From owner-freebsd-chat Thu May 31 14:56: 8 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from guru.mired.org (okc-65-26-235-186.mmcable.com [65.26.235.186]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 3B4B337B424 for ; Thu, 31 May 2001 14:56:04 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mwm@mired.org) Received: (qmail 86288 invoked by uid 100); 31 May 2001 21:56:01 -0000 From: Mike Meyer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <15126.48625.740301.529399@guru.mired.org> Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 16:56:01 -0500 To: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: The desktop apathy? I think not. In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20010531150115.00be5ee0@localhost> References: <20010531124519.SSJB28488.mta10.onebox.com@onebox.com> <4.3.2.7.2.20010531150115.00be5ee0@localhost> X-Mailer: VM 6.90 under 21.1 (patch 14) "Cuyahoga Valley" XEmacs Lucid X-face: "5Mnwy%?j>IIV\)A=):rjWL~NB2aH[}Yq8Z=u~vJ`"(,&SiLvbbz2W`;h9L,Yg`+vb1>RG% *h+%X^n0EZd>TM8_IB;a8F?(Fb"lw'IgCoyM.[Lg#r\ Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Brett Glass types: > At 07:03 AM 5/31/2001, Rahul Siddharthan wrote: > >So -- GNU comes to the rescue of Sun and HP? > The entire purpose of the GNU project was, and is, to kill > companies such as Sun and HP. That's more idiotic than Brett's usual treacle. HP isn't a software company, it's a hardware company. They don't write software to sell, they write software to help sell their hardware. They've always been willing to embrace anyone who could provide that software cheaper than they could. Getting someone else to write the software and give it to them for nothing is golden for them. Sun seems to be of two minds, but the one that makes a living peddling hardware is giving people what they want by moving to a standard desktop. Anyone aware enough to have their eyes open can see that the GPL is no more a poison pill than MS is. Possibly less - GPL software doesn't kill technically superior products the way MS does. GPL software - just like any free software - provides an alternative with a quality goal that isn't dictated by the bottom line. That makes life tough on any company trying to beat out the market leader by being technically superior, but if they're trying to beat a product that's already good enough for the mass market, they have no life anyway. http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message