will lack of corporate support kill off Linux?

[Brian Densmore]

> One thing that companies should do if they are afraid of M$'s 
> license police
> is to repartition their hard drives and install Linux.  When 
> the M$ weenies
> come around, boot to Linux and tell them to f*ck off.  Then 
> boot back if you
> want to.  They have no right to examine your hard drive's 
> contents, just
> outward appearances of the system.
Sorry, I have to disagree with this statement. If a company or individual
pays for a XXX user/desktop license of anything. Then the selling company
has a right to verify compliance. Bottom line is the product is sold on a
per use license. If you are willing to pay for such a restricted use
license, then you should have the moral rectitude to abide by it. I am no
longer willing to buy into the whole one license, one use crap.

> 
> <soap box warning!!>
> 
> In a completely different case, we're actively promoting as 
> much Free software
> as we can here.  (Pardon me while I strain my shoulder 
> patting myself on the
> back).  We're converting from a proprietary pseudo-database 
> to MySQL (or
> possibly PostgreSQL in the future) for our clients.  We'll be 
> porting our
> code to Linux from SCO unixware soon.  We expect to make an 
> extra $1000 per
> sale just in license fee savings.
> 
> When given the simple business case of 'we save money' and 
> 'we will have more
> usable systems' quite a few businesses will start to switch 
> to Open Source.
> We're also using the traditional 'we can fix things 
> ourselves' reason, too.
> 
> When I got here, they didn't do any Open source related 
> things.  It's been
> 6 months and now we're actively rolling out Free software to 
> our clients.
> (and I got promoted to development team lead and software architect)
> 
> So, businesses can get a clue.  Sure, it helps that this is a 
> small business
> and we can move faster than most.  But all businesses can 
> benefit from going
> with OSS/FS.
> 
> Gotta go, off to recommend Samba over NT for file services...
> 
I have to agree, businesses will see the bottom line and the world as we
know it will change. Slowly at first, but then it will avalanche. It will
become a competitve necessity. M$ sees this and is doing everything it can
to kill Linux and Open Source. The next few years should be very
interesting. M$ won't give up without a war. Expect heavy casualties!