[ale] Bloody MS EULA Changes Effecting Our Choice

[William Fragakis]

On Tue, 2010-10-19 at 00:08 -0400, Joshua wrote: 
> I think this is only part of the issue.  It is not just Microsoft 
> Windows that is the issue, it is also the hardware vendors.  What I mean 
> is that I can see some blatant collusion occurring with newer hardware 
> from established vendors.  With Windows Vista and 7 there is a marked 
> lack of support for many hardware drivers belonging to older devices.  
> Does this fall into the realm of Microsoft or the hardware vendors or 
> both?  Potentially if MS can make their legacy software packages work 
> then they should be able to make older drivers work as well, right?  As 
> far as the hardware vendors are concerned, when you contact them and 
> request assistance with your Windows 2000 or XP era device that does not 
> work in Vista or 7 and you cannot find drivers on the Vendor's sight, 
> they politely inform you that there is no support for many legacy 
> devices under Windows Vista or 7 and that none will be coming.  Buy a 
> new device that is compatible with Vista or 7.  The vendors do not say, 
> "Try Linux!" or "Try installing XP Mode on your Win 7 64 bit machine!".  
> No, they insist that you buy a new product.


> While searching for free online courseware on the Stanford site I ran 
> across an interesting video.  I think it was part of a full class, but I 
> only watched a portion of the first video.  It was a woman speaking 
> about how it is hard to kill a large corporation like MS or IBM (were 
> the examples that she used).  She mentioned that even if a software 
> company is mortally wounded it may still lurk around in one form or 
> another for decades after the main body is dead and rotting.  She went 
> on to explain that IBM was the largest software company in the world and 
> that both IBM and MS are working to make sure they keep a strong hold on 
> the market.  One of the ways in which they combat FOSS like Linux is to 
> offer small to mid size companies a stable "Ecosystem" in which they can 
> thrive and grow.  
Ummm... are you aware that IBM is one of the largest Linux vendors and
has been for years? 

As well, they contribute a lot of code to the kernel, were a big part of
the defense against SCO. 

IBM ad from 2003: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwL0G9wK8j4

No personal or vested interest in IBM but it would be inaccurate to
portray today's IBM as anti-Linux. 


Regards,
William