[ltp] Re: Lenovo to shun Linux

[Jiang Qian]

I just want to maybe put this sudden pronouncement out of nowhere into 
some perspective. From what I read in the Chinese press, this seemingly 
gratuitous *public* affirmation with the relation with Microsoft is in 
fact an affirmation that they do not continue the tradition of selling 
PC with only dos in it or pre-installed with linux, *in the Chinese 
market*. 

Inn China, many OEM sell bare iron PC with no OS or Linux.  And let's 
face it most people would promptly wipe their hard drive and install the 
*pirated* Windows on it.  

Of course Lenovo could say what it is all about, that they will stop 
their bare iron PC sell in China. But that would be essentially 
admitting what they were doing before was effectively helping piracy. So 
as a clever trick they affirm that starting from now they will 
pre-install genuine windows on ALL their PC, empathetically including 
China and all developing countries. There's no need to proclaim that 
thinkpad sold in the United States will be pre-installed with Windows as 
that's already the done.

In short the seemingly gratuitous assault on Linux loving geekhood is in 
fact an unintended consequence of a drive to root out Windows piracy in 
Chinese, and maybe some other developing country's, market. Maybe you 
think the Windows is evil and its piracy therefore good, but we have to 
first understand what all this fuss is all about.

As for myself, as long as they make well designed laptop I'll continue 
buying them and enjoy linux on them. I don't get any linux help from 
them anyway.
Jiang