It may seem strange to think of war in a tropical paradise but it’s happening, thanks to M$’s global conspiracy to prevent free use of personal computers. In 2008, the local Linux Users’ Group had distributed 5000 CDs of FLOSS and caused quite a spike in usage. Wintel fought back but today */Linux is winning again.

Back in 2008, the local LUG distributed 5000 CDs. That had an impact. They are still going strong and very aware of activities in France and globally. For instance, they provide a link to the situation in Brazil where, for economy and security, the government will no longer purchase software or systems they cannot audit.

So, they have the fire in the belly. Where are the results? They’ve distributed CDs and held “install-fests”, equipped schools and distributed $free PCs to charities, provided repositories and distributed lots of information and help. Their site has had more than 1000 articles and 500K visits. They have done all such volunteers can do except get GNU/Linux machines onto retail shelves. Wintel does that and is able to keep FLOSS at bay because only ~1% of people are interested in installing an OS of any kind.

The message is clear. Evangelism of FLOSS has gone as far as it can without getting retail shelf-space, something I have been writing about for years. Yes, that’s it. This outfit will sell you any PC with that other OS or Android/Linux but not GNU/Linux. This guy and this guy are the same… They even have an Apple re-seller… Go figure… Skipping an established market doesn’t seem like good business to me.