Re: OT: Live Win32 bootable CDs (was Re: Knoppix & DemoLinux)
On Sun, 2002-10-20 at 18:32, Andy Saxena wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 20, 2002 at 12:12:20PM -0700, Karsten M. Self wrote:
> > on Sun, Oct 20, 2002, Andy Saxena (andyML@nyc.rr.com) wrote:
> > >
> > > Let me up the challenge just a notch. How about Windows Live
> > > Filesystem CD that includes a full-blown office suite, programming
> > > environment, web browser and <add your commonly used apps here>.
> > > Perhaps, you'd need the source for that level of customization :-}.
> >
> > Actually, that exists. There's a company, French IIRC, which produces a
> > live "runs from CD" version of Legacy MS Windows. They had to play some
> > tricks with a number of files which must be writeable by the system, not
> > sure what exactly these were. I've also spent fifteen minutes googling
> > for any reference to them, no dice.
> >
> > A couple of near misses:
> >
> > Booting Windows from CD
> > http://24.191.72.75:88/WinOnCd/winoncd.html
> >
> > Booting Windows From CD-ROM
> > (largely same as above)
> > http://www.heise.de/ct/english/99/11/206/
> >
> > I realize this is pretty OT, point being that MSFT _can_ do these
> > things, but generally chooses not to. Again, largely for licensing and
> > revenue issues. A classic vendor-customer goal mismatch, and signs of
> > long-term trouble.
> >
>
> Very interesting. I wonder if they managed to do all that without
> violating the licensing terms. This is getting quite OT, so I'd like to
> close my contribution to this thread with the following note:
>
> Perhaps MS advocates should worry less about the innovation coming out
> of Linux, and worry more about the throttling that takes place because
> of MS licensing restrictions. This may be an acceptable evil for the
> shareholders, but from a purely technological point of view it is not
> helpful.
>
> Anyway, in the end any software is about the code, the developers, the
> user community and the license - overall I prefer my Debian.
>
> As for the innovation argument, I will let those more knowledgeable than
> me put together a list. I Googled around for "linux innovation" and
> mostly came up with links that talk about the MS assertions. It would be
> nice to have a website called linux-innovation.com that documents
> innovations in the Linux community. I am, personally, tired of hearing
> Mr. Balmer rant about this in every interview. Once we have such a
> website, he may change his rant.
>
> -Andy
>
>
I don't think we need to worry about Mr. Balmer's rants. It is true
that a lot of innovation comes out of Redmond. With $40B in the bank
and thousands of paid programmers what do you expect. I keep a MS
machine around because many of their apps are frankly better. The Linux
community has been more about freedom and access to source code. In the
end, Linux is going to take over the desktop and MS is running scared.
--
David Sanders
david@sandersweb.net
http://www.sandersweb.net/david
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