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Very Well Said Mr. Williams, this is why so many of the people of the world today are changing and moving towards Linux. and free development. Bill Smith On Sun, 2005-11-27 at 11:30 +0000, Neil Williams wrote: > On Sunday 27 November 2005 1:09 am, Matt Lee wrote: > > On 26/11/05, Neil Williams <linux@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > There is no need to use proprietary or non-free software of any kind in > > > the development of free software. > > > > Oh, I totally agree, but there's also a need for people to develop > > software for the GNU OS that won't be free software, > > Is there? I know of no such need. IMHO, the proposition itself is deeply > offensive and, frankly, insulting to me as a GNU software developer. > > There is no need to develop anything new under Cocoa on OSX, there is no need > to develop anything new for WinCE. We have complete replacements for those, > in free software. If it isn't to your taste, then help it improve - don't > encourage the proprietary side. > > There is a clear need for more free software that runs on OSX (i.e. X11, not > Cocoa). > > There is a need for free software that runs on Windows - like the Mozilla > family and OOo. > > There is NO need to have non-free code on a GNU/Linux system. Absolutely zero. > > If what is available is not up to your subjective 'quality' standards, then > get involved with those projects and help them improve! The ball is in your > court, Matt. The free software to meet your needs exists. If you have issues > with it, get involved and offer help to improve it. You have that freedom and > it is incredibly valuable. It discredits your support for GNU if you don't > use the freedoms granted to you to solve issues you feel are apparent in the > code! > > Which side are you truly on? > > Non-free software on a GNU/Linux system is not an option, it is an offensive > compromise - a sell-out. You might as well go the whole hog and patent your > non-free code. See what a pariah you would have become. > > Stand up for GNU: > 1. Never install non-free on a free system. > 2. Never promote non-free above free on any system. > 3. Always seek to use free on any non-free system. > 4. If free isn't to your taste, use the freedom granted to you to improve it! > > What does everyone else think - shouldn't we adopt these principles for the > group as a whole? Make the promotion of GNU an explicit goal for the group in > our mission statement? Should we not be clear that non-free is deprecated - > and explain why? > > Isn't that why we changed the name to DCGLUG? > > > It also goes to show that actually, tools to create GUI apps, cross > > platform, exist. It gives us something to work to. > > Doubtful because the underlying methodology cannot be transferred - you still > need a separate runtime library for each platform. Each application uses a > particular version of the library and you end up with copy after copy > installed. It's worse than the JRE. > > Solve the problem, not the symptom. > > Split that monolithic runtime library into inter-operability libraries that > can be installed separately to suit the needs of the individual user. That is > how Gnome and KDE work - if you want a GUI RAD tool, it should support the > free software principles. > > 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. > > Once the runtime library IS free software, this kind of split will happen > naturally. People will simply wrench sections of code out of the main > codebase and modify it to run stand-alone, usually on a low resource platform > or for a specific need where the rest of the code is unwanted. In time, the > stand-alone library will be used by what remains of the monolith. But for ANY > of that to happen, those users MUST have the freedom to take entire sections > of the monolith source code completely unchanged and then start to round off > the edges. It must be free software for this to happen. > > > For the record, I'm still unable to run a free software desktop > > running the full free software suite because of a lack of quality > > applications, > > The weakness in that statement is the subjective term 'quality'. KDE and Gnome > are quality desktops and there are plenty of quality applications that will > run on either, IMHO. If you disagree, do something to fix your own problem > using the freedom that has been granted to you. > > > but there's an awful lot of really good software out > > there to let you deploy on free software. > > Which is why none of my code will ever be licenced under licences like the > LGPL and therefore can never be linked against non-free code. I have no > intention of ever allowing proprietary or non-free code to use free software > as a gopher. It's all GPL only and therefore everything that it is linked > against needs also to be GPL. This is the preferred stance of GNU in regard > to free software libraries. The LGPL is a cop-out and should only be used for > a tiny proportion of free software (and the gnu site says as much). Do > NOTHING to encourage it's use with new code. > > http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html > "Why you shouldn't use the Lesser GPL for your next library" > > "Using the ordinary GPL for a library gives free software developers an > advantage over proprietary developers: a library that they can use, while > proprietary developers cannot use it." > > "If we amass a collection of powerful GPL-covered libraries that have no > parallel available to proprietary software, they will provide a range of > useful modules to serve as building blocks in new free programs. This will be > a significant advantage for further free software development, and some > projects will decide to make software free in order to use these libraries. " > > "By releasing libraries that are limited to free software only, we can help > each other's free software packages outdo the proprietary alternatives. The > whole free software movement will have more popularity, because free software > as a whole will stack up better against the competition." > > What we need is that critical mass of GPL-only libraries - cross-platform GUI > RAD tools would be able to use them for generating free software for each > platform. > > THAT is the solution to your problem, Matt. NOT using non-free as a 'quality > improvement' but replacing all non-free code with free. > > Run free software on whatever non-free system you like - but it is > fundamentally wrong to run non-free software on a free software OS. > > You've got things the wrong way around, Matt. As a GNU supporter, you should > be seeking to have GNU software your priority in all situations. > > > Just need a desktop now. > > By my count, you've got at least 6 already. > > You won't encourage much development by ignoring what is already available and > insulting those developers that do work on the code by dismissing their work > in favour of the non-free sell-out. > -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe. FAQ: www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html