Granted, these are hypothetical questions, but bear with me.
If proprietary software is required for you to do your job, do you then tell the vendor "No, you can't play in our playground."?
If that vendor is the only source for that (or equivalent) software, do you then tell the vendor "No, you can't play in our playground."?
If the lack of that software will shut down your employer because the OEM wrote the assembly line management software to run under Linux, do you then tell the vendor "No, you can't play in our playground."?
An OS is a tool. It makes it possible for us to run applications that create, store, and retrieve data, control manufacturing machines, and perform other essential work. You choose the OS that meets your needs, regardless of the philosophy behind that OS.To act any other way in a business environment leads to inefficiency, excess cost, and, eventually, business failure.
For my personal use, I prefer free or open source software simply because I'm a cheap SOB: if FOSS can meet my needs, I will use it over proprietary software. But if I can't do it except with proprietary software, I will buy the proprietary solution.
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As a long-time Windows user who (mostly) converted over to Linux a few years ago more or less on principle, I still feel the same way about proprietary software as you. Yes, open source is preferable to closed--but I have no problem with using proprietary software either. I too use the proprietary NVidia drivers--they work impressively well. I also don't mind paying for the occasional software item I really want: e.g., Nero Linux. I'm still way ahead of where I was when I was trapped in the Microsoft world.
Curiously no one mentions that Ubuntu or RedHat actually charge for tech support.So technically yes the OS is free but the support is not.So whats the difference between them and Microsoft?Not all that much.I can buy software made for windows and im up and running for as long as it takes to install the software.Linux ,having this running battle with MS, ive got to install third party software just to get the software i really want to use, running.Why bother?
Most folks dont have the time to be configuring an OS every time they buy new software.Thats the kicker as to why Linux hasnt become as popular.So unless most of the world become hackers(not happening btw) ,then plug and play will be more popular.
Ive heard great things about Linux servers and many indeed do you use them.Thats a good thing in the marketplace.Not everyone owns a business though.Just a thought.
Most folks dont have the time to be configuring an OS every time they buy new software.Thats the kicker as to why Linux hasnt become as popular.So unless most of the world become hackers(not happening btw) ,then plug and play will be more popular.
Ive heard great things about Linux servers and many indeed do you use them.Thats a good thing in the marketplace.Not everyone owns a business though.Just a thought.
"
Curiously no one mentions that Ubuntu or RedHat actually charge for tech support.So technically yes the OS is free but the support is not.So whats the difference between them and Microsoft?
"
Retail products and service offered are two separate things; neither requiring the presence of the other. The concern is not who derives profit from services rendered. It's a consideration of motivations and results when the software is the product versus when the software is sponsored work that enables the product. Close source wants it's inner workings to be trade secret; only a select few can ever see the source and fix it and only at the behest of accounting and management unless marketing has to calm public outcry. Where possible, one must minimize expenses; the goal is quantity over quality, good enough to meet the marketing launch date - long as it's not buggy enough to have too many returns after sale. Even with closed source companies that have the best intentions and highest QA screening, one must wait for them to research a bug then develop the patch within time and budget constants. Because it's close source, researchers can only provide results of binary analysis for discovery reports and developers can not provide accurate patch suggestions with bug reports or fix their own until an official update becomes available.
But, the reason no one is digging on Red Hat and Canonical for selling support services is because such services are seporate from producing the distributions. It's about the strategies, motivations and affects that differ between the development models.
"
Not all that much.I can buy software made for windows and im up and running for as long as it takes to install the software.Linux ,having this running battle with MS, ive got to install third party software just to get the software i really want to use, running.Why bother?
"
"Why bother" was the exact strategy used when bundling IE into Windows; customers will get Windows by default with the computer and it'll have IE by default so they won't bother looking at our competition's products. It's a remarkably effective anti-competitive strategy when one holds a market monopoly.
Being pre-installed on the majority of retail shelf computers is a heck of a benefit when your goal is moving units. One can't deny that at all. It's been a heck of a struggle for retail distributions trying to get shelf space and big vendor deals. In the old days, MS contracts actually required OEMs like Dell only install Microsoft OS on there consumer computers; offer the customer choice and loose your MS contract. These days, I think MS just yanks the deep discount which keeps all but a few of the bigger names and smaller independents in line. When offered in equal shelf space, a major distribution's store returns are about equal to Windows returns. Naturally, a crap distribution delivers a higher return rate.
In terms of benefits, it may simply be to rejuvenate older hardware instead of reinstalling an outdated and now unsupported Windows version.
"
Most folks dont have the time to be configuring an OS every time they buy new software.Thats the kicker as to why Linux hasnt become as popular.So unless most of the world become hackers(not happening btw) ,then plug and play will be more popular.
"
Unix type OS tend to be much more plug and play where hardware support is available. I can yank a drive, drop it in another machine and boot the OS without it having a fit because the chipset, processor and ram suddenly changed. Focusing on Linux based distributions specifically, Mint and other's provide very complete hardware support; more so than the Ubuntu/Kubuntu distributions. If the distribution has support for the hardware; it just works. When something doesn't just work, it's normally thanks to the hardware vendor; my own fault from buying hardware from a crappy vendor.
So, it's very mobile; when I get a new machine, I could just the hard drive in and resolve any outstanding hardware issues. I could instead just make a backup, drive image software isn't to hard for average users to figure out, then restore it to the larger new hard drive and resolve any outstanding hardware issues. I could just grab my install script and have the reinstall done in about two hours; bare metal to all software installed and updated with user data restored.
Given your mention of Ubuntu; the liveCD installs in about twenty minutes in the background while your using it if you so choose. I don't expect huge problems for a user, having used the liveCD to install on the current computer, then having to spend twenty minutes installing on a new computer when they get it three or more years later. Maybe they buy from one of the more service oriented retail outlets who offers a choice of preinstalled and Linux ready machines with a liveCD install service.
"
Ive heard great things about Linux servers and many indeed do you use them.Thats a good thing in the marketplace.Not everyone owns a business though.Just a thought.
"
Depends on one's need. General needs are covered by any major OS family these days; documents, email, browsing, multimedia. Specialty needs will still dictate what OS one may choose from. If you want to run a specific game, you need what OS or console it runs on. AutoCAD; Windows for that too. Adobe CS; Windows or osX. OpenSSH; BSDs, Linux Distros or osX. I personally have some Windows games and specific application titles that keep a bootable Windows partition around. If not for the games needing full direct hardware access, I'd probably only have a VM running required applications. (well, in addition to what special purpose installs I have license for.)
Stability, security, easy software management and availability of titles in the software library are not really business-only benefits either. If the user required functions are covered then whatever OS works.
Curiously no one mentions that Ubuntu or RedHat actually charge for tech support.So technically yes the OS is free but the support is not.So whats the difference between them and Microsoft?
"
Retail products and service offered are two separate things; neither requiring the presence of the other. The concern is not who derives profit from services rendered. It's a consideration of motivations and results when the software is the product versus when the software is sponsored work that enables the product. Close source wants it's inner workings to be trade secret; only a select few can ever see the source and fix it and only at the behest of accounting and management unless marketing has to calm public outcry. Where possible, one must minimize expenses; the goal is quantity over quality, good enough to meet the marketing launch date - long as it's not buggy enough to have too many returns after sale. Even with closed source companies that have the best intentions and highest QA screening, one must wait for them to research a bug then develop the patch within time and budget constants. Because it's close source, researchers can only provide results of binary analysis for discovery reports and developers can not provide accurate patch suggestions with bug reports or fix their own until an official update becomes available.
But, the reason no one is digging on Red Hat and Canonical for selling support services is because such services are seporate from producing the distributions. It's about the strategies, motivations and affects that differ between the development models.
"
Not all that much.I can buy software made for windows and im up and running for as long as it takes to install the software.Linux ,having this running battle with MS, ive got to install third party software just to get the software i really want to use, running.Why bother?
"
"Why bother" was the exact strategy used when bundling IE into Windows; customers will get Windows by default with the computer and it'll have IE by default so they won't bother looking at our competition's products. It's a remarkably effective anti-competitive strategy when one holds a market monopoly.
Being pre-installed on the majority of retail shelf computers is a heck of a benefit when your goal is moving units. One can't deny that at all. It's been a heck of a struggle for retail distributions trying to get shelf space and big vendor deals. In the old days, MS contracts actually required OEMs like Dell only install Microsoft OS on there consumer computers; offer the customer choice and loose your MS contract. These days, I think MS just yanks the deep discount which keeps all but a few of the bigger names and smaller independents in line. When offered in equal shelf space, a major distribution's store returns are about equal to Windows returns. Naturally, a crap distribution delivers a higher return rate.
In terms of benefits, it may simply be to rejuvenate older hardware instead of reinstalling an outdated and now unsupported Windows version.
"
Most folks dont have the time to be configuring an OS every time they buy new software.Thats the kicker as to why Linux hasnt become as popular.So unless most of the world become hackers(not happening btw) ,then plug and play will be more popular.
"
Unix type OS tend to be much more plug and play where hardware support is available. I can yank a drive, drop it in another machine and boot the OS without it having a fit because the chipset, processor and ram suddenly changed. Focusing on Linux based distributions specifically, Mint and other's provide very complete hardware support; more so than the Ubuntu/Kubuntu distributions. If the distribution has support for the hardware; it just works. When something doesn't just work, it's normally thanks to the hardware vendor; my own fault from buying hardware from a crappy vendor.
So, it's very mobile; when I get a new machine, I could just the hard drive in and resolve any outstanding hardware issues. I could instead just make a backup, drive image software isn't to hard for average users to figure out, then restore it to the larger new hard drive and resolve any outstanding hardware issues. I could just grab my install script and have the reinstall done in about two hours; bare metal to all software installed and updated with user data restored.
Given your mention of Ubuntu; the liveCD installs in about twenty minutes in the background while your using it if you so choose. I don't expect huge problems for a user, having used the liveCD to install on the current computer, then having to spend twenty minutes installing on a new computer when they get it three or more years later. Maybe they buy from one of the more service oriented retail outlets who offers a choice of preinstalled and Linux ready machines with a liveCD install service.
"
Ive heard great things about Linux servers and many indeed do you use them.Thats a good thing in the marketplace.Not everyone owns a business though.Just a thought.
"
Depends on one's need. General needs are covered by any major OS family these days; documents, email, browsing, multimedia. Specialty needs will still dictate what OS one may choose from. If you want to run a specific game, you need what OS or console it runs on. AutoCAD; Windows for that too. Adobe CS; Windows or osX. OpenSSH; BSDs, Linux Distros or osX. I personally have some Windows games and specific application titles that keep a bootable Windows partition around. If not for the games needing full direct hardware access, I'd probably only have a VM running required applications. (well, in addition to what special purpose installs I have license for.)
Stability, security, easy software management and availability of titles in the software library are not really business-only benefits either. If the user required functions are covered then whatever OS works.
Let's say I was looking to create a product in order to make a living.
Ideally a product that will not require much if any support so the notion of selling support for it is not in-scope and so the only other option I can see is to sell licences to use the product.
The idea of giving away the custom source of that product (because of the GPL) would make me worried that someone else would just copy and rebadge it. As I'm not looking to be 'big' commercially and just a mom/pop outfit that earns a wage I doubt I'd be able to afford to chase other people legally etc.
If instead I look at the BSD Licensed world it seems to me that that concern wouldn't exist.
30 years ago when I wrote a dialup BBS (originally in BASIC hehe) I sold licenses to use it, it paid for some of my tuition fees. One day I found that one of my customers had done exactly as I mentioned above, they just changed the name of the software and started selling it. I couldn't afford to take them to court.
I appreciate that there are people who produce useful software for free but presumably they have other sources of income.
My point here is why would I (with bills to pay) choose to target Linux over say FreeBSD.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to target Linux, I just can't afford to.
Ideally a product that will not require much if any support so the notion of selling support for it is not in-scope and so the only other option I can see is to sell licences to use the product.
The idea of giving away the custom source of that product (because of the GPL) would make me worried that someone else would just copy and rebadge it. As I'm not looking to be 'big' commercially and just a mom/pop outfit that earns a wage I doubt I'd be able to afford to chase other people legally etc.
If instead I look at the BSD Licensed world it seems to me that that concern wouldn't exist.
30 years ago when I wrote a dialup BBS (originally in BASIC hehe) I sold licenses to use it, it paid for some of my tuition fees. One day I found that one of my customers had done exactly as I mentioned above, they just changed the name of the software and started selling it. I couldn't afford to take them to court.
I appreciate that there are people who produce useful software for free but presumably they have other sources of income.
My point here is why would I (with bills to pay) choose to target Linux over say FreeBSD.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to target Linux, I just can't afford to.
writing it. There are already a lot of commercial software products that work on Linux.
Now you may need to get a legal check of the full GPL licence, but my understanding is that it only comes into play when you incorporate existing code that uses GPL INTO what you write. So if you have a program that does NOT use actual Linux code in it, but has output to the Linux OS and input from the Linux OS, then it is NOT using existing code under the GPL. So an application that sits on the OS need not have the GPL applied to it. Thus you can sell or licence it and make money, the way Crossover and Cedega do - for two companies doing that - the same way some games do.
Now you may need to get a legal check of the full GPL licence, but my understanding is that it only comes into play when you incorporate existing code that uses GPL INTO what you write. So if you have a program that does NOT use actual Linux code in it, but has output to the Linux OS and input from the Linux OS, then it is NOT using existing code under the GPL. So an application that sits on the OS need not have the GPL applied to it. Thus you can sell or licence it and make money, the way Crossover and Cedega do - for two companies doing that - the same way some games do.
Interesting .. I thought that any program that makes any call to any system function or library that is under the GPL has to be GPL'd itself since it would be considered a derived work.
a number of government agencies. The last time I went through the GPL it was best summarised as - This code is free to use how you like, and if you use this code in anything then the code you make must be made available free to others.
Now issuing a call is NOT the same as using the code in your code, nor is taking the data feedback from the call. It can get a bit messy of you don't make the calls right etc. But sending data off to the OS with a request to process is NOT the same as using the OS code within yours to process.
Sure using the existing code inside yours makes it easier to write something, but it doesn't HAVE to be that way.
With any luck one of the License gurus here at TR will wade in on this soon. You can always direct an enquiry to the relevant powers that be about the GPL and ask where they draw the line for you to be able to sell your own app as against it being under the GPL.
edit to add - I often have to think about the GPL in regards to some images that have been made available under the GPL and CCC. If I take Joe Blog's image, cut it, paste another in, and put text on it it's a derived image. But if I take his image and use that as inspiration to create something similar it's not a derived image. In short, to be a derived image I MUST use something of the original in what I end up with. Now to apply that to the GPL OS:
If I write a program where by I incorporate the full print command function code in my program then I'm using part of the code and it's a derived image. But if I write my code so I out put the command 'Print this data' along with a data stream, then I'm NOT using their code in my program and it's not a derived image. - Well, that's my understanding of it.
Now issuing a call is NOT the same as using the code in your code, nor is taking the data feedback from the call. It can get a bit messy of you don't make the calls right etc. But sending data off to the OS with a request to process is NOT the same as using the OS code within yours to process.
Sure using the existing code inside yours makes it easier to write something, but it doesn't HAVE to be that way.
With any luck one of the License gurus here at TR will wade in on this soon. You can always direct an enquiry to the relevant powers that be about the GPL and ask where they draw the line for you to be able to sell your own app as against it being under the GPL.
edit to add - I often have to think about the GPL in regards to some images that have been made available under the GPL and CCC. If I take Joe Blog's image, cut it, paste another in, and put text on it it's a derived image. But if I take his image and use that as inspiration to create something similar it's not a derived image. In short, to be a derived image I MUST use something of the original in what I end up with. Now to apply that to the GPL OS:
If I write a program where by I incorporate the full print command function code in my program then I'm using part of the code and it's a derived image. But if I write my code so I out put the command 'Print this data' along with a data stream, then I'm NOT using their code in my program and it's not a derived image. - Well, that's my understanding of it.
I'll go take a look and see if the GPL powers that be have different scenario types I can refer to.
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