spinynorman Posted October 15, 2003 Report Share Posted October 15, 2003 PCLinuxOnline report an hysterical attack on the Free Software Foundation by Forbes - the magazine for World business leaders. ... a rare peek into the dark side of the free software movement--a view that contrasts with the movement's usual public image of happy software proles linking arms and singing the "Internationale" while freely sharing the fruits of their code-writing labor. Forbes article PCLinuxOnline response Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkelve Posted October 15, 2003 Report Share Posted October 15, 2003 Wow... you guys spot *anything*, don't you? I mean... WE guys... : 8) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JaseP Posted October 15, 2003 Report Share Posted October 15, 2003 Forbes is generally pretty much entrenched in the M$ camp. In fact it's rare to see a positive article about Linux, FreeBSD, or Open Source in general comming out of Forbes. Remember the Forbes crowd worships the market. Linux service companies represent more of the Dot-Com Bubble to them yet. They are suspicious of the motives of anyone who would like to see general improvements in technology without wringing as much $$$ from their customers as (in)humanly possible. And this is an observation from a financial consultant with a law background,... me. So I'm not exactly what you would call liberal. Take anything that is written in Forbes about tech with an entire salt lick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linux_learner Posted October 15, 2003 Report Share Posted October 15, 2003 forbes is so bad at this, that i think their known as linux bashers. 'course consumer reports is comming close to that to. consumer reports did a comparison between lindows and XP and totally slammed lindows (not that i'm in favor of lindows at all, but it goes to show a lack of reporting). i think it funny how people call us linux zealots, and a whole lot of other names. we're in the severe minority, of which most of us have come from a windows background. how then can we be brainwashed as some claim? what? because we hold a different oppinion than the majority? its amazing how little people consider the facts. when people do switch over to linux, they often get frustrated because theres no M$ office, no outlook express, doesnt install like windows and so on. as to the people who think we're nuts, brainwashed, linux does no advertising. the only thing we have is our own experience. can we help it if it matches so many other peoples experience? yet the M$ crowd tries to point out the "success" rate by all the people who have had positive experiences with windows, and their not considered brainwashed. basically it comes down to double standards. when people start expecting linux to be windows, thats when they've gone wrong. windows now has a hardware compatibility list, so why should linux be penalized for hardware compatibility? perhaps because M$ has alot of reporters in their pocket, and the rest are just plain ignorant. well, i'll leave this for now. i could go on and on with this :wink: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willisoften Posted October 15, 2003 Report Share Posted October 15, 2003 Sorry to wander a little but I know a lot of people who are unaware of the operating system as a concept. I sure that a lot of these people would find it strange that you can get a computer that doesn't run MS Office. As long as people buy PC packages without a choice of operating system this will be the case. Even if it was compulsory to ask people which OS they would like installed I'd be pretty damn certain that most salesmen would push XP over Linux "for maximum compatibility". Hell I use MS Office myself everyday. It's the standard workplace office suite therefore thats what most schools colleges and university's offer to their students. Simply put their students would be at a (percieved) disadvantage if they didn't. I don't really believe in Access myself, though I do use that as well, but it's a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to teach non-technical staff to use that than most other dbs (that I'm aware of). Forbes I'd guess, are telling their subscribers ? what most of them wnat to hear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
banjo Posted October 16, 2003 Report Share Posted October 16, 2003 It is all about the money. I dumped fnWindoze for Linux last May. Since then, my Linux box has never crashed. The apps are mostly better than M$ apps in MHO. The viruses are no longer a worry for me. The documentation about the way the apps and the OS really work is far better than M$ docs, which cost big $$$$ from M$. I can fix it myself without re-installing the OS. ... and for all of this I didn't have to give up a single dime to M$. ... and I will upgrade my OS when I am ready.... not when M$ decides that I owe them some more $$$ ... and I don't have to report my hardware serial numbers to M$ and beg them to allow me to run the OS that I paid for....... yes... I paid for the Power Pack..... ... and it's worth every dime. Need I go on? The corporate world is starting to feel the pain, so they are trying more dirty tricks to keep their stranglehold on American greenback. I am sooo glad that I made the switch. (sorry for the rant) Banjo (_)=='=~ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JaseP Posted October 16, 2003 Report Share Posted October 16, 2003 I think we've gotten a little off point... The bottom line is that Forbes is not a real source of information for anyone except the amatuer investor... people with a lot of money, or want to pretend like they have a lot of money, who are going to be investing in individual stocks. Anyone with less than $2.5 million in liquid net worth should not be investing in individual stocks (you can't get the diversity in your portfolio with less than that other than to use mutual funds). Forbes sells quite a few subscriptions to people who are nowhere near that level. So there are a lot of wanabe millionaires who read Forbes. They gear their articles to that mentality. So again, take anything they say about a particular sector with a whole salt lick, unless they are quoting a reputable source... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linux_learner Posted October 17, 2003 Report Share Posted October 17, 2003 salt lick? is that all? i take what they say with a whole salt mine! i brought up the points i did before to simply make a case, that people dont report accurately. alot of reporting is based on sponsorship, and who does the most sponsoring? M$! so its only natural we'd see articles such as this. however, this does bring to mind one verry important question.....what is considered a "reputable" source? is it based on so and so's opinion? facts can easily be construed. i remember when server 2003 came out, and M$ claimed it was faster than linux. they had the white papers to prove it. what they didnt tell you was, they had given verry specific instructions to the testers on how to optimise server 2003. linux was given no such advantage. we all know from experience, how easy it is to not fully optimise linux. just some things to think about Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmac Posted October 17, 2003 Report Share Posted October 17, 2003 Interesting dichotomy. Its O.K. for SCO to protect to protect their rights but not the free software software foundation to do the same. cos theyr'e a bunch of commies!! I like the response pity it didn't get published in Forbes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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