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http://itmanagement.earthweb.com

You can categorize most GNU/Linux distributions as either community or commercial. Community-based distributions like Debian, Fedora, or CentOS are maintained largely by volunteers and donations of services or money, while commercial distributions like Suse, Red Hat, or Xandros are backed by a company and compete directly against proprietary operating systems such as Windows and OS X.

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Jimbob's picture
Created by Jimbob 13 years 32 weeks ago
Category: Business   Tags:
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can.axis

13 years 32 weeks 1 hour 6 min ago

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Free Software companies vs. “Freedom Subtracted” products

RMS: « ... The free software philosophy rejects a specific widespread business practice, but it is not against business. When businesses respect the users' freedom, we wish them success [...] a number of companies that associate themselves with the term “open source” actually base their business on non-free software that works with free software. These are not free software companies, they are proprietary software companies whose products tempt users away from freedom. They call these “value added”, which reflects the values they would like us to adopt: convenience above freedom. If we value freedom more, we should call them “freedom subtracted” products... »

Joshua Gay: « ... Those companies that suppress the GNU name from their distributions are some of the worst offenders in not only distributing proprietary software, but also openly developing, promoting, and encouraging its proliferation. In many ways, these companies are hijacking the free software movement for their own gain, and their suppression of GNU is just one way of distracting people from the fact that they are unwilling to make an outright commitment to free software... »

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