On Wed, 2001-10-31 at 15:27, Josef Dalcolmo wrote:
Florian.Weimer@RUS.Uni-Stuttgart.DE said:
I'm not sure about that. In the past, the big companies tolerated a certain amount of copying, in order to help spreading their software among home users etc. ...
To continue a little bit on this line of thinking, (e.g. spreading the word,) it is imperative to give people the opportunity to try free software. The fact is however, that many of us are bound to use MS software, either because it was forced upon us, or because we need to deal with documents in that format, or simply because it not worth while to reboot your computer every time when you want to switch programs (in the case that you have to use MS software for some tasks, but would like to use free ones for others).
You attack the problem by the wrong way IMHO. The problem is: you are forced to use windows while you want to use linux. Ask yourself why: because you use software on windows that is not interoperable with that on linux (cosed data format). Solution: push for open standards, or better, push for free (as in freedom) data formats for your data.
Running linux in windows is not a solution, you will be forced to use forever this non-free/free mixed solution.
One of the battles to fight is to have free data formats so that you are able to really own your data and be able to make whatever you want with your own data.
Just now lot of people are hostages of Microsoft, just because they do not really own their data, not because there is not a free alternative for their software.