[TriLUG] Where is Linux today?

Ritesh Kumar ritesh at cs.unc.edu
Tue Jun 24 13:06:50 EDT 2008


On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 11:12 AM, Maxwell Spangler <
maxpublic08 at maxwellspangler.com> wrote:

> > what happens
> > when big companies like Microsoft are able to change the legal
> > landscape to add inconveniences that tilt your rational, economic
> > calculus? You now have to pay $5 where you had to spend nothing before
> > to get the same functionality. But $5 is nothing. What about $50?
> > $100? What's your price? At what point does it stop being an
> > inconvenience and start being a matter of principle or emotion?
>
> As long as the marketplace stays open to competition, this shouldn't be
> a [significant] problem.
>
> If you believe, as I do, in classic economics then the market will
> balance out what companies want to charge and what consumers are willing
> to pay.  This will prevent companies from over charging although it may
> not be a quick or painless process.
>
> I don't want to argue economics, especially when I agree with the
> positive opinion of Free Software that you have and are trying to
> promote.  Economic impact is one factor of computing to consider but I
> think it will be kept in control under existing market forces.
>
> Legal issues such as patents are a much bigger problem than economics.
> One patent in the wrong hands could ruin your ability to choose and
> break those market forces causing you to be stuck paying for low
> quality, something that isn't supposed to be acceptable in capitalism.
>
> I enjoy these discussions because they should remind all of us that if
> we want Free Software (including Linux) to stay relevant and reach its
> potential, it has to compete vigorously on many factors, not just the
> political ones.
>
>
I strongly agree with the above view. It really comes down to *costs*. How
much does it cost one to setup your machine (time is also equivalent to
money in a sense.)? If one is better off using his/her time performance
tuning cars... I don't think there is any need for him/her to learn about
computers in great detail to be able to fix it when it breaks. The problem
seems to be that desktop Linux doesn't seem to have the support from shops
which other desktops have... esp. Macs where I have actually seen very nice
support available. I would once again state my "lower cost alternative than
better alternative" stance here.

If Apple really needs tight control over its software to be able to provide
us with that kind of support... may be that is hinting towards something.
May be the cost of collaborating on a large scale does come at a cost than
having tighter software control in house? May be giving a huge choice of
software on a system does increase its support cost?

Ritesh

P.S. zonbu.com seems to be doing some incredible stuff with Linux and Amazon
S3. They provide "hassle-free" linux software and support. Atleast its a
start.



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