Hey, I’m a Linux user and have been for over three years. I love the community. They’re helpful and giving. They’re often idealistic. Sometimes, though, they’re a little bit crazy.
Recently, Best Buy has started stocking boxed versions of Ubuntu in many of their stores. When news of this hit the Ubuntu Forums, there were forum members claiming that selling Ubuntu violated the GPL, that Best Buy was immoral for selling free software, that ValuSoft couldn’t really be an official Canonical approved software partner and thus should be sued by Canonical for trademark infringement.
Come on! This is a good thing. The GPL provides for selling free software, since the “free” refers to freedom, not cost. Apart from the fact that Canonical on its website officially announced ValuSoft as a new partner, there’s no way Best Buy would sell software that was from some shady company blatantly infringing on trademarks. Best Buy may have some sketchy business practices, but I’m sure their lawyers make sure nothing is illegal… or at least not immediately obviously so.
Yes, Ubuntu can be downloaded for free, but not everyone trusts free products, not everyone is aware of software unless it’s available at a store like Best Buy, not everyone has a fast enough connection to download a 700 MB file, and not everyone knows what to do with a downloaded .iso file anyway. Never mind that the boxed Ubuntu comes with a manual and 60-day support. You can read more about this deal at ComputerWorld: Best Buy stores to sell boxed version of Ubuntu Linux.
And then there’s our good buddy, Hans Reiser, creator of the ReiserFS filesystem. When news hit that he was being charged with his wife’s murder, Linux users on both Ubuntu Forums and Linux Questions came to his immediate defense (Why? No Linux developer can be a murderer? Why not?) and started being all arrogant about their peanut gallery policework, citing the lack of a body and all the evidence against Reiser being circumstantial. Even when the prosecutor announced they were going to make a deal with Reiser to reveal the body’s location for a reduced sentence, some Linux users were still insisting that the prosecutor may have just pulling this deal out of nowhere, and it doesn’t mean Reiser actually knows where the body is.
It wasn’t until Hans Reiser actually did reveal the location of the body that Linux users realized en masse, “Oh, wait. He actually did kill his wife.” Yeah. Everyone’s got an opinion on the guilt or innocence of people involved in public trials. Everyone’s got a conspiracy theory and wants to make it seem as if the police and courts are totally inept. Yes, of course, if only the justice system were in the hands of Linux users—then real justice would be done.
No. We’re all human. That means Linux programmers can be murderers. Linux users can be wrong. The police and courts can sometimes mess up things and sometimes get things right.
My fellow Linux users, let’s hold off before jumping to conclusions. People already think Linux users are crazy geeks. Don’t provide more fodder, please.
On the subject of selling Ubuntu 8.04 at Best Buy, Ars Technica’s Ryan Paul http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080710-canonical-hopes-best-buy-ubuntu-will-spur-linux-adoption.html had this to say:
“On the surface, the idea of selling free software in a box for $19.99 is somewhat absurd, but there could be a unique opportunity for desktop-oriented Linux distributions right now as Vista disillusionment and XP’s end of retail life compels consumers to look at alternatives. Putting Ubuntu at eye-level in major retail outlets will, at the very least, increase awareness of the open source operating system and increase the potential for adoption.”
I think both Ryan and you are right on this issue, it is a good thing for Canonical, Ubuntu and Linux in general !
The next step for Best Buy would be to sell an Ubuntu certified computer, without any pre-installed software on it of course.
We are crazy geeks…
Arent all forums and communities like that? Music fans when hear about some criminal tendencies of their star also tend to defend their star without any scientific thinking or rhyme or reason.
But yeah sometimes we Linux users appear to be crazy and foolish geeks.