On Friday 07 January 2005 01:14, Rony Bill wrote:

On Thu, 2005-01-06 at 10:57, sherlock@vsnl.com wrote:

Involved in what way? It is the customer who ultimately takes the decision if he wants to pay or get grey stuff. 'Free' software is not charged for, so no one is making money on it.

I make lotsa money giving away away free software :-))

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3. Many in this posts seem to think that since piracy is the norm

it has to be acceptable.

No that is not true. What is however true is that piracy has kept software prices low and more affordable.

Oh God -- i am tired of repeating everything.

If there was a software sourcing monopoly, it would kill the customers. Without 'competition', the customer is at the mercy of the software company.

Could not agree more. So happy pirating (how does that change the monopoly situation tho is tooo complicated for my stupid brain).

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4. Many in this post think that people with poor tech skills are

not to blame for their woes.

Thats not true either. Every skill is important and yet different in its own way. Everyone is playing their role in promoting the computer industry.

Of course they are. But with a little more effort they would do much better using GNU/Linux. AND they are no more at the mercy of some crooked company. Infact there is a whole new market emerging for servers and maintaining them in small and medium enterprise. In short opportunities caused by free availability of a total computing environment - development tools, applications, manuals, Source code, hardware designs, massive totally cooperative technically very competent user community for everything u could possible imagine. All u need to add is a bussiness plan and your resources. If you had to pay for the above to get even a small bussiness started your investment would be anywhere between Rs.10 to 40 lacs. AND guess what after spending all that moolah Billy boy and gang would be taking away the lions share of the money u collect. It tickles me no end to see the "idiots" in our industry spending their hard earned cash to enrich a crooked corporation who will use the same to fleece them again and again.

What is SLA? Service Level agreement. It defines your responsibilites in terms of time to respond and solve a problem and liability if u fail to do so. A mutually agreed measurement of quality of service for which u are being paid.

I have some suggestions for a practical solution to this vexed issue.

1.The software experts in linux on this forum could have a meeting with the Lamington Road dealers or the Association itself and get atleast a few of them to tie up for selling linux compatible hardware.

U dont need a software expert for that. AFAIK all hardware from the local shop works well under linux. List some hardware that u have problems with.

The other> luggers including I, can give their requirements for drivers they need for commonly used hardware and peripherials.

Ok name the hardware. I am sure the drivers will already be there. The devices for which drivers are not available is because the manufacturer refuses to provide hardware details. A mojor reason to avoid such companies in the first place.

rgds jtd