[rescue] VirtualBox anecdotes - was Re: A wee bit off-topic

[hike]

"In China, India, and Russia, where you claim Windows is effectively 'free'
(due to rampant piracy), people still choose Windows over other, equally
free
operating systems like Linux... So the reason windows is so popular in those
countries can't be price alone, but also *perceived* value/functionality of
windows vs. linux."

The computers sold to the public in the mentioned have Windows installed on
them just like the USA.  The Chinese, Indians and Russians have the same
choices as the Americans.  It is using a very broad brush, indeed, to
assume "facts not in evidence" -- one arrives at faulty conclusions.  Talk
to Chinese, Indians, and Russians that are in the USA; look at their
computer sales websites, etc.

Just like a lot of the professional-computer-resellers on Craigslist use
"pirated" volume licenses of Windows to reload on their offered Intel
computers, these types in China, India and Russia do the same thing.  The
buyers get what the sellers are selling.

The Mainland Chinese government has established their own distro for
Linux.  This has been in the news over the last several years.  So their
government computers are supposedly using Linux and not Windows.  (I
haven't read any articles about whether this is still going on but I go
long stretches without reading the news.)

On Mon, Jun 22, 2015 at 9:25 AM, Lionel Peterson <lionel4287 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Keep an eye out for computers sold with "Windows 8.1 with Bing" - those PCs
> have free (as in beer) copies of Windows, no paying a windows 'tax'.
>
>
> http://www.pcworld.com/article/2158665/microsoft-announces-windows-8-1-with-b
> ing-for-low-cost-pcs-and-tablets.html
>
> And going forward, MS announced that anyone that evaluates a Windows 10
> before
> release will get a free permanent license for windows 10 for the machine
> the
> evaluation was run on when it is released later this summer. The so-called
> 'Microsoft Tax' is going away.
>
> http://m.slashdot.org/story/295719
>
> In China, India, and Russia, where you claim Windows is effectively 'free'
> (due to rampant piracy), people still choose Windows over other, equally
> free
> operating systems like Linux... So the reason windows is so popular in
> those
> countries can't be price alone, but also *perceived* value/functionality of
> windows vs. linux.
>
> Didn't I recently read at slashdot that the German city (Munich) that cut
> over
> to Linux ten years ago is considering switching back to Windows because,
> wait
> for it, the incredible savings of using a free operating system didn't
> materialize (in part, along with other reasons)?
>
>
> http://www.neowin.net/news/munich-germany-realizes-that-deploying-linux-was-a
> -disaster-going-back-to-windows
>
> Over the last ten years Munich spent 14m Euros developing and maintaining
> their LiMux Linux environment and saved an estimated 11M Euros in Windows
> costs:
>
>
> http://www.zdnet.com/article/munich-sheds-light-on-the-cost-of-dropping-linux
> -and-returning-to-windows/
>
> A conversion back to Windows is estimated to cost Munich over 3M Euros plus
> infrastructure investments. I found no information regarding the
> conclusion of
> Munich's reconsideration of their IT platform, I assume it is on-going.
>
> None of the above should be construed as being a discussion of technical
> superiority, inherent quality, or suitability to a particular task of
> either
> Linux or Windows operating system.
>
> Lionel
>
> On Jun 22, 2015, at 2:54 AM, microcode at zoho.com wrote:
>
> >> As you look at a map of the world, the most
> >> populous countries (China, Russia, India, USA) are majority Windows
> users.
> >
> > Uh, yeah but that's because the people in the first three countries get
> free
> > copies and the people in the last country get to pay for a copy of it
> (but
> > not the actual media) on every "computer" they buy whether they want it
> or
> > not.
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