There's a few points that have come up in the Netraverse discussion I'd like to add my 2c to. 1. Sponsorship. It's fair enough to assume that companies will want some 'return' on their sponsorship, from their logo printed on the T-shirts that they paid for through to a simple listing on our web site. If we were to accept Netraverse's offer, post to the list (one time) that they were sponsoring us - hell, this debate has done more to raise awareness of the existance of their company and their product than one post to the list ever would. Note that there is already a page at http://www.wlug.org.nz/WlugSponsors page, where we currently pay our dues to Computer Upgrades 2000 Ltd for buying our domain name for us. Net4U will be added to that page as soon as we get hold of Sahil and get Hoiho hosted (We've been trying, but he hasn't been available.) If we were to ad a small link, even perhaps a banner, to that page, then we'd be fulfilling our requirement to Netraverse and I don't really think I'd call it selling out. 2. There are people who use Linux for every explainable reason. Some use it because it is beer-free, and couldn't give a toss about the source code being available or that it's protected by the GPL (Free with a capital F). These people are no less worthy of supporting - some might not even know about the source code ideals because the mass media are really good at saying "Linux is free" and not explaining what that means. 3. Programmers have to eat just as much as expensive consultants do. It's considered OK for people to make money supporting Linux, and I think it should be just as welcomed that people make money writing Linux applications. How many Windows programmers do you think have "paid their dues to Microsoft" (for creating such a nice mishmash of cruddy abstractions and calling it an OS? :) While it's very nice to think that every application for Linux will be OSS and Free, that's not necessary. If Adobe ported Photoshop to Linux and charged for it, it would be worth paying for. There is no full OSS equivalent. Perhaps the action of this happening might even charge people to work on something like The GIMP until it _is_ a full OSS equivalent. People without too much knowledge or interest in computers want to be able to make a quick educated decision about what is good and what is not good, or have a trusted advisor make that decision for them. As Daniel was saying, Linux isn't the answer to every question. It might be one day, but even then, it might not be totally OSS. We shouldn't go burning potential bridges over ideoligical disagreements. While at this point there's only a 'free' copy of Win4Lin at stake, which seems like another VMWare, it's a decision that might pop up in future when it comes to sponsorship, and it's good that it's being discussed now. Craig