[Am-info] Linux Loyalists Leery

[Fred Miller]

Carey has some GOOD points to make! Companies like Red Hat WILL be 
self-defeating if they continue the current trend in licensing!! I do hope 
that Novell/SuSE is smart enough NOT to follow Red Hat. If not, we'll be 
stuck with the "Evil Empire" permanently.

Fred
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""The vendors are changing, the licensing models are changing," Carey says. 
"The companies doing these Linux distributions are trying to make money by 
taking away the freedom of Linux. I don't mean free as in cost. I mean free 
as in free speech. If you make me pay more for ten users than for three 
users, you're taking away some of my freedom. From the consumer perspective, 
that's not why we went into this. It was freedom of choice." 
 
 Another danger is emerging. Although dozens of Linux distributions exist, 
switching from one to the other could become more difficult as companies like 
Red Hat and its rival, SuSE, which is owned by Novell (nasdaq: NOVL - news - 
people ), attempt to differentiate their Linux distributions by developing 
new features. Once applications are written to work with a certain set of 
features, moving them to a different Linux distribution could require a lot 
of difficult and expensive rewriting."

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2004/03/31/cz_dl_0331linux.html

-- 
"Steve Ballmer is no more designed for the art of persuasion 
than the Abrams tank is for delivering meals on wheels."