I love a lot of different OSes, including Windows. My enemy is Microsoft the company. I also believe Bill Gates has a very good heart and means well. I also can clearly see that he has a dark side. A competitive side. A side that desires to dominate and control everything. Winning for the sake of winning, and that is never good. Period.

Here is the root cure for all this copyright , linux and Microsoft problems, Nationalize all the copyright for all the operating systems. As was done for the wheat harvesting machine patent, declare that the copyrights are so important to the world and it’s function that no one man or company shall control them. All code should be open to the world.

I understand what you are saying, but as far as I can see, Microsoft is not forcing the Nigerian people to use their OS.

So, if they give Windows operating system to the “Poor country” for free, and the Mandriva Linux OS is “free” (included in the price of the PC) then that means that they actually have a choice on what OS they want to use.

If the do choose Microsoft, they may end up screwed when they try to upgrade, but that is a result of their choice. They may end up “going back” to Mandriva after using MS’s OS for a couple of months, and they may use the MS OS on their system for many years to come (I mean there are still people in the US with Windows 95 and Windows 98 running on their system, and they don’t care).

Complaining about buying a PC, and changing the OS out for another OS sounds like many people that I know who buy Notebook PCs with Windows installed, format the disk, and install Ubuntu. And complaining about how unfair this is, is the same thing that many were accusing MS of doing a while back.

I am sorry but if Madriva was not able to hold on to its customer in the initial stage, then that is their fault. Would as many people be whining if this was Apple offering Macs with Leopard installed in exchange for each system? I am sure the fanboys would be having a field day about the story (except those who would try to sue Apple for giving away computers, when they just bought a new Mac).

I really feel that it is a shame that Mandriva has lost its Nigerian user base to MS, but that is business, but as I have said before, unless MS was putting a gun to the Nigerian government’s head if they didn’t use windows, and Mandriva was being asked for a refund for each of the PCs, I am sorry but I can’t feel any sympathy for them.

Just my two cents

Read between the lines:

Microsoft is giving them operating systems for nothing with an unknown added incentive

They know that if a poor country starts with one operating system they will continue on with it as it is basically a license with a endless subscription. Eventually the poor country will pay so they don’t have to switch when they don’t get support anymore.

Linux (which I have never used) would allow them to grow Mandriva into a prosperous company due to potential install base. Likewise, Mandriva has a chance to help a nation enter the modern world without robbing it of its resources like the Microsoft Economic Hit Men will through leveraged debt that will guarantee Nigeria gives away its resources

When a person buys a PC with Windows on it and switches to Linux it means that “they’ve come to their senses”.

But the moment that they have bought a PC with Linux in it and decides that it’s not what they want, it’s trickery, backstabbing and unethical?

I am by no means a Pro-any-OS fanboy, and I have used different OSs from the TRS-80s to HP to Apple ][ all the way to recent version of both Windows and various version of Linux. I have even tried BeOS, TRON, and MacOS (I hated Mac OS 8 though ).

Each OS has it’s good points and bad points, and of course any normal company or developer will swear up and down that their system is the best over the other. If they didn’t, they shouldn’t be in the business.

What is important is that the user is able to choose- they may choose your favorite OS over a different OS, or they may take a machine with your OS in it, and re-install it with another OS, because they choose to.

It goes both ways, and it should.

Who knows, maybe the IT personnel in Nigeria didn’t want to get sacked for other IT personnel who knew how to use Mandriva Linux. Or maybe there was a powerful government official who was being pressured by his son because his son couldn’t get WoW to work on the machine out of the box…

But no matter what the reason is, as long as you say that others should have the right to use your OS over another, the same can and often will happen to your OS.

Just my two cents