[CS-FSLUG] LXer Readers Debate Linspire's Contribution

[Legatus]

Don Parris wrote:
> There has been a somewhat interesting debate on LXer regarding
> Linspire's standing in the FOSS community.  One of our former editors,
> Carla Schroder, wrote a rebuttal of Pamela Jones' article blasting
> Linspire.  Here's Carla's article (with link to the Groklaw article):
> http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/59438/index.html
> 
> Here is one of the threads that resulted from Carla's article:
> http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/22508/
> 
> Reading the article will display all the related threads, but this one
> was particularly interesting.
> 
> I was curious how folks on the list here feel about it all.  Needless
> to say, Linspire have placed themselves in an interesting position. 
> While I understand the desire to make closed codecs/drivers available,
> there should be a goal to develop libre codecs/drivers to replace the
> former.  Linspire seems more interested in maintaining the status quo,
> rather than seeking to mover people away from closed source software.
> 

I am on another list with a former employee of MP3.com. He is not a fan 
of, nor does he trust the founder of Linspire. He does not believe that 
he is a friend of the community, but one of many who will attempt to 
exploit the fact that the FOSS community isn't very organized at 
defending its copyrights. He urges caution. I don't know enough about 
the company or MP3.com to comment on anything other than the distro. I 
don't like dumbed down distros. Why try to make the Windows of Linux. I 
like keeping simple things simple, and hard things 
manageable/understandable. Dumbing down the interfaces tend to make 
simple things complex.