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Why not? Playing devil's advocate for a moment, is there much difference between using a mixture of proprietary and free software, and using Windows?
Not in my book. Proprietary is bad - it's that simple. Here are my reasons:1. I want to be able to help others by fixing bugs. I cannot fix bugs reliably if there is code being run for which I cannot obtain the source. 2. I want to ensure the continuance of freedom in software. This means *not* using proprietary drivers or programs - instead I run and try to improve the free software alternatives so that others won't feel they need the proprietary code.
I'd be interested to know why you don't run Windows. Here's why I don't run Windows - I don't like it, and I don't like it because everything I tried to do with it was difficult, and things would frequently break and I would wind up with spyware, or unreliable software. The system didn't respect my freedom, and so I moved to Mac OS X, thinking things would be better.
My original reasons to move from Windows were (in no particular order):1. Complete inability to work with the C/C++ compilers available for Windows because the API was obscure, the support too variable and the underlying OS was broken, basically. How can anyone expect a bug free application when the OS is so damn buggy! 2. Complete inability to reliably implement any sane web server config that had any degree of portability to the webhost servers that I was using at the time. These appeared to me as Unix but were probably GNU/Linux - I'd guess RedHat 5 or Slackware/early Debian.
3. spyware, malware, BUGS BUGS BUGS BUGS BUGS. 4. IE 5. OE 6. Win ME. 7. political dislike of monopolists of all flavours. 8. Inate feeling that I should not have to pay for such junk.9. I *loved* quarterdeck - it was a fantastic bit of kit, incredibly cool for the time. Then Microsoft bought them and I saw the light: nobody is safe from Microsoft if money is involved.
I didn't know of GNU/Linux at the time and OSX was only a twinkle in Steve Job's eye.
My dislike of Microsoft began early (about half a second after I started using Gem and wondered how Microsoft managed to botch Windows so badly when Gem was doing the same thing, better, years before.) {answer: Bill Gates isn't a particularly good programmer - he is good at other things but his code stinks!}
I'm not an uber-hacker, I know my limits. I pootle around in various areas and do what I can. You won't find me hacking on the kernel or revisiting what little assembly code I used to write - I'm happy doing what I can. I used to do more complex stuff, fettling device drivers and writing TSR programs but it's not really my area so I leave well alone.
I dislike the Microsoft company methods - their ethics if you like.
Microsoft has ethics??? I can summarise their "ethics" in one character: $
Thats the main reason I don't use Windows. I don't have any thoughts about the actual products one way or the other - from what I can remember, they were a mixed bunch - some good, some OK, some dreadful.
The benefit of free software is that if one package is appalling, there's usually another in the wings that is either growing or is already a viable alternative.
I liked shareware on Windows but that was just sharing the binaries - sharing the source code is incredibly powerful and IMNSHO is the primary reason why GNU/Linux has come so far in the 15 years since release 0.1 of the Linux kernel. Sharing the source allows the little people (like me) to stand on the shoulders of giants like Linus, RMS, ESR, Larry Wall and others.
I have never used a Mac - I would not buy one for the same reason as I will not use Microsoft products.
That doesn't make much sense. Buying Mac hardware is no different to buying any other hardware, especially when it comes to laptops. Fine, if you can build each of your desktop machines from the motherboard up but laptops are specialist areas and you might as well choose the best hardware to suit your needs - irrespective of the default OS.
Apple was fundamentally different to Microsoft - this is (debatably) weakened by their move to the Intel platform. They do still make good hardware.
I advocate GNU/Linux to many of the people whose computers I have to clean of viruses, worms, trojans. spyware.... but I never had those issues myself whilst on Windows.
Somehow I doubt that - malware on Windows is *so* pervasive that I find it impossible to believe that anyone who connects a Windows box to the internet can ever be certain that no malware has been installed. You might not have been able to *detect* an infection of your system but I am quite confident that the *only* safe Windows box is one without an internet connection of any kind (and even then it's doubtful if there is any likelihood of a third party having access to the machine). This was true for Windows 3.1, Win95, WinME (don't make me cry) and WinXP. I didn't get a chance to play with WinNT or Win2000 but somehow, confidence is not high.
The purpose of the system is to be free software, the purpose of the system is not to be popular. Maybe some people will not want to use the system, because a certain codec is not available, but we should not include those codecs by default, or make them available to them in any way. Same with drivers. Non-free kernel modules are in a grey area anyway, as to create a derived work of a GPLd piece of code, it must be GPLd.
How many in the wider community would agree with that though Matt?
Many - >1,000 Debian developers, the majority of Fedora developers and a sizeable majority of Ubuntu, Mandriva, SuSE and every other free software distribution. The Xandros/Linspire lot may disagree but that's their choice.
Debian supports contrib and non-free because free software is about choice. Debian does not *recommend* contrib or non-free because free software needs to be encouraged, harnessed and protected.
Personally, popularity or otherwise doesn't worry me too much, although of course it can be argued that popularity would bring more volunteers to work on projects perhaps.
That is debatable. Free software is a voluntary task. Contributors need to bring their own motivation to the party - nobody in the community is going to provide the motivation for you. Popularity is not equivalent to motivation, neither does popularity necessarily increase the proportion of *motivated* people interested in free software.
I fully understand the views of the FSF and in many ways we should aspire to their position, but for an awful lot of users they are simply not 100% practical. Is it better to have lots of users who try to use free software whenever possible, but still feel they can use closed source software if it is needed for their enjoyment of the PC, or do we maintain the view that all software on a GNU/Linux system has to be free and open? It is a difficult decision I find, which is why I run free when I can (i.e pretty much most of my systems here), but will install non-free if I have to for my computing enjoyment.
It is best to have choice.Freedom requires an informed choice. A world where every computer has any specific OS preinstalled without exception is *not* a free software world.
I don't want Debian on every desktop. I *do* want everyone to have the information and freedom to make the choice to use free software - in whichever flavour best suits their needs at that time. This is why pre-installed Windows is a huge problem.
> I think that if you're running a GNU/Linux system, you should not > install proprietary software. I cannot see a difference between > running the GNU system with some free software and some proprietary > software and running Mac OS X, for example.
I would agree with Matt - with the proviso that this remains a *should* and not a *must*. Choice must be preserved or we lose the very freedoms we seek to protect.
Are those who use a few non-free programs alongside their GNU/Linux core not at least experiencing the pleasures of the Open Source community and software?
This deserves another thread, but suffice to say that simply loading a binary driver into a free software kernel is sufficient for kernel developers to wash their hands of you because they have no way of knowing if bugs in your system are caused by the binary (i.e. hidden) code overwriting the open code in incompatible / non-standard ways.
I cannot help you fix certain bugs in your system if your system is tainted in such a manner because I cannot determine the true location of the buggy code. It is that simple.
If you use proprietary software, you distance yourself from the wider community and place a barrier between you and full community support. Therefore, proprietary software can only *increase* the number of bugs in your system and most if not all the extra bugs are *unfixable*.
-- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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