Lindows MUST DIE!

[rtgwbmsr]

Linus T. should sue their asses. They are violating the GPL! We best be careful...they are fucking with the very foundation of Linux. Check these out (Pulled from their EULA):

2. PROPRIETARY RIGHTS.

All right, title and interest in LindowsOS, including source code, documentation, appearance, structure and organization, are held by Lindows and/or its licensors and are protected by copyright and other laws. You may not copy or otherwise use LindowsOS, in whole or in part, except as expressly permitted in this Agreement. Title to LindowsOS, or to any copy, modification or merged portion of any of the Software Programs, shall at all times remain with Lindows and/or its licensors, subject to the terms of the applicable Third Party Agreement(s) to the Software Programs under consideration.

While certain Third Party Agreements described in Section 1.2 may allow You to copy, modify and distribute certain Software Programs, they do not permit You to distribute the Software Programs utilizing Lindows.com

[voidmain]

Couple of opinions.  First of all, it would not likely be "Linus T." who would be doing the sueing (although he might wish to be a part of it).  It would be the holders of the GPL (GNU).  Second, this Linblows sort of license goes against everything the Free Software Foundation, GNU and the GPL stand for. But I can't pick anything out that violates the license.

The code that Lindows people have written can be closed source and does not have to fall under the GPL.  Now most of the programs that are included with Lindows *are* GPL, however they don't specifically say that you can't copy those programs because they fall under the GPL.

Having said that, it looks like we need to be as anti-Linblows as we are anti-Winblows, maybe even more so.  I for one have always suspected they were up to no good, now I am convinced.

[ September 17, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[rtgwbmsr]

I thought if you made modifications to any GPL software (In this case, Debian and WINE are what Lindows is built on) you had to redistibute the modified code, and mark that the code was modified. Am I wrong?

[voidmain]

Wine is not "GPL" but "LGPL", and I believe Lindows does not even use the LGPL version but hired Wine programmers and used the X license for Lindows version which is more like the BSD license which means they can use the Wine portion all they want and close it up. There was much heated discussion over this.

And sure 99% of the rest code probably falls under the GPL which means they must make that 99% of the code available. But for the 1% that they write they do not need to make available.  The license is written to "appear" that the majority of the code was the doing of Lindows when in fact the majority of the code falls under the "section 1.2" which I don't see in your quote but I assume refers to GPL, X, BSD, and other licenses.

But I can certainly hear RMS rolling in his grave (oh wait, he's not dead yet, but if he was...).

[edit]
The Wine that is included with Linblows is the "CodeWeavers" version which does not fall under GNU/GPL. CodeWeavers has since ended their business relationship with Lindows.     That should give you some insight as to the sort of company Lindows is and the sort of motives Robertson has.

See: http://www.zdnetindia.com/techzone/linuxcentre/stories/64793.html
[/edit]

[ September 17, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[lazygamer]

Community spirit prevents Linux d00dz from starting distro wars, because all distros are good in the end, so such actions are frivolous. Now when you have a Linux distro that even Torvalds could outright say "THIS SUCKS!", that's pretty horrible.

[Calum]

this distro is not good in the end. For the purposes of this post, please put aside all preconceptions you may have that lindows is even a distro of the popular linux operating system.

this is legal.

i thought we all knew that this was what the lindows people were doing right from the start?

they are selling a system which is closed source and proprietary, so far this is exactly what Microsoft do. However, the Lindows operating system, unlike windows, is INCAPABLE* of running unless you have either got a large wad of GPL software on your machine or some sort of proprietary equivelant+.

This is where lindows are even worse than Microsoft. Both companies claim to sell you a system. While Microsoft sells you a shit system, Lindows sells you half a shit system. Not only that, but Microsoft does nothing to connect itself with linux in any way, while lindows does all it can to smarm its way into any linux related discussion, especially among people who are new to linux and who do not know any better.

Lindows are not breaking the law, and they will not either, however a serious campaign of education needs to occur on a scale never seen before if linux' popularity is to keep growing at the exponential rate it is currently doing so at, or the world will be full of people who think that the Lindows and WineX projects (see another thread on this board) typify the 'ethic' of open source software, and if this is allowed to happen, maybe that will truly become typical, and that would be a sad day indeed.
----------------------------
* not to my knowledge anyway

+ in reality, it would be GPL software, mainly because this is what is more widely available, and also because this is what is actually distributed with the lindows operating system.

[lazygamer]

Sounds like they failed in their plans with Wine. A Linux distro(errr what's the term for Lindows then?) would have one hell of a selling point if it could offer a high compatibility rate with Windows. My guess? They found that it was simply too hard to create a one size fits all WineX config, or an automated configurer that makes settings based on your hardware. So probably, the only way your getting good WineX usage is to know how the hell to set it up for each game. That's no good for newbies, so that would not work out as a selling point.

[Calum]

the fact of windows being closed source makes much of it guesswork, and every time somebody gets closer to emulating sindows, (edit - this was a typing error, but i kind of like it!!!) they just change windows. it is not in Microsoft's interests to sit back and let people emulate them.

and re: lindows, you can call it an operating system, rather than a linux distro i think, in the same way as people refer to windows as an operating system.

maybe it should rightly be called GNU/GPL/Lindows, since it is not a system on its own?  

[ September 17, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]

[rtgwbmsr]

How odd:
I had a hard time finding that Lindows was Linux. In fact, the only way I could tell was the EULA, and the fact that they say it is based on Debian.

[Master of Reality]

it costs $300 for Lindows... what does that remind you of?

[voidmain]

quote:Hurry! This special price to become an Insider will be ending soon. Once the General Release is out, pricing for LindowsOS and one year of Click-N-Run will be $129 and the Insider's program will be going to $299.

Join now and help us shape the development of a cutting edge product with your valuable feedback. Together, we can bring choice to the desktop computer!

So let me get this straight. For a normal user to buy Linblows it will cost them $129. And people who help debug and provide direction for Linblows have to pay $299.  Yeah! I wanna help! Where do I sign up?!? NOT!

[voidmain]

And look at this EULA just to access their fucking web site!!

http://www.lindows.com/lindows_termsconditions.php

Which I have just violated by linking to it. I believe I am beginning to hate that fucking Robertson and Lindows even more than I hate Bill Gates and Windows.  I didn't think it was possible. I believe they will do far more damage to Linux than Microsoft ever could. Maybe Robertson and Gates are in it together. These fuckers need to be burned at the stake!

[Pantso]

I told you it sucks!

 

[voidmain]

I had my suspicions about them long before that in a thread on the subject started December of last year.  See my second March 18th post specifically.    

[ September 17, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]

[voidmain]

And here is an interesting site:

http://www.lindowsos.info/

containing an interesting article on the subject:

http://www.lindowsos.info/article.php?sid=60

[ September 17, 2002: Message edited by: void main ]