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On Sunday 27 November 2005 12:20 pm, Ben Goodger wrote: > On 27/11/05, Neil Williams <linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > There is NO need to have non-free code on a GNU/Linux system. Absolutely > > zero. > > How about graphics card drivers? Change the card? > Admittedly there are free replacements, but these in my experience do not > provide any decent 3d acceleration support, nor the kind of performance > that the official ones do. And my contribution to them wouldn't help, as I > would need to have detailed, so-far-more-or-less-top-secret schematics of > the chip and card designs. How do you think the current free drivers were written? Someone has to get in there and work out how these things work, with or without the schematics. See "Secret hardware" in http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html "Programmers can do reverse engineering to figure out how to support the hardware. The rest of us can choose the hardware that is supported by free software; as our numbers increase, secrecy of specifications will become a self-defeating policy." Notice: It is up to those who can to do the reverse engineering and: It is up to YOU to use the hardware that is supported - so denying the market for non-free drivers and chipsets. That is a ideological step, it denies your selfish desires and concentrates on the needs of others. "We have complete free systems today, but we will not have them tomorrow if we cannot support tomorrow's computers." To support the next generation of graphics cards we need to make sure the hardware designers realise that secret hardware harms the market. If your card is not supported, rip it out and replace it. It's the same with any clean-room build for any external device or peripheral. You don't know if your contribution will help or not until you join the current developers and ask. It may be as simple as providing some device information. > Let's not get too software-patriotic here, Neil. Why not? 'Realism' is just compromise. If we all get pragmatic then we treat the free software community as "just another development model" to quote a Microsoft employee at LinuxWorld. Free software is a political, philosophical and practical expression of concepts and an ideology. It is much more than "just open source". Think about these things before undermining freedom with proprietary code, models and practices. WE MUST TALK ABOUT FREEDOM - continually. Free software is NOT just about the code, it IS about freedom, choice and the future. Deny your selfish interests and put others before yourself. So what if you don't have the latest whizz-bang 3D garbage? Put others before your self-interest and support those who have stuck with the free software methods. Freedom is more important than your selfish concerns. It is better to have no 3D today than to deny 3D to the next generation. > If > free/open-source/whatever software is inferior to the proprietary > equivalent, it makes no sense for the average Blogg to use it. Don't think of developers as some mystic elite - we are just normal users who have taken a little time to learn how we can help fix things within a small area. It's not a superhuman task, nor is it beyond the range of a normal user to help. > It certainly > would make no sense to me to use Rhythmbox, with its truly hideous > auto-resizing table, when iTunes is available. Then use something else. I have no need of iTunes on my OSX box. It doesn't mean it's silent. Instead I choose to use Ogg Vorbis and it's free software tools. You could look at Rosegarden as an option. > Nor do I feel any compulsive > need to convert to Supertux in favour of Half-life 2. But you should. You are letting self-interest overrule your freedom - that is just a cop-out. > I have to, because > appropriate graphics card device drivers aren't available. Then remove HalfLife and help out with Supertux or whatever. Have you tried to find out who might be working on such things? It was the same with Winmodems until someone decided to try and we got Linmodems. It's not perfect and support isn't complete but it provides alternatives. Choice is the imperative here - choices that preserve what you have now for the future. And before you say you have the choice to use non-free - read the above again. It is supremely arrogant to make a selfish choice today that contributes to denying choice to those who follow you in the future. > Again, a little more loyal than most people. Then I apologise, I obviously need to talk about this more often. > Truly, proprietary software is > a blight on systems, but it's not illegal to use software that doesn't fly > under the GPL banner. Not illegal, yet. Proprietary software is always able to change their EULA and make it illegal to use alongside GPL software. MS has already done so. Free software is about permanence. It is about the NEXT generation of users and developers far more than it is about you. Do unto others as you would be done unto. If you resent the limitations of current graphic card drivers then make damn sure that nothing in the current development arena gets into that kind of mess for the future. Proprietary software can and will be taken away from you with absolutely no notice, right of appeal or refund. It is wiser to invest your time in something that will endure than to invest your money into the emperor's new clothes. > Stand up for GNU: > > 1. Never install non-free on a free system. > > 2. Never promote non-free above free on any system. > > Unless the non-free is superior and the free is not very improvable. No, especially then. Non-free is never superior because it removes your freedom. How can it be better? Would you choose to be in prison? Then why surrender your freedoms in other areas so willingly? Read that again: Proprietary is NEVER better than free software - simply because proprietary cannot be modified. Free software is always improvable, that is it's unique strength. SMOP. (Simple Matter Of Programming.) > 4. If free isn't to your taste, use the freedom granted to you to improve > > it! > > As far as one can; but when one can't, it shouldn't be frowned upon to use > non-free. That never happens. It's always possible to improve the code, it just takes a new approach. Who knows, you could be the one to implement a new way of solving the problems in a package. You can't tell until you look and without free software, you don't even get the right to look. > Personally, I don't like using proprietary software, especially Windows; > but it shouldn't be made illegal on a free computer... That is not under your control or mine. If the non-free developer chooses to change their licence there is nothing you can do to stop them. Didn't we learn that with Robin's experience with FEMM? http://femm.neil.williamsleesmill.me.uk/ With the GPL, once code is distributed under the GPL it remains free no matter what. The code cannot be brought under a non-free licence later and no one can stop you modifying it and distributing your modified version as GPL. Think about the future, not just your selfish immediate needs. GNU is an ideology, not just another development model. If you learn nothing else about GNU, remember this: GNU is primarily concerned with tomorrow, not today. We suffer the inconvenience now on behalf of those who will benefit from retaining our freedoms into tomorrow. We stand on the shoulders of giants but we cannot afford to have feet of clay ourselves. For people to stand on our shoulders in the future, we must be true to the people who came before us. Continuity. Permanence. Freedom. That's the GNU way. > > Isn't that why we changed the name to DCGLUG? > > I will get flamed to hell for this, but it makes no actual difference, and > I haven't found many people outside the FSF who cared very much. Then we need to join with the FSF and shout louder about the freedoms that lie behind the appeal of free software. "As software patents mount up (see petition.eurolinux.org, and sign it!), and as laws like the DMCA are used to prohibit the development of free software for important jobs such as viewing a DVD or listening to a RealAudio stream, we will find ourselves with no clear way to fight the patented and secret data formats except to reject the non-free programs that use them." http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html "The GNU Project is idealistic, and anyone encouraging idealism today faces a great obstacle: the prevailing ideology encourages people to dismiss idealism as "impractical". Our idealism has been extremely practical: it is the reason we have a free GNU/Linux operating system. People who love this system ought to know that it is our idealism made real." "Another way to understand this is that what society needs is free software, and proprietary software is a poor substitute. Encouraging the substitute is not a rational way to get what we need." http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html "But interest in the software is growing faster than awareness of the philosophy it is based on, and this leads to trouble. Our ability to meet the challenges and threats described above depends on the will to stand firm for freedom. To make sure our community has this will, we need to spread the idea to the new users as they come into the community. But we are failing to do so: the efforts to attract new users into our community are far outstripping the efforts to teach them the civics of our community. We need to do both, and we need to keep the two efforts in balance." http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html (near the end of that page, section: We must talk about freedom) As a GLUG, we are the frontline for those new users coming into our community. It is incumbent on US to spread the GNU ideology to all who join the GLUG. That is why I supported the change to GLUG - it is an important statement and more of the group need to understand the reasons behind the change. It was NOT superficial, it was the fruit of passionately held beliefs and ideas. It is the core of why this group exists at all. > > VB takes the easy way out - it masks the problem under a deluge of > > unnecessary > > copies of almost identical, massive, libraries. Doing this the GNU/gcc > > way is > > much, much harder but the benefits for everyone would be immense. > > Did you read that sentence through before you sent it? "...masks the > problem under a deluge of unnecessary copies of almost identical, massive, > libraries ... the benefits for everyone would be immense." ? Of course I did. It sounds like you skipped a bit! VB masks the problem because the runtime library is a monolith. You have to install multiple copies of almost identical libraries with slightly different version numbers. These things are immense - multi-megabyte libraries. Under that system you have libruntimexxx.0.1.2, libruntimexxx.0.1.3, libruntimexxx.0.1.4, libruntimexxx.0.1.5 - ALL multi-megabyte libraries of which each program uses a tiny fraction of the overall codebase. Each single library contains the code that could be put into multiple small libraries but because they are monolithic, you can't just update one part of the runtime, you must have the complete monolith again and again. The GNU system replaces the monolith with individual libraries, each suited to their own portion. Each upgraded separately and working together as one cohesive whole. You only install the bits you want and you never have more than one version of any one library at a time. You have smaller libraries and only one version of each. The total install size drops dramatically and the percentage of code reuse rises just as dramatically. > I concur, but people's freedoms should never be compromised: if people want > to write software, they should be made aware of the full range of licenses > and then be allowed to choose what they want. Yes, but that includes the restrictions that if they choose a non-free route then they must understand that they are prevented from using code from GPL sources. Continuing with the LGPL weakens free software generally. Free software never removes any freedoms or compromises anyone's freedom. You are free to not use free software methods - just as long as you understand that by doing so you exclude yourself from the benefits of such methods, namely access to GPL code. Users need to make sure that external developers are clear on our determination to further the growth of free software by standing firm against proprietary methods to undermine our ideology. The ideology is why we are here, it is why we have GNU/Linux in the first place and it is the ONLY thing that will ensure that GNU/Linux continues into the future. Compromise is unacceptable. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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