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Linux Business

Talk With Michael Robertson 338

Posted by Roblimo from the hero-or-horror? dept.
Lindows CEO Michael Robertson is vilified by many Linux advocates. At the same time, he is probably drawing more attention to desktop Linux than anyone else in the world. Is he evil? Or is he just a typical American businessman trying to make it big (for the second time; before Lindows, he founded -- and later sold -- MP3.com)? One thing is for sure: Unlike many CEOs, he'll give a plain-talk answer to a straight question. We'll send 10 of the highest-moderated questions submitted here by Slashdot readers to Robertson tomorrow, and run his answers, unedited, as soon as he gets them back to us.
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Talk With Michael Robertson More

Talk With Michael Robertson

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  • Kde or gnome (Score:5, Interesting)

    by minus_273 ( 174041 ) <aaaaa@NOspam.SPAM.yahoo.com> on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:03PM (#5825795) Journal
    In you opinion, is the future of the linux Desktop based on KDE or Gnome? Any reason why Lindows chose KDE? What improvements in KDE would you like to see?

  • Two cars in every garage... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:04PM (#5825807)
    Mr. Robertson: your campaign seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are you so unpopular?

  • CnR issues, interoperability and unified looks (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:06PM (#5825822)
    Questions:

    Q. The main reason someone would buy LindowsOS is to run Click N Run. However, browsing through its aisles, we see some very old versions of the software presented there. Gnumeric and other apps haven't been updated for a year or so. Additionally, lately we don't see much new software on CnR. Any insight on that?

    Q. Is work being done to unify the looks of KDE and Gnome? Also, the last time I checked, Lindows was only coming by default with Gnome/GTK+ of the 1.4 era. Any plans to upgrade?
  • so tell me why I should be interested in it rather than just making a dual boot Linux/Windows machine.

  • Lindows (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Gizzmonic ( 412910 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:07PM (#5825831) Homepage Journal
    how can an OS completely dedicated to emulating another OS would ever be popular?

    if copying Windows is your focus, isn't your OS already second-rate by design?
    • Lindows is not "dedicated to emulating" windows. Personally, I don't like Lindows because I think it's a poorly made distro, but it is definately not what you said.

      • Re:troll (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Otter ( 3800 )
        Nope, he's right. Prerelease hype about Lindows focused primarily on its alleged seamless Windows emulation. (Prerelease whining on Slashdot focused primarily on hypothetical patches that weren't being shared with WINE.)

        Once it was released, it became clear that the reality was far short of the promises, and their marketing shifted accordingly. But as the name suggests, it was initially positioned as "Windows for free".

        • nope, he's wrong (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Ender Ryan ( 79406 )
          I know that! But what the hell does that have to do with what Lindows is doing now? That's not their focus NOW, if the question was asked back THEN, it would be relevent.

  • Love him or hate him, he's putting Linux in the news. Thats a Good Thing (tm).

    I was able to install Redhat 9 on my parents computer this weekend because they started with conversation with "What's this Lindows thing?"

  • Remains to be seen (Score:5, Funny)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:07PM (#5825840) Journal
    Unlike many CEOs, he'll give a plain-talk answer to a straight question.

    Who wants to take bets that he'll give self-affirming, buzzword-laden, market-speak answers?

  • Game plan (Score:5, Interesting)

    by missing000 ( 602285 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:08PM (#5825847)
    Lindows has made many inroads to desktop acceptance, despite the gripes the open source community has had with the concept.
    That said, where do you see a break even point for Lindows financially?

    Also, what is the reasoning in not allowing binary downloads? I would never consider shelling our cash for a GPL based product I had never test driven.

  • What would change it all? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:08PM (#5825849) Homepage Journal
    What one thing do you think can happen to make Linux a more desirable desktop over microsoft right now? Is there one feature or item or event that would 'convince' everyone to give Linux a try (minus 'bomb Redmond')?
    • While I do enjoy using Linux, I am not in favor of bombing Redmond. You see, I live right next door in Kirkland and the fallout might be, ummm... 'inconvenient'.

      Thanks for your consideration! :-)


    • This is the exact question I wanted to ask, but didnt have the words to ask it.

      Thats exactly it, So far Lindows is focused on becoming as good as Windows, but it needs to be BETTER than Windows to compete with Windows, not just as good, BETTER.

      So far Linux needs to improve the quality, stuff like the fonts, the lack of alpha channel, or hardware rendering, the lack of eye candy, the clickNrun is a good start, it helps with functionality, but Linux is missing that eye candy to make Linux unique in itself,
      • Thats exactly it, So far Lindows is focused on becoming as good as Windows, but it needs to be BETTER than Windows to compete with Windows, not just as good, BETTER.

        I disagree in a way. If 'more' means better, then I disagree. In the rush to make Linux 'better' it is becoming bloated.

        To me, better is smaller, faster, simpler, more reliable. I don't need Linux to second guess me like windows tries to. I don't need it to offer to report a crash to someone. I don't need it to slow me down with its 'con

  • I like Michael Robertson (Score:5, Interesting)

    by HanzoSan ( 251665 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:10PM (#5825864) Homepage Journal


    Hes done more for the community than IBM has. He personally funds alot of the Linux on the Desktop movement, while IBM is busy focused on business.

    Honestly, I'd like to thank Michael Robertson for doing what hes doing, most people wouldnt give their own money to make Linux a success.

    I dont see anyone else doing this. Millions of dollars to KDE, hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Xbox project, and many other things.

    • Hes done more for the community than IBM has.

      I think that is a bit of an overstatement. But I agree with the general sentiment. I don't like Lindows for a number of reasons. But I have to admit that the distribution model is a fascinating one and may force the adotpion of Linux in general by OEM's if even marginally successful.

      I think the question we should ask him is quite direct: "Are you evil?" Hey it is what many /.-ers want to know and I wonder how many listened to him on Science Friday (on NP

    • Millions of dollars to KDE

      Bzzt. Wrong. Nobody has ever given "millions of dollars to KDE". In fact IBM has certainly had more tangible contributions to the project.

      I'm not anti-Lindows or anti-Michael, but this is a gross overstatement. To the best of my knowledge a few thousand dollars were given to the KDE League; this is a far cry from "millions". We of course appreciate the contribution, but it's important to keep things in perspective. KDE has never had a donation of anywhere close to a millio

  • my.mp3.com (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jmayes ( 176640 )

    my.mp3 was a great idea, and it should have survived in its earlier form
    now it's just not the same to pay for everything, or to have most albums locked out
    and it can't be grouped together with other p2p services like napster, kazaa, etc, because it wasn't really a useful tool for piracy
    I remember a report that documented many of the security features that really helped to prevent piracy in the my.mp3 system
    we know you aren't necessarily in the mp3 business currently, but do you have any plans or ideas t

    • Yeah file sharing within Lindows would be great if its built in, or even an mp3.com style setup.

      Or maybe a Media warehouse, where you can have an mp3.com type setup.

  • Viruses (Score:4, Interesting)

    by minus_273 ( 174041 ) <aaaaa@NOspam.SPAM.yahoo.com> on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:11PM (#5825874) Journal
    Not having viruses is one of the upsides of Linux. Why do you sell a virus scanner [lindows.com] for linux. Shouldn't you be presenting the lack of viruses as one of the reasons to switch?

    • Re:Linux has its types of virii (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      A virus is not necessarily something that gets into your system through an executable or through your email. Many rootkits are detectable through a good scanning application. Call it a virus-scanner if you will...

      I would probably like having such an application in the hands of a newbie so that if his system gets rooted, it gets fixed eventually instead of becoming a permanent spam gateway.
    • I don't know the reason for this one, but the company I work for uses a FreeBSD virus scanner running on our FreeBSD mail server to scan incoming and outgoing mail for virus attachments.

      Just this year, our moderately sized company has stopped over 12,000 virus attachments being sent to our employees.

    • Re:Viruses (Score:4, Informative)

      by pbryan ( 83482 ) <email@pbryan.net> on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:35PM (#5826125) Homepage
      Linux does have viruses, and Lindows in particular runs the desktop as root by default. Lindows is much more likely to become infected by a virus than a Linux system configured with limited user accounts.
    • Your question suggests an attitude of Linux is impervious to viruses. This thought is VERY common amongst Linux enthusiasts. However this thinking, that Linux is impervious to viruses, could very well be the biggest problem that Linux has ever seen.

      The fact is that viruses come in many forms. The more common ones today are of the worm variety and they usually target Outlook because it is the most pervasive mail client out there. But, because Linux has not yet seen a powerful worm or virus does NOT mean tha

  • Question (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Azureflare ( 645778 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:11PM (#5825876)
    Mr. Robertson,
    What are your plans (if any) for helping support the rest of the linux community. If more contributions were made back to the OSS community, then I think people would come to respect Lindows much more. Of course, as a corporation, you are totally entitled to do what you want to do. But this is an area where many feel the best strategy is to not get ahead at the expense of others, but to extend a helping hand back to the community that gave you life.
    • >> ...But this is an area where many feel the best strategy is to not get ahead at the expense of others

      What "expense" has Robertson imposed on anyone else?

      "Best strategy" for what? You're assuming a commonality of purpose that may not exist.

  • why oh why? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ender Ryan ( 79406 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:12PM (#5825884) Journal
    Why was it decided that Lindows would always run as `root' by default? That seems like a pretty bad decision to me, and many others as it's the number 1 complaint of many Linux users who would otherwise like to give Lindows a try, but perhaps we should hear why that decision was made.

    Is this how Lindows is going to continue to work in the future? I think this is one "feature" of Win9x that would really be better to leave in the past.

    • Why was it decided that Lindows would always run as `root' by default?

      Because it is designed to be a single user system :) Installing programs as a user other than root would be a problem.

      Lindows-- all the familiarity of Linux combined with the security of Windows 95 ;)

  • Micheal Robertson, heres my question. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by HanzoSan ( 251665 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:13PM (#5825892) Homepage Journal


    What do you think of the situation going on in the Xfree86 development community? Will Lindows be able to compete with OSX anytime soon in terms of quality.

    Lindows is good right now, but the quality is behind and that extra quality which OSX has, is exactly what Linux is missing. When Linux gets quality, eye candy, or whatever you call it, the masses will come along.

    Games mostly work, Alot of the important applications work. All Lindows needs is to simply be better at first glance than Windows.
  • Is he evil?

    How can a question like this be entered into rational discourse? You people have been playing too many computer role playing games. Here in real life the bar for "evil" lies a little higher: Charlie Manson, Tim McVeigh.

    Get a grip.
    • ...Huh? Being "Evil" is rational enough to invade a foriegn nation.

      Ever heard of the "Axis Of Evil"? This black-and-white simplicity is rampant in American Public Discourse, and seeing how /. is an American Website, Id say it is not out of ordinary at present.

  • Here's a question for ya (Score:4, Funny)

    by Jonny Ringo ( 444580 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:14PM (#5825899)
    How much thought and time did you put into the name "Lindows"? Seriously. Power to you and all that you're doing, but the lack of creativity in the name is blinding.

  • The name's the thing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gwernol ( 167574 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:14PM (#5825900)
    Marketing Linux to the mass market is a good thing. However it seems to me that the name you have chosen for the product is awkward at best and will only slow down potential adoption. Naming products is an important part of effective marketing, especially in the consumer market. Lindows sounds cheesy and is no longer relevant to the product since you switched emphasis from being a Linux/Windows combination. Have you considered changing the name?

  • Walmart? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by egoff ( 636181 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:15PM (#5825912)
    The best way to get anything to the public at large is to sell it at Walmart. Does Walmart have any plans to sell Lindows machines in stores, or will it stay on the website?

  • How is Lindows doing financially? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by HanzoSan ( 251665 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:16PM (#5825917) Homepage Journal


    Will Lindows be an open company? When can we buy stocks? and how are they doing?

    These are some good questions, it would also be nice to have a clue on where they are going with this. Redhat has some projections on what their roadmap is. I know Michael Robertson has alot of money, but he doesnt have infinite money.

    Also what about a cheaper subscription service for college students? Lindows college edition which instead of $99, is alot cheaper or maybe even free.

  • Goals... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Flabby Boohoo ( 606425 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:18PM (#5825942) Journal
    Do you really hope to compete with Microsoft, or are you more interested in making money with pre-loaded systems sold via retail?

    Personally, I cannot see how you could convince someone to forgo the next Windows release in favor of Lindows.
    • If Lindows is cheaper and of better quality, people will use it.

      If Lindows is higher quality and cheaper than Windows2003, people will choose Lindows.

      • Re:Price, Quality (Score:3, Insightful)

        by casio282 ( 468834 )
        If this were true Microsoft's anti-competitive practice would be a non-issue, as would marketing budgets and distribution networks.

        Real economics isn't this simple.

  • Why the change from Windows to Click'n'Run (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gwernol ( 167574 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:18PM (#5825946)
    The early pitch for Lindows was it was the Linux distribution that would run the major Windows applications. Later you stopped marketing it this way and instead decided to emphasise Click'n'Run and ease of use.

    Why the change? Were the technical problems associated with Wine too great to overcome? Was it fear of legal action from Microsoft?

    I would have thought there was a large potential market for Lindows as originally conceived. Why move away from that vision to something much less clearly differentiated from other Linux distributions?

  • PATENTING ONE-CLICK-INSTALL (Score:5, Interesting)

    by neitzsche ( 520188 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:19PM (#5825955) Journal
    Dear Mr. Robertson,

    Could you please update me on your efforts to patent your once-click-software-update solution?

    If you are granted such a patent, do you plan on allowing the open source community free (beer/speech/both?) licensing?

  • How much? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by the_consumer ( 547060 ) <slash@@@smitty...mailshell...com> on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:19PM (#5825956) Homepage
    How much would Bill have to pay you to get you to sell Lindows to him? I don't expect you to answer this question, but I am intriguied to know if offers have been made...

  • Click-n-Run vs apt-get (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mahdi13 ( 660205 ) <icarus.lnx@gmail.com> on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:20PM (#5825961) Journal
    Lindows is based off of the Debian code and uses apt-get to install software from the Click-n-Run repository.
    What is in place to keep people from changing the apt-get sources from CnR to the Debian sources and install something like Synaptic [conectiva.com.br] (and getting newer, updated packages for free) instead of paying the $99/year (with a few execeptions)?

  • Games, games, and more games ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by molarmass192 ( 608071 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:21PM (#5825971) Homepage Journal
    The thing I hear over and over as to why people stick with Win-- is the relative lack of first run games. They're not talking about the free OSS games but rather major titles from the likes of EA and others. Is there anything you have up your sleeves to help convince these guys to port more games to Linux and I'm talking native ports, not WINE / WineX compatible ports. It seems that with the SDL toolkit, a lot of these DirectX games could be ported to Linux without a herculean effort. The world has changed significantly since Loki's stumble.


  • Well I asked this question before but I think if you want to market Lindows, you need to give it away to college students who cannot afford to buy it anyway. How about you go on a sorta tour, where you go to college campuses, you show Lindows, and you give out free CDs. Go from College to College for about a year, get students using Lindows on their laptops instead of Windows, Apple does this kinda thing with their Ibooks.

  • MP3.com in retrospect (Score:5, Interesting)

    by prostoalex ( 308614 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:21PM (#5825980) Homepage Journal
    Looking back at MP3.com, what would you do differently if you were to start the music service business all over?

    Do you think MP3.com was a good business idea in the first place? Do you think the sale of the site to Vivendi Universal was a good idea?

  • apt? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ohchaos ( 564646 )
    Currently a user of Lindows who does not subscribe to your Click-N-Run service can still use the command-line apt utilities to grab most of the same applications your pay service is providing. Do you plan to continue leaving the apt utilities preinstalled?
  • Why do you have such a hard time getting along with other people, particularly those whose goals are so close to your own? We know about messy public fallings-out with CodeWeavers and with DesktopLinux, and there must be lots more that don't make the news.

    Is it a personality defect, or just skills you've never developed? If you don't have time to learn (e.g. read "Getting to Yes"), couldn't you hire somebody with those skills to help keep you from pissing off everybody who's ever tried to help you?

  • What's the plan for Windows compatibility? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:23PM (#5825994) Journal
    The initial hype for Lindows focused on its supposed ability to run Windows software seamlessly. Over time, those claims and expectations have trailed off, to the point that the Lindows site now advertises only "support for popular Microsoft Windows file types (.doc, .xls, .ppt, .jpg, .gif, .mp3, etc.)".

    How wold you describe Windows emulation in Lindows today? What do you expect for it in a year or two? Do you still expect Windows support to be an important distinguishing feature for Lindows?

  • Ron Ropeil (Score:4, Funny)

    by slutdot ( 207042 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:23PM (#5825997)
    Do you consider yourself the Ron Popeil of the computing world?
  • In early marketing efforts Lindows focused on the ability to seamlessly run Windows application. Post launch product claims in this area are much more conservatively. When, if ever, will the majority of Windows applications run on Lindows?
  • How bitter were you that Jerry Seinfeld decided to not continue the show? Also, if I can ask a second question...Have you thought about bringing the Kramer character to Broadway?

    I took down pictures of my kids when I got my litho of "The Kramer", but it was worth it.

  • Should Linux Remain a Cult Obhect for Geeks? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by reallocate ( 142797 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:24PM (#5826012)
    Do you think the hostility toward Lindows that characterizes some members of the Linux "community" can be attributed to their desire that Linux remain a "geeks only" cult object?
  • Are you evil?

  • Linux's greatest weakness (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gspr ( 602968 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:25PM (#5826021)
    Linux is great, but nothing is perfect... what do you feel is linux's SINGLE greatest weakness at the present? (And no, I won't believe you if you answer "the fact that everybody isn't running Lindows").

  • MP3.com (Score:4, Interesting)

    by KILNA ( 536949 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:26PM (#5826037) Journal
    Hindsight being 20/20 and all, what would you have changed at MP3.com while you were there to have kept the balance between musicians and listeners while keeping the music industry lawyers off your back? Additionally, now that you've moved on and can see the game from the outside, what advice would you give MP3.com and companies of its ilk in the current climate?

  • I have a question.... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You have been accused of ignoring the Linux "community." Is it that you ignore them, or do you just find that too often getting involved with the "community" results in silly debates, in-fighting, and isn't productive?

    Mark

  • Why go with Lindows over Redhat. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hackorama ( 546518 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:29PM (#5826061)
    If I am a corporation wanting to standardize on a Linux desktop then I will want to make a bet on a company that has staying power. You abandoned mp3.com when it was clearly not going to make any money, what reason do I have for believing you will not to the same again?
  • Many commercial Linux distrobutions have tried to bridge the gap between Windows and Linux on the desktop. Several of those have had difficulties in creating a large user base and continuing support in the commercial world. What makes Lindows different from any distrobutions that have come before it (i.e. Mandrake), and how is Lindows able to make a transition from Windows to Linux for a user? The usage of the "Click-N-Run" system seems key, but is this _the_ key feature to bring users into the Linux wor

  • Games and Office (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mao che minh ( 611166 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:30PM (#5826076) Journal
    I think that it would be a good idea for you to make partnerships with Codeweavers and Transgaming. You could bundle the CodeWeaver's plugin and WineX in a one year license, perhaps call it the "Lindows Extended Media Package". You could then sell a few popular Windows based games pre-installed with the system, as well as offer Microsoft Office support. This would make your Linux distribution much more desirable.

    What do you think?

  • Games. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 13Echo ( 209846 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:31PM (#5826082) Homepage Journal
    Have the folks at Lindows taken any interest in selling its Wal-Mart machines with native Linux game ports, such as those from LGP and sold by TuxGames?

  • Key selling point. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:31PM (#5826089) Journal
    What is the key selling point of lindows in youre eyes? For most of the existing linux fans Lindows seems a bit light weight compared to other distros so I presume you are not really aiming it at us.

    How then do you see lindows competing with windows. Is it purely going to be on price or do you feel other things might be used to win the non-linux fans over to youre distro?

    Are there any results available on customer satisfaction? MS has reasoned that computers sold without one their OSes preinstalled would instead be loaded with pirated versions. Have you got any figures available that could help to dispute this?

    Good luck in court, hope you succeed where most others have failed.

  • Wine? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by IamTheRealMike ( 537420 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:33PM (#5826109)
    When you started, you put a lot of effort into Wine, sponsoring things like WineConf. That didn't work out, but Wine improves constantly, as the latest releases of CrossOver and WineX show. Do you think you'll ever return to it someday, or are you disillusioned with the whole thing?

  • Wal-Mart (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Znonymous Coward ( 615009 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:34PM (#5826120) Journal
    Microtel and Lindows have put togther some great deals for Wal-mart.com; How are slaes going? Will the Microtel + Lindows PCs ever make it to Wal-Mart store shelves?

  • User feedback on Linux-based desktop OS (Score:5, Interesting)

    by prostoalex ( 308614 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:36PM (#5826138) Homepage Journal
    Since the Lindows PCs have been selling for a while, your marketing and customer service folks must have gotten some kind of feedback from current or prospective users.

    What are the things people ask for? What are some things general users would like to see in Lindows or Linux-based desktop distributions that aren't there yet?

  • Source code (Score:3, Interesting)

    by David_Bloom ( 578245 ) <slashdot@3lesson.org> on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:37PM (#5826149) Homepage
    According to my understanding, the source code to anything that's liscensed under the GPL must be available to the general public somehow (even if there is a fee for transferring it). Even though it is possible to gain access to Lindows binaries at this time, there is no way to gain access to the source of Lindows, at any price. How do you justify this?

    • Re:Source code (Score:4, Informative)

      by athakur999 ( 44340 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:57PM (#5826338) Journal
      The GPL states that the source code be available to anyone who receives a binary copy of the source, not the general public as a whole. If you buy Lindows, you can get the source code from their "my.lindows.com" page.

    • NO, MOD PARENT DOWN (Score:4, Informative)

      by sethadam1 ( 530629 ) <ascheinberg@gmai ... inus threevowels> on Monday April 28, 2003 @01:31PM (#5826774) Homepage
      This is just wrong. Please don't waste a question on this. Do your research.

      You don't understand the GPL, which says nothing about using the internet to distribute source code. Lindows.com is perfectly within the GPL - they distribute the source code to those that pay for the compiled binaries and choose to download it, which satisfies all the GPL requires. You just can't hold your source for ransom.

      We don't need to bother Robertson with this crap, you can get the answers yourself at http://www.fsf.org/copyleft/copyleft.html or http://www.lindows.com.

  • Strange behavior of starving companies (Score:3, Interesting)

    by presroi ( 657709 ) <neubau@presroi.de> on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:41PM (#5826186) Homepage
    How do you feel when hearing about the behavior of companies like Mandrake begging for money [google.com] and Can you rule out the possibility to act the same when your business might go the same way?
    In case this question gets moderated high enough, I'd like to see an answer which covers the differences of software developlemnt models like debian or microsoft compared to this in-between thing of Mandrake.

  • Xbox Linux (Score:4, Interesting)

    by randomErr ( 172078 ) <ervin,kosch&gmail,com> on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:43PM (#5826200) Journal
    What ever possesed you to put up the bounty on the Xbox Linux project?

  • Delon Dotson (Score:3, Insightful)

    by imipak ( 254310 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:44PM (#5826209) Journal
    I once worked at a doomed dotcom in London. Shortly before it went titsup, we had a visit from someone calling himself Delon Dotson. He claimed to have be co-founder of mp3.com and to have a patent on SSL. In fact, he claimed he received a royalty for every SSL transaction, to which we smiled superciliously and said we doubted it, as we used OpenSSL ;) Cut a long story short, we sent him packing. So, was this bloke for real? Or just a figment of our fevered boom-era brains?

  • Why only preinstalled? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by David_Bloom ( 578245 ) <slashdot@3lesson.org> on Monday April 28, 2003 @12:45PM (#5826218) Homepage
    For a while, Lindows was only available preinstalled on some WAL*MART computers. Why did you use this distribution strategy? Were you afraid of hardware compatibility issues, or did you think that preinstalled Lindows would be easier to sell?
  • Q: What changes would you like to see the Linux / Gnu community make to their source base? What changes would benefit the home desktop user the most? What changes would make your job as a suppiler of those home systems easier? (Actually, make that any Free Open Source Software organization, not just Gnu or the kernel folks.)
  • Do you think that with PressPlay [pressplay.com], MusicNet [musicnet.com] et al. the digital music business is at the point where it should be? Is it heading in the right direction? Is that what you planned to eventually achieve with MP3.com?
  • On your web site, there's a recent "Michael's Minute" about Intel's failure to provide Linux drivers [lindows.com]. This was picked up by everyone's favorite tech tabloid [theregister.co.uk], and a few days later, Intel spokesman Scott McLaughlin was telling CNET [com.com] that we expect complete Linux driver support for the Intel Centrino mobile technology.

    E-mail to Intel support proved unhelpful -- they didn't seem to know anything about Scott McLaughlin's statements. Can you shed some light on this? Is the wireless chipset the primary concern her
  • Regarding the original idea behind MP3.com versus todays announcement by Apple of their new 99cent per song service? Do you think this is a viable product in todays online environment?
  • All of the business world revolves around ideas, people generally build businesses around one or two of them. There are companies with good ideas that fail, there are companies with bad ideas that manage to survive. You have a fairly good success record with startups (MP3.com, now Lindows). What advice would you give to someone trying to start-up a company, in this post 9-11 economy? What, in your opinion, makes the difference between a sucessful and an unsucessful company? Any stories about investors
  • In light of the overall negative reception you and Lindows have had amongst the /. community to date would you take this opportunity to pledge your intent to be a reasonably good citizen of the open source community? Please elaborate to the extent and/or limit you view this responsibility.

  • Rivalry and Revenue (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Heinr!ch ( 631474 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @01:21PM (#5826588)
    The competing commercial distributions, Xandros and Lycoris, are offering their products at a lower price and their systems rival Lindows in many ways. For example, Xandros' partnership with CodeWeavers allows them to fullful the promise of running Windows applications out-of-the-box for the same price as Lindows without the ability to run Windows applications. Lycoris' open development community, their software gallery, their comparable deal with WalMart, and rebranding of OpenOffice position them squarely against Lindows, but again at a lesser price. What are you doing to compete with these distributions? What types of partnerships are you leveraging to sustain or enhance your revenue model beyond unit sales and recurring Click-n-Run sales?
  • Where is WineX? Everyone knows that one of the big reasons people have to have Windows is because of gaming.

    I think the slight licensing based costs would be covered up by the mass amount of users that would potentially switch because now their games work...
  • Insist that Michael Robinson *really* answer these questions and not his publicist, Cheryl Schwarzman as often happens.

    Don't really want to see it turn into the William Shatner interview [slashdot.org], now, do we?

  • Lindows Mobile PC (Score:3, Interesting)

    by InodoroPereyra ( 514794 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @01:26PM (#5826678)
    I very much welcome the promotion of Linux-preinstalled hardware by Linux Distros. This is vital, since most users don't want to install an OS (even when it has gotten incredibly easy to install Linux). They actually prefer a simpler solution: open the box, power on, surf the net. In particular, there is a great niche for affordable, Linux Laptops with no MS tax. Your Mobile PC [lindows.com] looks promising, but it received some criticism for the use of a VIA processor, a low-power processor that is therefore considerably slower than an Intel/AMD processor [tomshardware.com] of comparable clock speed. This is a valid option for people interested in long battery life. Nonetheless, there is a market for people who need more computing power. Are you working on a deal to sell a similar solution but with a more powerfull CPU ? Any other news in the hardware related arena that you could share with us ?

  • SCO Unix (Score:3, Interesting)

    by wendigo2002 ( 615633 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @01:49PM (#5827055) Homepage
    What is your take on the whole Sco Unix lawsuit and how will it affect Lindows?

  • Libraries and Developers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jasonditz ( 597385 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @01:55PM (#5827139) Homepage
    Why did Lindows choose to just tack .lindows and .cnr on the end of standard libraries names instead of just coming up with a whole seperate library for cnr and lindows and giving us legitimate versions of the libraries in question?

    As a developer who doesn't want to pay for CNR it makes getting a -dev package really inconvenient.

    Also, why did Lindows choose not to ship gcc as a standard component of the OS? Its the first Linux distro I've ever seen that didn't.

  • lindows user feedback (Score:3)

    by mboedick ( 543717 ) on Monday April 28, 2003 @03:11PM (#5828254)

    What feedback have you received from members of the general public who use Lindows? I would be interested to hear what the average person who bought a Lindows-loaded PC at Wal-mart and used it for a while had to say about it.

    Does your company use Lindows for day-to-day (including non-technical) tasks?

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