Windows 7 free and legal until 2010

So I guess that makes all those big corporations, ISPs, Web Hosts, etc. etc. etc. criminals for using that "illegal Linux".....

hehe.

Google, amazon, virtually all hosting and datacenters....criminals everyone! It's a pandemic!

In answer to

Quoting:"You guys know that Linux is illegal, right?"

Yes, but only in the Soviet Union and Albania before it overthrew its Communist Dictatorship.

Don't fight FUD with facts. Know you enemy, truth sometimes is just too dull. Moreover, those predisposed to discount your words will be immune to reason. Therefore, I suggest shocking them out of it and having a laugh at their expense.

YBT

This is how Apple got to be so popular. They offered their products at cut-rate prices (even free) to schools.

People don't need to make excuses to not want to try Linux.

I have no interest in trying sex with a man, but I'm told many people like it. Even my wife.

But seriously, just make it available. Let people who you work with know you use it, then let them come to you. Help solve their Windows problems, and mention that if they used Linux they wouldn't have that problem. Then let them choose.

If they want to upgrade hardware, and ask advice, ask then what they have now. Then you have the opportunity to say, "Gee, that would be great to run Linux on. After you spend $800 on a new system, can I upgrade your old one? Or maybe try Linux on your old one and you won't want to spend the grand on something you don't need?"

But seriously, I must agree that there is no magic bullet, no incantation that will get people to realize that "computer" doesn't have to mean "windows".

Bob, it wasnt magic, it wasnt a bullet, it was cool-aid.

Quoting:I have no interest in trying sex with a man...

Nor have I.

Quoting:But seriously, just make it available.

I assume we're talking about Linux again.

Quoting:Let people who you work with know you use it, then let them come to you. Help solve their Windows problems, and mention that if they used Linux they wouldn't have that problem. Then let them choose.

Yep good advice, I do that, I also show them why that problem can't be a problem on Linux, while I'm at it.

On my computer advice Forum on yuku, I cam across this Gem. I'm helping a person in New York State (from Queensland) to begin his journey to Linux, I've been busy posting tutorials and answering questions. He asked about partition naming and mounting conventions in Linux, and wther he could continue to mount his on Windows M: partition as M: on Linux and noted that I had already pointed out that partitions mount as part of the file system. http://freethinkerspub.yuku.com/topic/6958?page=9

Someone who has been making the odd (yes odd) post or two posted this Gem

Quoting:That's another leftover from Unix, which is what ALL Linux variants are derived from.

As if somehow this way of doing things is inferior to other ways (the Windows way I assume).

which got my friend rather worried. It did however make it possible for me to write a nice corection.

Good reply.

I found the *nix way to be so much more logical once I got used to it. I always thought the whole drive letter thing was just weird and annoying. "What drive letter is my flash drive going to mount to this time? What's going to happen to my drive letters when I add that new disk?" etc.

It's all about preloads.

Whichever OSes manage to come preloaded on systems are the ones that will have a chance.

Non-Windows OS makers, be they corporations or communities, need to somehow convince hardware makers that installing their system instead of Windows can help the hardware company's business. End of story.

Steven:

Actually, no it can't. The ever-increasing hardware demands of Windows is what drives most hardware sales. If anything, Linux makes it possible to recycle equipment, even with the latest, most capable version of Linux. Just ask helios.

Wow, I just got banned on my yuku forum. I've just had to create a whole new user to continue posting there.

Stories about giving Windows 7 away for free along with stories that Microsoft will continue to sell Vista into the next year on the same day. This makes both stories seem more likely.

Why continue to sell a product no one wants to buy? There has to be a reason. Why give away a new product that seems to be more in line with what your customers will purchase? There has to be a reason.

No one wants Vista and Microsoft is scared of losing market share to Linux. Heck They may know what we know and understand that there are a lot more Linux users out there than the published studies show.

If Microsoft were to give Windows 7 away for free and stop selling Vista, this could get them in hot water due to anti-competitive monopolistic actions.

But, if MS were to keep Vista as there 'main OS product' (on paper) and give Windows 7 away for 6 months as some sort of pre-release, this would take care of both issues. Microsoft does not have to be afraid of Vista sales cutting into Windows 7 'sales'. No one is buying Vista now and no one will continue to buy it when Windows 7 is available for free. Giving Windows 7 away free will let them compete with Linux, a superior competitor that is free.

And if Windows 7 is not exactly on schedule, this will allow MS to extend the Beta period without missing schedule deadlines and all important management bonuses!

These two news items show that MS is extremely desperate and extremely scared!

> They may know what we know and understand that there are a lot more Linux users out there than the published studies show.

I'd say that's absolutely certain. Microsoft probably has a better grasp of the number of Linux users than anyone else.

> That's another leftover from Unix, which is what ALL Linux variants are derived from.

If I may disagree only in degree, please.

There are a whole lot of Linux-based system programmers who are young enough that their early computer experience is entirely GUI.

So yeah, the root of Linux is Unix, and there are central assumptions of the core system that still reflect Unix assumptions and the experience gained over the 20-odd years of *nix evolution before single-user computers took over the world.

OLWM works just like OLWM did when I first met it in 1992. Ok, actually it doesn't work anywhere near as well, configurations don't seem to stick for me, but it's not important because I keep it just as a "stroll down memory lane this afternoon."

But GUI interaction is driven by people who first became comfortable on Mac and Windows systems. CTRL-C / CTRL-V to copy/paste I first hit on the Mac in 1991, Windows got that feature soon after, but even while that works in KDE too, I can still use the "middle mouse button" (three mouse buttons? wow!) to paste in Linux.

Another very nice little artifact from Unix: three button mice.

Quoting:There are a whole lot of Linux-based system programmers who are young enough that their early computer experience is entirely GUI.

They get really mad at me when I tell them that my Mother used DOS and was actually pretty good at it.

I like messing with those "entitled" Gen Y'ers. They deserve every bit of it.

tuxtom,

Every time some one tells me that Linux isn't 'good enough' I think about Windows 3.1.

Win 3.1 was more than 'good enough' for Billions of computer users. It made Microsoft the king of computer software in the small computer market.

Linux is way better than 'good enough'. Heck DosS hell was ' good enough' for hundreds of millions of users.

(Did I put that space in the wrong place again?)

Computer users today don't have a clue. (and get off my lawn you kids!)

> Computer users today don't have a clue.

Agreed, but I don't consider this a bad thing either.

Change happens. I am thrilled that I don't have to look at Win3.1 on my machine (although it would likely run unimaginably fast on this machine, considering how it ran on the hardware of the day...if it ran at all), but I suddenly realize I have the same window-border colors I set on Win3.1

Eeeek!

Yes, computer users are spoiled today. I am glad that, in some small way, I helped that happen.

Point of semantic contention. The roots of GNU are UNIX, the root of Linux is posix.

This has semantic meaning, but makes no functional difference to the roots of Linux are Unix.

For the sake of the SCO lawsuit, let's also be sure to point out that those roots are rhetorical, not literal.

Quoting:Yes, computer users are spoiled today. I am glad that, in some small way, I helped that happen.

Yes, like the citizenry. They, too, have become ever more powerless over their lives and subject to the nefarious whims of their overseers.