[PCWorld]

Post your comments for A Great Time for the Gates Foundation to Embrace Linux here

[perspectoff]

Gates should visit some of the Ubuntu Kubuntu guides to see how many free, powerful applications that are very easy to install and run are available for these operating system distributions.

I'm sure there will be plenty he will recommend to Microsoft to incorporate into its future OS.

[Squirreldancer]

Okay, Puppy Linux is great, but in terms of the people using the computer, what does installing Puppy get them? If it is a functional Win98 computer, then they probably already have a Word-compatible word processor, and an internet browser. Why would they be throwing it out if they need it?
More importantly, what does Puppy give them that would make the computer worth keeping?
Ultimately, whether it is Win98 or Puppy, it is still an old computer running non-mainstream software.
If you want to sell Puppy to The Gates Foundation, you need to demonstrate Puppy has more benefits than a word processor and a web browser.
After all, I'm sure Bill Gates can come up with a whole cargo plane full of Win98 installation CDs on the cheap.

[serteq]

What it would bring as opposed to Win 98 is that it is still supported and updated.

[Squirreldancer]

Support for Puppy would be through the online community as would support for Win98 -- there is still a lot of information for Win98 online. The user would support either system themselves, but with Win98, they would be supporting a system they are familiar with.

As for updates, if the system is already working, why update it? If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

In any case, would the benefits of Puppy outweigh the cost of learning a new operating system and new software and the new techniques to support it

Don't get me wrong -- I use Fedora, Ubuntu, WinXP and even occasionally, Win98, so I would take a Puppy computer if you gave it to me, but I'd still rather stick with what I know than learn something completely different.

[rgreen4]

How ridiculous. How much of that $60 Billion net worth of the foundation is tied up in Microsoft stock? Everyone seems to think that the assets of a foundation are tied up in cash and nothing could be further from the truth. The liquid assets of any foundation have to be invested on a sound basis, and although the market has gone down and all foundations have seen shrinkage, Microsoft stock is still a big portion of many foundation portfolios, just as it has a large representation in most mutual funds.
In fact, if you have your retirement 401K money in mutual funds you might want to check and see how big a chunk of your future is tied up in MS stock. The Gates Foundation, given it's benefactor's background is likely more heavily invested than any mutual fund. Given that, how likely is it for the foundation to promote a product in opposition of it's financial well being?

[lionroar]

Puppy Linux is free and a lighter form of Ubuntu Linux. It is for those pcs that are old, like the 386 or 486 models. Based on my and other's experiences Linux is not bloated like Windows and makes better usage of a pc's ram. Meaning that you will get to open applications half the time it takes windows. The model is very well design to do just that. Windows 98 is no longer supported by MS, in which case you will not get updates for any bugs you may encounter in the future, with Puppy Linux you do always.

Another key point to mention out is that vendors no longer provide any form of support if you are installing any new age software since MS abandon the operating system. If you look in the boxes of software at the shelves in retail stores you will see that the pc requirements ask for Windows XP or above for the Operating System. While you normally do not see that much software supporting linux at the store level that does not mean that you will not find it online or how to acquire it. You got developers all over the world fixing bugs and making it more robust and feasable.

Word processors and web apts work well and while "Writer", linux word processor, might not match up to Windows Word, it provide all the neccesary tools for composing documentation that the average user normally performs in Word. Firefox according to some government agencies has been determined to be much more safer for surfing the web then IE6 or IE7, IE6 being the highest version of Internet Explorer that you can get in Windows 98. Not only that, but Firefox has way more additional features that IE has not been able to catch up with. Firefox is also much more compliant with the WWC standards, which means that if I make a web page directly catering firefox users, it is very likely that almost all other browsers will understand the code. IE so far fails at that, but MS has promised that IE8 will be much more obidient in terms of following the rules of coding.

[JaywalkerExtraordinaire]

{quote}The liquid assets of any foundation have to be invested on a sound basis ?{quote}

There is nothing sound about investing a significant portion of assets in any single stock.

{quote}The Gates Foundation, given it's benefactor's background is likely more heavily invested than any mutual fund.{quote}

It shouldn't be, given that the assets are required to be invested soundly. The mission of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is not an extension of Microsoft's mission. It is highly unlikely that Warren Buffet would have chosen to donate so heavily to the Gates Foundation if its investments were so lopsided.

{quote}how likely is it for the foundation to promote a product in opposition of it's financial well being?{quote}

By that logic, if the foundation has investments in pharmaceutical companies, they should promote narcotic pain pill addiction and other diseases.

If the foundation's mission conflicts with the performance of the chosen investments, the responsible action is to adjust the investment strategy, not adjust the mission of the foundation.

[rgreen4]

Many times major benefactors in setting up foundations and donating significant amounts of stock, set conditions in the trust documents that bind the hands of the trustees. I am in fact because of my position in a volunteer organization a trustee of such a trust document that required a certain percentage of the trusts assets in a particular stock for a period of years. Fortunately that requirement has expired.

Without access to the foundations trust documents that Gates generated when the foundation was established we will not know for sure, and we are unlikely to know for sure. But, since Gates was a founding member of Microsoft and generated his billions of dollars based on the success of Microsoft, it is unlikely that the foundation does not have a significant number of share of Microsoft.

[JaywalkerExtraordinaire]

Given the extremely conservative investment strategies of the foundation's largest benefactor, Warren Buffet, as well as the conditions he set w/r/t his donation, it is unlikely that there are any such conditions requiring significant portions of the foundation's assets to be invested in any single company's stock, Microsoft's included.

At any rate, ensuring Microsoft's success is not part of the foundation's mission, and shouldn't be a consideration at all when it comes to the foundation's operating strategy.

[lionroar]

Sorry I really got this all mixed up, heard of puppy linux, and confused puppy linux with xubuntu, wish is a lighter form of ubuntu. Tried it once on the 486, but not on a 386 model. The whole comment was regarding xubuntu and not puppy linuz. my bad. Still though believe that technology is to be free and what will liberate the world.

[BAMT]

...So Bill Gates isn't evil? Now we only have Jobs to worry about...

[rgreen4]

lionroar said:

my bad. Still though believe that technology is to be free and what will liberate the world.

So the people who develop the technology should do so in their spare time after coming in from the fields and get nothing for their labors?