Goodbye Mr. Gates
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Last year we spent far too much time and money dealing with spyware, malware, browser hijackers, viruses and trojans. Last month a particularly tenacious version of Vx2 tested my patience to the breaking point. Since time was critical a fresh install was the fastest solution. When I got to the point where the license agreement was displayed and I was asked to click the "I Agree" button, I hesitated. How many times had I done this without thinking? It occurred to me that I didn't have to. As a matter of fact, I didn't want to. I simply didn't agree with the license. Well, time was critical, so I shamefully clicked the button.
DFS Of course you'd be suprised, your a CSS drone, you've had to click a EULA for decades now..... The GPL only takes effect when you DISTRIBUTE not...
This weekend we installed Slackware 10 on our 5 PC's, transfered all data, implemented a web based billing system, got everyone's email and web access working, setup a simple firewall-network storage-print server on a little VIA EPIA board (Once the NSLU2 arrives, I think it will be doing the print serving and backups). The only significant expense was for a new laser printer as the old one was MS only.
Monti is, of course, a prosecutor the same as Joel Klein for the DOJ, and he is unlikely to be giving both sides of the story. The EU actions are equivalent to...
Perhaps we are among the lucky few, but the setup was completely painless. I figure as long as the data is being backed up, even a lightning strike to all five computers would only stop us for a weekend. As an added bonus, if lighting does strike our 5 computers, we won't need to plead our case to MS, hoping they re-authorise our software.
So that's it. That's my story. I may be spending alot of time in alt.os.linux.slackware, then again, there may be no need. I'd just like to end by saying, "Good bye Mr. Gates!".