On Thu, 15 Nov 2012, Ted Gould wrote:

The MS representatives believe that the reason Ubuntu is big in China is
because people are buying machines to pirate Windows.  Unfortunately
it's hard to prove that isn't the case (which is one of the reasons they
argue it).  So, in general, it's hard to say "how big" in this case, but

There is nothing 'unfortunate' about it at all -- The MSFT representatives are parrotting a party line, and trying to frame a debate about intellectual property rights which China agreed to enforce as part of joining WIPO.  Open Source does not have a dog in that fight

Open Source does not control the actions of its purchasers or users, nor have an obligation to facilitate control schemes that others might want adopted.  Just the opposite -- see Stallman's Four Freedoms essays over time -- By and large, it seeks to provide software freedom of many forms

I don't recall Microsoft _asking_ the FSF about the new UEFI bootloaders which vastly complicate the rights of owners of hardware wanting to use Open Source before functionally mandating it to the large manufacturers.  They just rammed it through with market power

-- Russ herrold

---------------------------------------------------
PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss