[SC.LUG] [Fwd: Xandros Desktop OS Open Circulation Edition]

[Rick]

On Saturday 19 February 2005 11:09, David Holden wrote:
>  Now they clearly don't *have to*, they obviously think its in their
> business interest to do so, but I see nothing wrong with that.

Of course they have to, the entire Linux revolution is built upon being able 
to download and use it for free. Any distro that decided not to offer a free 
version would have to be pretty spectacular (eg Linspire)

Look at how close mandrake came to bankrupcy, everyone was using the free 
version because at the time the commercial offering wasn't worth the box it 
came in (and you got hell of a lot more than installation support). at the 
time the whole Mandrake package was significantly better than Xandros

> Actually you probably can't.  I've run lots of distros and although they
> largely consist of the same free software how that is put together has a
> huge bearing on how useable the distro is.

www.linuxfromscratch.org - You've got to be a bit nuts mind, but it can be 
done.

How all the software is put together has very little to do with how well a 
distro works to your needs out of the box. Distro specific tweaking makes up 
a tiny tiny percentage of the whole package and for the most part it boils 
down to some having better boot scripts than others.

The rest of the tweaks are experience related, default WM, nice icons and 
maybe a few config tools.

> Sorry but I think you are way off here. Firstly  "Installation
>  technical support via e-mail" is a requirement for many business.

Technical support is essential, "Installation technical support" is utterly 
worthless (click click click, oops, I installed Linux)

> "Users who don't know any better" are probably people who have better
> things to do with there time than to google/spend hours fiddling to get X
> working, and for a business time is money so if they are making money from
> "Installation technical support via e-mail" all power to them.

Of course Linux on the desktop has to appeal to people who dont know (or even 
care) how or why. all of the desktop distros cater to this market segment, 
how well their efforts are recieved is as I said above. Good bootscripts 
(that get all the hardware working) and experience (nice desktop, etc)

Most of the much touted user friendlyness actually comes as standard anyway, 
isnt kde great.....

> Again I think your way off. The whole history of commerce is loaded with
> try before you buy. This is particularly relevent for software, where it
> allows you to increase your community of users, some of which however will
> be willing to pay for extra services

Linux doesnt fit the traditional try before you buy business model. You don't 
find companies like sage offering to give you a full version to try (and buy 
if you feel like it)

>  I don't get why your so heated about this, obviously your not there target
> audience, thats the point of choice.

I don't think their target audience know enough to know they have a choice.

Rick