[oclug] Xandros releases Open Circulation Edition

[Francis J. A. Pinteric]

On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 10:42:43 -0400
"Kevin MacPherson" <kevinm at xandros.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 10:09:21 -0400, Francis J. A. Pinteric  
> <linuxdoctor at linuxdoctor.biz> wrote:
>
> > 1. They don't like the idea of having to pay for upgrades to GPL
> > software.
> They don't have to. The choice is theirs to make.
> We provide a subscription service for QA'd packages which will
> eventually  find itself to the free source anyway.
> Many companies provide this including Slashdot for advanced viweing of
>  articles.
> 

I'm just reporting what I read.  There were one or two posts that
endevoured to correct that misconception but it seems to have fallen on
deaf ears.

>
> > 2. They object to the license, but what else is new.
> To be expected.
> 

Is there a license out there that people *don't* object to? I doubt it.

> > 3. They don't like the idea that Xandros is calling itself 'famous.'
> > There was quite a chuckle over that one.
> But we are people are talking are they not?
> 

That makes you famous?  People talk about me all the time, but I
wouldn't go so far as to say I'm famous. Infamous perhaps, famous no.
;-)  Fame is far too ordinary a commodity for me to be interested in it.

>
> > 4. They don't like the fact that it tries to appeal to Windoze idea
> > of"user friendly."  In fact they don't like the whole idea of trying
> > to appeal to Windows users at all.
> Someone has to otherwise why would they convert?
> 

Well, that is a whole can of worms right there, isn't it?  It has been
argued that people are smart enough to be able to figure out practically
any user interface with a minimum of effort. I personally don't hold the
mere human such high regard. 

> > 5. They don't userstand why it uses ad laden Opera for the browser
> > and not Mozilla.
> Business descision, doesn't mean they cannot install Mozilla after
> they  install.
> 

Ah, that ugly word again. Business. In any case, I tend to remove
Mozilla myself in any case and grab a lighter weight browser, like
Opera myself.

> > 6. They don't like the idea that somebody is actually trying to make
> > money from linux.
> What commercial distribution isn't? I thought that what the purpose of
> a  business was for.
> 

Yes, this particular comment was rather strange. 

> > 7. I saw one or two complaints that Xandros was not an American
> > company.
> But we are. Most of the development happens in Ottawa but the head
> office  is in New York ;)
> But others will complain we are an American company once they found
> out.
>

Yes, people lilke me! Ausländer Raus! 

Acutally, it's not big deal for me. I just wish there were a Canadian
distro out there that was up to snuff compared to the others.

> > 8. Quite a few thought that the source to the GPL'd software was not
> > being made available.
> ftp://ftp2.xandros.com/src
> 
> > Whether these complaints are valid or not I cannot say., but they
> > are out there.
> Where are these complaints being made?
> No reference of the source.
> 

On slashdot. Somebody posted an announcement of the latest Xandros
release and the complaints started right away. There were some congrats,
praises and cudos, but from the survey I took, the complaints
outnumbered the praises by a significant margin.

>>>--fja->


-- 
Just because humans have the the ability to speak
does not mean that they possess a higher intelligence,
as the content of what they talk about amply demonstrates.

Tired of `netiquette'? Fed up with endless discussion of
what is '[OT]'? Linux, Free/Open Source discussion without
the "political correctness:" http://linuxdoctor.dyndns.org/list.html
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