[KLUG Members] KLUG affiliate programs - yes but not Amazon

[Jamie McCarthy]

admin@cruisenews.net (Paul VandenBosch) writes:

> I suggest that the group join affiliate programs such as
> amazon.com and other pc related vendors.

I would suggest that our group not support amazon.com.  Amazon is
one of the chief abusers of the U.S. patent system, having sued to
protect a truly absurd patent.

http://www.noamazon.com/faq.html

The abused patent system is one of the two biggest challenges facing
free software in the coming decade (the other is a large software
company we all know and love).  Open standards on the internet will
soon become very difficult to reverse-engineer software, and to make
free software that interoperates with commercial software, because
of the patent minefield.

For example, Mono, the open-source attempt to duplicate .NET, will
probably run into very, very serious patent troubles over the next
few years.  (You heard it here first -- the Mono project's optimism
is inspiring but foolish: <http://www.go-mono.com/faq.html#patents>.)

That's why the Free Software Foundation is calling for a boycott
of Amazon.com:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/amazon.html

The Electronic Privacy Information Center has also expressed concern
about not only Amazon's inability to guarantee its privacy policy,
but complaints received about Amazon from concerned netizens:

http://www.epic.org/privacy/internet/amazon/letter.html

And anyway, Linux has done enough for Amazon already :)

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-7720536.html

I'm all for KLUG joining affiliate programs of other vendors, it
sounds like a great idea to me.  But let's not make Amazon one of
those vendors.