On Fri, 6 Sep 2002, Sameer Shinde wrote:
Some ppl say that Linux is free & so not is windows. But can they tell
free as in free speech. it's not the cost that matters. it's what you can do with it. with linux I have the freedom to study, modify and redistribute the source code. with windows i don't have that freedom. therefore...
me what wod they have done if linux & all of its goodies were also not
i would not have used linux if it were not free in the free speech sense, and...
free? They say windows is buggy, even I say. But then everything have some bugs ( even human beings ) Nothing is perfect. We are developer
even linux has bugs, but since I have the source code, *I* can fix those bugs, instead of waiting for the manufacturers to fix them. Ok, suppose I'm not a programmer and cannot fix the bugs. The fact is that since everyone has access to the source, there must be at least 1 person in the world who can and will fix the bug and return the fix to the manufacturers, who in turn will send it to me. The mean time between bug finding and fixing in this case is of the order of 1 day max (although as little as 10 minutes has been known). If we remember the 2.4.11 kernel which had a few bugs in it. 2.4.12 was released 30 minutes after 2.4.11 - with the bugs fixed.
I/we do some sort of programming & need to test it on different OS But for a general user who is only interested in playing games, surfing web & doing some work in word excel. Why should he swithch to any other OS if he is getting MS for free ( pirated )? There is no reason
he shouldn't unless his concience keeps worrying him.