[ubuntu-us-in] "Free" software CD

[Simón Ruiz]

On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 10:01 AM, Jason Corfman
<computers at corfyscorner.com> wrote:
> I guess my feeling is I don't understand how they could stop free
> redistribution of a free program, especially when they use third-party
> sites like download.com to distribute it to begin with. And I'm not
> making money on it (not even to cover the cost of the CD), so I don't
> see why they would care. It just saves them the bandwidth and spreads
> their product. If I sold the CD, even for a buck or two, or if I gave a
> free CD with the purchase of something else, I could understand them
> being upset. But I'm just giving these away to anyone who will take one.

I don't doubt that the license owner's SHOULDN'T be upset by what
you're doing, and probably WOULDN'T, I'm just talking about the
license.

I understand your point. And it's a well-reasoned point.

And it's the kind of point that will always come up when you're
talking about the differences between proprietary licenses and free
licenses, as well as between copyrighted material and creative commons
style license.

Unless it has a free license that I already understand or I read in
the license for each individual application that re-distribution is
explicitly allowed, I assume it's not.

> Most people I know don't bother with purchasing antivirus and are happy
> with whatever came with their computer. The fact that they had a 90 day
> antivirus trial on their computer that they bought four years ago
> escapes them (a coworker asked me to clean a virus off his personal
> computer with three-year-old expired antivirus... he didn't have a
> virus, he had 93 different viruses). As an IT guy, I think people who
> use Windows should use a current antivirus, and if I am going to give
> them software, I want some of that software to be antivirus that runs
> automatically (ClamWin only scans when you tell it to). And along those
> lines, adware and spyware are just as bad to a system as viruses, so I
> want to make sure that I give out some way of cleaning those as well. If
> I could find open source alternatives, I would switch in a heartbeat.

Yeah, I'm *so* glad I don't have all that anti-malware crud sucking up
processor time and memory in the background anymore; it's not much
better than having a bunch of malware crud sucking up your resources!
;-)

> And if I could move everyone to Ubuntu, I would. But most people I know
> don't know enough about Linux or Ubuntu to switch. Heck, most of them
> don't know anything about Windows except that is what they have always
> used and that is what everyone else uses, so it must be good. And if
> they know anything about Linux, it is probably from me, but when I start
> talking about it, their eyes glaze over or they just dismiss what I'm
> saying as the ravings of a fanatic (like me being a Cincinnati Bengals
> fan despite living 25 miles from the Colts stadium).

*lol* Yeah.

Most people don't know enough about Windows to use it securely, period.

And most people are definitely afraid of change. This is really the
main concrete reason people have for not trying alternatives, and most
of the reasons they give when asked boil down to this one in the end.

We've worked on my mother in law for a while now, switched her to
Thunderbird first, then Firefox, then OpenOffice.org.

Since those are the three only things she uses her computer for, we're
able to tell her that all of her applications will work just the same
as they did before, just faster.

> Jason

Hope you're all having a great day!

Simón