----- Original Message ----- From: Alan Pope <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Thursday, January 25, 2007 12:03 pm Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] Battle of the Operating Systems To: British Ubuntu Talk <ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com>
> On Wed, Jan 24, 2007 at 05:49:56PM +0000, London School of > Puppetry wrote: > > Hi there, I was talking to friends about Linux (Ubuntu) said > it was free- > > then they all look puzzled because they have never paid for it > ...it comes > > free with a new computer.....so then what is my answer? > Caroline> > > "Free" has two meanings. "Free of monetary cost" or "free and in > 'beer'", and "Freedom of use" or "free as in 'speech'". > > Windows is neither. > > It is not free of monetary cost, small companies pay around $100 > for their Windows license they bundle with the computer you buy, > larger companies such as Dell pay around $50 for the Windows license. > > You pay nothing for Ubuntu - it is free of monetary cost. > > The freedoms that the GPL and other licenses give you allows you > to use the software, copy the software, modify the software and > make > derivative versions of the software. You can't do any of that > with Windows. > > They also have further issues with Windows in that it controls > the way in which they can use their computer. These limitations > may > restrict what media they are able to play, and how they can > manage their media (photos, movies, music etc). > > Personally when I talk to people about Linux/Ubunu I stay clear > of the Free/Libre argument initially because it can become a > very long > complex and political discussion. It is one that needs to be > had, but you can easily get dragged into length semantic > arguments that > do not help your cause. > > Instead I often use the simple "I use Linux because it does what > I want", or "I dont use Windows because it doesn't do what I want". > > I blogged about this a while ago. > http://popey.com/Helping_Windows_Users which you may find > interesting/useful. > Cheers, > Al. > > -- > ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk > https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/ > I guess this is the follow up from the "Battle of the Operating System", 2 vista reviews, 1 open sauce :-p and 1 OSX. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6309425.stm Regards, Adam.
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