Packt Open Source Survey Results

[Abarbarian]

A little titbit about the current state of Linux in the modern world.

http://www.packtpub.com/article/packt-open-source-survey-results


"These results support the current trend of adoption rates for open source where an increasing number of Governments and organizations over the world are switching to open source for their technology needs. Software such as the free and open productivity suite OpenOffice.org has already been adopted by Governments in countries like the United States, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia."

As an aside it looks like even the USA government is starting to dump Microsoft.

 

[Urmas]

Linux distros have their limitations, but they aren’t arbitrarily imposed on you by the Linux developers. The limitations all come from proprietary software and hardware vendors. Know why your Broadcom wireless card won’t work on Linux? Broadcom won’t port a driver to Linux or release the driver specs to Linux developers can incorporate it into the Linux kernel. Know why there’s no Adobe Creative Suite for Linux? Adobe doesn’t think there’s enough demand for it to warrant making a port, so it won’t make one for Linux. Want to know why you can’t run more than three apps at a time in Windows 7 on netbooks? Microsoft won’t let you unless you pay for an upgrade. That’s right. You can’t blame it on some outside vendor. Microsoft, the maker of Windows 7, is saying “We don’t care about the end user or a good user experience. We want to offer you a crippled product in the hopes you’ll pay for the full product.” This is like a car salesperson offering you a discounted car with no front wheel. To get the fourth wheel you have to pay extra. Some discount.

Software freedom isn’t just about hackers wearing out their eyes staring at screens and typing into terminals. It isn’t just about programming and getting into arguments about which text editor is better than the other. Software freedom affects end users too. Because Linux offers freedom (not just free cost), if a distro ever tried to limit you to running only three apps at a time, another distro would just take that limit right off. Or someone would create a script to break that limitation.

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/software-freedom-does-affect-the-end-user/

 

[Abarbarian]

Because Linux offers freedom (not just free cost)