Comments on: Mandriva Not Interested in Paying Protection Money http://boycottnovell.com/2007/06/19/mandriva-not-interested-in-paying-protection-money/ Exploring the reality behind exclusionary deals with Microsoft and their subtle (yet severe) implications Sat, 20 Mar 2010 23:57:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: random rader http://boycottnovell.com/2007/06/19/mandriva-not-interested-in-paying-protection-money/comment-page-1/#comment-2436 random rader Thu, 25 Oct 2007 13:54:22 +0000 http://boycottnovell.com/2007/06/19/mandriva-not-interested-in-paying-protection-money/#comment-2436 SubSonica, the thing is that any organizational unit in community-based distros, which presumably still constitute the majority, is not (at least alone) in a position to make such an agreement on behalf of their developers (and users). Nor are these the potential "targets" of Microsoft. For these reasons it is an impossibility for Debian or Gentoo to "sell-out" nor is there a "trap" for something that is developed solely voluntarily. (Once again cf.: openSuse is openSuse.) But I agree that the wording "3-3" is misleading; either this implies that the author (Matthew Aslet) implicitly referred to the commercial distributions or it demonstrates that the mainstream media still does not understand what drives the open source (or free software or whatnot) movement. SubSonica,

the thing is that any organizational unit in community-based distros, which presumably still constitute the majority, is not (at least alone) in a position to make such an agreement on behalf of their developers (and users). Nor are these the potential “targets” of Microsoft.

For these reasons it is an impossibility for Debian or Gentoo to “sell-out” nor is there a “trap” for something that is developed solely voluntarily. (Once again cf.: openSuse is openSuse.)

But I agree that the wording “3-3″ is misleading; either this implies that the author (Matthew Aslet) implicitly referred to the commercial distributions or it demonstrates that the mainstream media still does not understand what drives the open source (or free software or whatnot) movement.

]]> By: SubSónica http://boycottnovell.com/2007/06/19/mandriva-not-interested-in-paying-protection-money/comment-page-1/#comment-1002 SubSónica Thu, 21 Jun 2007 18:48:22 +0000 http://boycottnovell.com/2007/06/19/mandriva-not-interested-in-paying-protection-money/#comment-1002 Well, it is not 3-3, actually, you can count on a classical heavyweight such as Debian not selling out to The Vole, so at least is 3-4: the goodies are winning. I can think of many other distros -smaller as they could be- not falling in the trap: Gnewsense, Ututo, every Chinese-Asian Linux (TurboLinux, RedFlag...), and probably any other players with a sense of ethics like Slackware/Slax, Mepis, PcLinux, Knoppix... or any european based distro (very sensitive to the whole issue of software patents due to the years of scandal in the EU politicians being heavy-lobbied when not bribed into trying to introduce software patentability in the european market) are a no-way for Microsoft. Well, it is not 3-3, actually, you can count on a classical heavyweight such as Debian not selling out to The Vole, so at least is 3-4: the goodies are winning. I can think of many other distros -smaller as they could be- not falling in the trap: Gnewsense, Ututo, every Chinese-Asian Linux (TurboLinux, RedFlag…), and probably any other players with a sense of ethics like Slackware/Slax, Mepis, PcLinux, Knoppix… or any european based distro (very sensitive to the whole issue of software patents due to the years of scandal in the EU politicians being heavy-lobbied when not bribed into trying to introduce software patentability in the european market) are a no-way for Microsoft.

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