[K12OSN] needed: recommendations for Linux flavor with ongoing support

["Terrell Prudé Jr."]

Les Mikesell wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-01-03 at 18:32 -0800, Robert Arkiletian wrote:
>
>   
>> The point is, of all the distros out there only SuSE has implicitly
>> admitted that it is violating M$ IP by accepting a covenant for it's
>> customers that states M$ will not sue them for any IP violations.
>>     
>
> That's not at all clear - and Novell has explicitly stated the
> opposite. In any case, everyone else is using the same code and
> has the same violations if any exist.
>
>   
>> Samba does not violate any M$ IP. M$ wishes it did. We can thank the
>> brilliance of Andrew Tridgell for that.
>>     
>
> I'm not sure anyone can say that with any confidence, given the
> state of US patent law and the number of patents held by MS.  And
> no amount of brilliance can work around a patent - that's the point
> of having them.
>
>   
>> For M$ it's a
>> win-win situation. They get the FUD they wanted plus get the FLOSS
>> community to abandon one of the top 3 distros. And for anyone that
>> buys the BS that this deal was about creating better interoperability,
>> all I have to say is M$ has been hard at work doing it's best to
>> thwart Linux-Windows compatibility for a long time.
>>     
>
> I think you missed the other half of the arrangement. Novell still
> claims rights to the original UNIX code (in spite of SCO's claims)
> and MS now includes Services-For-Unix and other things that might
> possibly infringe.  It's better for everyone for MS to be able to
> use good, well tested designs instead of inventing something worse
> and putting it on our networks.
>
>   
>> They hate Samba
>> and tried to obfuscate it out of existence. But Tridgell is not
>> someone easily obfuscated :)
>>     
>
> Samba is really only interesting to someone running Windows anyway.
> If the GPL didn't prevent people from distributing all the components
> you need together, we might have had some real competition to
> windows by now and made it irrelevant.  
>
>   

Les, if you have a problem with GPL'd software, then why are you on the
K12LTSP list?  If you're convinced that you're at legal risk for using
GNU/Linux or any other GPL'd software such as Samba, then you're free to
go to Windows or Mac OS X.

--TP
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Microsoft Free since 2003 <http://www.gnu.org/>--the ultimate antivirus
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