It's definitely good karma to contribute money to Linux coders. As far as Lindows^W Linspire goes. It's as far as I can remember still a debian based distro, so you could always still install everything for free. Sure it isn't something Joe Windows User can do, without instruction, but doable. It seems to me though they are going to live up to their original name and be a Microsoft shill. Of course, I don't know what I might do if M$ were to throw millions of dollars at me. Would it be worth my debasing myself for? I may never know. That said I do make money selling software and sometimes that software is written on F/OSS. It's what opays the mortgage on my house, and food in my daughter's mouth. Yes programmers need to eat too. ;')
What Linspire , Novell and those others are doing are really doing to themselves. Only a fool climbs into a bed with a grizzly bear, with or without a gun doesn't matter. While it may hurt the F/OSS community, we will survive, and M$ may discover they have miscalculated again. Lastly, Linspire has done some contributing back to the community, so remember not many things are totally black and white.
In every good there is some evil and vice versa.
--- Earle Beason Earle-Beason@kc.rr.com wrote:
Oren, I think you have a valid point there with the "karma" and programmers. I don't see linspire in the same manner as a liberating software, but rather some businessmen cashing in on others works.