US/France Relations and Software

Journal ArmedGeek's Journal: US/France Relations and Software 1

Journal by ArmedGeek on Saturday April 12, 2003 @09:54AM

I recently sent a letter to MandrakeSoft:
Dear Sir:

I run a small webhosting company in Houston, Texas, USA. My current
primary servers are running Mandrake 9.0 (see URL at bottom of email).
I am quite happy with Mandrake, I've used it for my desktop since 8.0
and am currently using 9.1 on my desktops and laptops. I purchaed box
sets of Mandrake 8.0 and Mandrake 9.0. I truly believe that
Mandrake-Linux is the BEST hope for Linux to make headway into the
desktop market.

That said, I have a problem. I am an American. Moreover, I am a
patriotic American and a 'die-hard' Texan. France and the United
States have had problems in the past, but never anything that I
consider 'serious'. However, the current situation leads me to believe
that I CANNOT, in good conscience, continue to support a company that
is based in France.

I understand that a large number of people do not understand the
American mindset. I would like to take a moment to explain...

Americans are quite happy to be left alone and to generally ignore the
rest of the world. While this may not be the right attitude for the
largest economic and military power in the world, it IS a fact (we
believe that if a nation wishes to be like us, that's fine, we did it;
So can they). We are VERY individualistic; we believe that our
(individual, not collective) opinion IS THE RIGHT ONE. We also
generally believe that personal freedom and self-determination is, not
only the finest, but also the most productive environment to exist
(history generally confirms this, we are among the youngest nations).
When another nation threatens our peace (and/or our citezenry), we CAN
NOT, nor should we be expected to, allow the threat to continue. As I
do not believe it to be our right or duty to deliver freedom to nations
around the world who do not wish to take it themselves, I do believe
that, when it is necessary to remove a threat to our nation, to take
the extra step to give them the freedom we have here (what they do with
that freedom is NOT our problem until they threaten our security
again).

Those in France may not understand why some Americans have displayed
such distaste for recent governemt policies. Germany, Russia, and
China (the other major opponents to the dealings with Iraq) have not
generally been allies of the United States. France has. While we have
not always seen 'eye-to-eye' with France, they have not actively tried
to subvert the United States's attempts to maintain its security.
Until now. THAT IS THE 'BIG SLAP IN THE FACE'.

Ok, rant over.

I am currently configuring by backup servers to operate under RedHat.
As I stated, from a technical standpoint, I prefer Mandrake, however I
will revert to RedHat in order to discontinue support to a nation that
I feel has stabbed me personally in the back.

I would appreciate a response from the Mandrake Team reguarding this
'delima'. Is there any reason to continue supporting MandrakeSoft?
Does MandrakeSoft agree with France's government concerning the war in
Iraq?

I look forward to your response.

--Robert West, Owner/Administrator
xxxxxxxxx@westbaker.net

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http://www.westbaker.net/
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If anyone sees this, let me know what your think.

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