It's true [LWN.net]

It's true

Posted Oct 1, 2004 22:46 UTC (Fri) by hppnq (subscriber, #14462)
In reply to: It's true by khim
Parent article: Desktop Linux is Windows piracy aide (Silicon.com)

Yes, but you too are making the slight mistake of forgetting that there is no connection at all between Linux (and its community) and Microsoft software piracy. Anyone can shamelessly abuse the freedom that comes with Linux, but that doesn't make me part of the scam, for instance. Other people have written much better explanations of why this is ridiculous -- no one is saying there is no Windows piracy.

I would have expected someone like Bruce to understand and explain these things, and I cannot believe that he actually wrote that. (If he's serious it's even worse, he was HP's Linux guy at the time.)

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It's true

Posted Oct 1, 2004 23:40 UTC (Fri) by hppnq (subscriber, #14462) [Link]

Getting back to your original point: why are you making me part of it then? Or am I reading too much into your "confession"?

It's true

Posted Oct 2, 2004 0:18 UTC (Sat) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link]

Well, I think we'll win more often if we don't allow ourselves to be blinded by our own rhetoric. Yes, there are panderers to software pirates who use the free software community as some sort of "human shield". It's best to admit that it goes on and deprecate the folks who do it, rather than deny it and sound insincere. I don't believe the premise of the (withdrawn) Gardener report, which is to discount the figures quoted for Linux sales. We all know about lots of systems sold with Windows that don't run Windows. But we should also admit to ourselves that sometimes it works the other way.

Bruce

It's true

Posted Oct 2, 2004 0:14 UTC (Sat) by zutman (guest, #5077) [Link]

Please give me a break. People will use Linux in every useful way
imaginable. But only when it is considered useful. Don't want that? Don't
publish under an open source license.

(Or you could recognise that you should go into politics.)

But I digress. My point: windows piracy has nothing to do with linux. Not
in this particular case, never.

It's true

Posted Oct 2, 2004 7:17 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

But I digress. My point: windows piracy has nothing to do with linux. Not in this particular case, never.

Directly, no. But indirectly... Few years ago RoverBooks was sold with Linux preinstalled but without support for half of installed hardware (winmodems, etc). It had CD with drivers for Windows attached - and for all hardware in this case. Now think: why they will ever do that ?

No, Linux is not directly responsible for "windows piracy" - yet it's used for that purpose quite often. You can say what you want about it but it'll not change basic facts.

There are also were versions with PTS-DOS - and then most of hardware was unsupported (including RAM above 16MB range LOL) and you were more or less forced to install some modern OS. So Linux is not alone in such usage.

It's mostly the same story as DeCSS: while initially this thing was not developed for piracy later it become widely used by pirates. Linux is going the same way. Do we need to fight it ? Probably not - it's not our fight. Do we need to admit and accept it ? Yes - it's fact of life. That's all.

It's true

Posted Oct 3, 2004 18:06 UTC (Sun) by zutman (guest, #5077) [Link]

Do we need to admit and accept it ? Yes - it's fact of life. That's all.

I'm also happy to admit that the sky is blue and that knives are used to kill people. But wait a minute -- I don't want to admit that, because it would imply that I was trying to hide these facts. And I never did that. I just do not consider them very relevant.