waterskidoo <water.skidoo@xxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> On 2007-07-27, Kier <vallon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>
>> And usually, IMO, they'll be wrong. It may occasionally be true, but I
>> doubt it's nearly as widespread as some people believe it is. No one is
>> surprised when Linux fans posts a lot of pro-Linux stuff, against MS, so
>> why is anyone surprised that MS/Windows fans do likewise in the opposite
>> direction?
>>
>> Just being pro-Windows or even anti-Linux doesn't endow a person with a
>> tail and horns.
>
> I agree. There is no doubt that companies have shills that fluff the
> forums, but I don't believe it is as widespread as some people
> believe.
> I try to either avoid the suspected shills all together or
> give the benefit of doubt until proved otherwise.
It's a reasonably safe position to take, but one thing to consider here
is that being "pro-linux" is more of a philosophical position, linux is
not a commercial entity, it's an operating system which anyone can
freely download and use. Being pro-Windows is the same thing as being
pro-Microsoft, as Microsoft own all rights to Windows, and guard those
rights jealously indeed, therefore, if you're pro-Windows, you are
supporting a particular commercial organisation.
Now, there's nothing necessarily wrong with supporting a commercial
organisation, *but*, it's not orthogonal to being pro-Linux, since free
software is a quite different political positioning to proprietary. For
example, being pro-Symbian is essentially the same from a cola point of
view as being pro-Windows, or being pro-Mac is equally more or less the
same as being pro-Windows, since each of these are proprietary systems,
with commercially motivated owners.
The question which deserves consideration, therefore, is why would
anyone come to cola with a pro-Windows, Symbian or Mac (or AmigaOS, or
RiscOS, or AIX, or HPUX, or VMS, or CPM ...) position? This group is
simply not the place for pushing proprietary solutions, it's about
pushing the free Linux-based solutions.
There are some interesting grey areas, though - for example:
Quake 3/4 vs Nexuiz
Skype vs Jabber
Opera vs Firefox
These are all examples of binary-only, proprietary, applications, which
have functionally equivalent free alternatives. We often see people
here pushing the virtues of Skype on Linux; can it be justified with
respect to the charter of the group? In some respects, it can, since it
does run on Linux, and this is a linux advocacy group.
Equally, Skype were recently found guilty of GPL violation in Germany
with respect to the usage of the Linux kernel in one of their Skype
phones (again, the GPL has been validated in court).
Looking at things the other way around, why don't we see more:
pro-freeBSD
pro-OpenBSD
pro-NetBSD
pro-ReactOS
pro-Freedos
... people here? Well, I suspect that this is for the same reason we
don't see much in the way of pro-Linux people polluting proprietary
advocacy groups, because they are all philosophically similar. They are
all about free software as an approach, as much as any particular
implementation.
Where the line gets crossed, however, is in such as the Tivo box, where
the intent of the GPL is subverted through the use of binary-only kernel
extensions. This is worthy of discussion here, of course.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
| Cola faq: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/linux/advocacy/faq-and-primer/ |
| Cola trolls: http://colatrolls.blogspot.com/ |
| My (new) blog: http://www.thereisnomagic.org |
|
|
