slow, ugly, overstuffed word processor.  What do you guys think?   :confused:

[voidmain]

We've been over this subject a few times on this site, search for some of the other comments.  I personally agree with most of what you say.  Although the GPL says they can sell the software for as much as they want, as long as they distubute the source code with the product (or at least make the source obtainable). The way I read the GPL, they do not *have* to provide a copy of the software at no cost (free downloads) but they have to make the source available to the purchaser.

Now that *only* applies to the software included that is under GPL.  Wine (the software which runs the Windows applications) is not GPL code.  The license is more like the X11 license.  On top of that some of the core Wine developers are working on their own version which is more closed source.  

So we will wait and see if Lindows provides a freely downloadable CD image.  If they do, they will be no different than RedHat who also charges $1999 for one of their distros.

Now, you usually get no support for freely downloadable CD images.  Where RedHat makes their money is in support contracts with companies who use their software.  They also provide training courses, certifications, and more, as revenue generators.

Does the $99 for Lindows cover support?  If so I think they are justifiable in the cost. Corporations will still pay that money, and home users can download the CD (if they provide it) and get support from sites like this one, which is usually a lot more than you will ever get from MS.

Having said all of that, I have no plans of replacing RedHat on my systems with that.  Instead I hope to peel Wine out from under it and install on my RedHat systems (if I can legally do that) so I can run some Windows apps if I want to. I don't have a real need for it at this point as the Open Source equivelants are really starting to get pretty good.  And the CEO appears to me to be a Bill Gates wannabe as you say.  He "appears" to be in love with himself.

P.S. Here is the link to the GPL along with a FAQ and what to do about violations etc:

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

It specifically states that you can sell the software for as much as you want "Free as in speech, not beer".

[ February 12, 2002: Message edited by: VoidMain ]

[Calum]

Well, i'm sure it has been said before, but if Lindows starts making serious inroads into Windows emulation for Linux/Unix, under the GPL, then we will hopefully soon witness a surge of people bringing out free utilities under the GPL to do either complete, partial, or function specific Win32 emulation. It's high time anyway, i gather there's maybe only one more version of Win32 to come out before they start selling Win64 OSs.