Comments on: Microsoft-fed Patent Aggressors and Lobbyists Make Free Illegal http://techrights.org/2013/01/09/against-gratis/ Free Software Sentry – watching and reporting maneuvers of those threatened by software freedom Fri, 25 Nov 2016 09:41:40 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.14 By: mcinsand http://techrights.org/2013/01/09/against-gratis/comment-page-1/#comment-134084 Wed, 09 Jan 2013 21:44:10 +0000 http://techrights.org/?p=65597#comment-134084 The last sentence of that Steve Balmer quote just gets more and more self-contradictory the more I think about it. At first, I thought it might have a grain of truth in the server market, until I looked up the license costs. From a business perspective, those costs are not great… as long as the product delivers value. I have no doubt that is where Ballmer does not want his shareholders to go.

I’m pretty sure that most Linux desktop and/or laptop users still pay the Windows tax with their hardware purchases, so MS isn’t losing out on license sales there. I bought my computer with no OS, but it’s not like I saved money that way; I just refused to pay for the Windows license.

That we can get Linux for free is great, and I have no doubt that the ability to try it with no cash investment increases the number of users giving it a try. That’s what I did. In a pique of frustration after a failure, I downloaded a copy of Fedora. I honestly expected to go back to the Windows that I was used to, but found that ease-of-use, performance, stability, and configurability left Windows in the dust. So, I didn’t go back. It was nice that I could have the lobster for free when I had been paying for Big Mac’s, but I would have paid two or three times the cost of a Windows license to stay with Linux.

]]>