[ale] Bloody MS EULA Changes Effecting Our Choice

[Rich DeMARS]

Again, the theme I am getting out of the article is simply the complete lack of free choice we have in our current environments.  A lack of free choice that is not just in the business world, but also in the political world.  To have to vote for bad candidate one or bad candidate two is not really a free choice.  And now it seems that lack of free choice is growing even more in to our technology world.  But luckily, we have a stronger tool in the business that is tougher than the voting ballot and we don't have to wait four years to use it.  It is the dollar, the business world's voting ballot.

Stop buying products from companies that support this type of lack of free choice by hiding legalese deep inside some EULA.  On the Desktop and Server side of things it is quite easy, Build Your Own.  I do this in the company I work for now and did it in the company I started before.  It gives us the most flexibility and computing power for our voting dollars.

On the Notebook side of things it is a little harder. It is not very economical to try to build your own notebook.  But there are options, like System 76.  In fact, I am typing this email on a System 76 notebook that is running a VNC client connected to a VDI Linux workstation running on a 4 core dual Xeon server I built for our VM farm.

There are also Macbooks out there that in my option are one of the best hardware engineered notebooks on the market, though yes very very very locked down in choice.  But I will say one thing about Apple, they don't hide the fact that the are locked down or a bundled system.  And at least they don't stop you from installing Linux as the OS for their systems yet.

Voting with our dollars is the own choice we have in this matter and teaching others how best to vote with their dollars is our only future.

Rich DeMARS
IT Manager

-----Original Message-----
From: "Jim Kinney" <jim.kinney at gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2010 8:19am
To: "Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux!" <ale at ale.org>
Subject: Re: [ale] Bloody MS EULA Changes Effecting Our Choice

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Owning a corp you WORK at is actove investment and generally a positive
thing.
Passive investment is more dubious.
On Oct 18, 2010 5:27 AM, "Paul Cartwright" <ale at pcartwright.com> wrote:
> On Sun October 17 2010, arxaaron wrote:
>> wealthy elitist bloodsucking privateers who
>> claim corporate ownership
>
> by definition that would include quite a few members of this list...
anyone
> who has their own company.. I claim corporate ownership, I have an LLC.
> so sue me:-0)
>
> --
> Paul Cartwright
> Registered Linux user # 367800
> Registered Ubuntu User #12459
> http://usdebtclock.org/
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