[Wolves] Online petition to use Linux

[Kevanf1]

On 19/02/07, Andy Smith <andy at lug.org.uk> wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 19, 2007 at 04:23:25PM +0000, Kevanf1 wrote:
> > On 19/02/07, Andy Smith <andy at lug.org.uk> wrote:
> >
> > >If a customer of mine started preaching to me about what software I
> > >had to use for the company's internal processes then I would not be
> > >impressed. :)
> > >
> >
> > But in this case the company is the UK, we the public are the
> > shareholders and we are the ones paying for the proprietary software.
>
> Customers of all companies "pay for" the software those companies
> use, in the price they pay for the services of the company.

That's indirectly.  In this case we are the direct payers of the software.

> > Ok, if open source doesn't do the job I agree, use proprietary.  But
> > while I'm paying my taxes I would rather that the money goes to other
> > things instead of to a billionaire if at all possible.
>
> As far as I am aware Mark Shuttleworth is not that far off being a
> billionaire having sold his SSL business to the crawling doom that
> is Verisign.  I am sure there are some very well off people at
> Redhat and Novell as well.

So?  I have never paid a penny to any of those.  Yes I can voluntarily
pay to p[rojects in open source which is a different matter.  The paid
for distro's make their money from support contracts, people's brain
power to keep a program going not a piece of coding then more money on
top when it goes wrong.

> The money spent is pretty much the least of my worries as Microsoft
> practically give it away for free anyway to governments and so on,
> to ensure lock-in; something that would not be an issue if open
> standards were mandated.  So to me that is by far the more important
> battle and IMHO people should not be distracted by vague handwaving
> and a "down with Microsoft" sentiment.
>
>
Ah, I didn't actually say 'down with Microsoft'.  I object to paying
money to the microsoft corporation.  I have done in the past when I
purchased my first PC and for extras like Office.  Now I have no need
to do so and I actually prefer open source equivalents.  But I am held
to ransom by those running the country supposedly for me and you
because they do not look favourably at open source.
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============================================
Kevan Farmer
Linux user #373362
Staffordshire