[Coco][Color Computer] Anyone following the latest Microsoftand Linux debacles?

[John R. Hogerhuis]

On Fri, 2005-01-14 at 13:57, Basil Fitze wrote:
> Hello Glen,
> 
> You say what you say because you have no idea how much better Linux or 
> UNIX is compared to to XP. You probably drive a automatic.  Windows won 

I prefer Free Software solutions as well, but don't you think it's
possible that some people have legitimate reasons for using Windows?

Keep in mind that there are a variety of motivations for using a
computer. There is a small segment of us, mostly techies and programmers
that care about software freedom issues. I'd love it if more people felt
the way I do, since if they did the copyright and intellectual property
system would be radically different. But most people aren't programmers
or techies.

There are a whole bunch of people out there that just want to send
email, browse the web, edit docs and spreadsheets here and there, and
keep track of their finances. Software to do this is fairly cheaply
available, and often free-as-in-free-beer to most people since they
borrow the bits from work or friends. Some of it is included with the
OS. The OS is for the most part free-as-in-free-beer since it comes
bundled with the system.

Given a decent firewall and keeping their patches up to date, those
folks can be very happy on an NT variant of Windows.

For me nothing compares to the vast amount of application software
available to me through the Debian apt repositories. apt-cache search
almost always pops up something that does what I need to do, with full
source available and free of charge.

But I can certainly understand some folks have no real need to exert any
more freedom than they already have (and I am *not* being facetious
here). 

-- John.








Brought to you by the 6809, the 6803 and their cousins! 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ColorComputer/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    ColorComputer-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/