Comments on: Forced Windows Purchases: A Decade Later, Still No Improvement

By: Jens Staal

Jens Staal — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:17:51 +0000

I was a “disto hopper” between some of the major distros (kubuntu, fedora etc) and got stuck at the OpenSuse mostly because of the complete “look and feel” of it…and the chameleon is cute. That only illustrates that there are often irrational reasons that makes the final call…

It was not until after that I heard about the MS-Novell thing.
Personally I am no fanatic MS hater as such, but I am very much against their monopolistic position and how their dominance feeds itself. I am a strong believer in a market with several equally strong alternatives (competition drives development) and do not wish a total demise of the MS OS, but a more level distribution of OSes which will inspire software/game makers to produce cross-platform products.
In particular, the lack of choice of not buying Microsoft’s product when you want to buy a new piece of hardware is something that angers me quite a bit.

Because of this, I am not quite yet ready to leave my favorite distro (OpenSuse) for plain ideological reasons… but if things get worse and some of the dystopic things mentioned on this blog and elsewhere starts to be true – I will definitely abandon it. On the other hand, Novell does not earn one cent from me running their software…

By: Roy Schestowitz

Roy Schestowitz — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 06:12:15 +0000

Yes, I’m on my Mandriva in my main PC at the moment.

By: Jose_X

Jose_X — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 23:52:19 +0000

The newest Mandriva (2009 beta? and even 2008.1?) have gotten very good reviews. Lot’s of people also seem to like Mint (Ubuntu deriv I think). PCLOS is like a cousin of Mandriva. Fedora tends to be among the more cutting edge. There are many others, but it’s difficult to know what will strike a random person’s fancy.

We can use and contribute to make any distro the best. Why would be pick the one that most helps Microsoft maintain their monopolies? I have 0 interest in Microsoftizing Linux. Using Linux software is the beginning step of making Linux what you want it to become with the help of the developers and the rest of the community. .. Um.. choose wisely?

By: Roy Schestowitz

Roy Schestowitz — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:41:31 +0000

It’s not disputed that OpenSUSE works. In fact, I often stress that it’s one of the best distributions out there. Technical behaviour and ethical behaviour are separate though and we needn’t fall for one to encourage the other. It’s better to put one’s money and userbase where it serves Free software, as opposed to the Microsoft ‘cabal’.

By: Jose_X

Jose_X — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 20:36:19 +0000

>> Ps. I do hope that your rants about Novell proves to be false…

Could you be more specific. BN posts a bunch of facts along with opinions. What are you disputing?

By: Jens Staal

Jens Staal — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 18:25:59 +0000

I can definitely agree that it was nearly impossible to get a laptop without windows here in Europe. I checked with Dell and others and they all refused (Dell only offered an ubuntu installation for companies and not to individuals, and many vendors could customize hardware, but not leave out a default Windows installation!). The only one I found was the danish company Zepto, where the Windows Tax was refreshingly visible as you assembled your computer…

Ps. I do hope that your rants about Novell proves to be false… because I am a very happy OpenSuse 11 user … Ds.