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Neil Williams wrote: > 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.) Ah.. the Atari ST.. lovely bit of kit.. and yes GEM was nice.. *and* small! Windows Vista RC1 takes 6.6Gb of HD space! Granted that's a pre-release version, but even so that's horrendous. >>> 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. Actually I use Xandros and I agree with the principle, but principles need to be balanced with practicality - as you say 'choice'. Principles are fine in theoretical exercises but there are some times when you have to use proprietary software *until* the open source becomes available. In general people are quite happy to use open source software *if it exists*. No amount of telling them proprietary software is bad is going to do any good if no alternative is offered. Somebody saying 'You can't use that software you need for your business because it's proprietary' is going to get a very rude response. Not from me I hasten to add - I don't use the PC for business. I can however see it happening very easily. > 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. What popularity would do is bring more users to Linux. More users means that the hardware and software manufacturers will take more notice. More notice means they will look more favourably on opening up their code to the OS community. That can only be good for open source. In that case popularity *would* equate to motivation, in the context of a hardware manufacturer for example, looking at increasing usage of Linux and deciding 'If I release the code to run my hardware in Open Source format I will sell more units *and* I can leave driver/module development to the community and dump my development costs... WHOOPIE!' Popularity would motivate the manufacturer indirectly - I admit the actual motivation would be 'I want more sales', but the popularity increase would achieve that goal indirectly. If the price for achieving that goal is releasing versions of Linux that are similar cosmetically to Windows then IMHO it is a small price to pay. > 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 agree with that completely. Not to mention that not all companies do a good job of preinstalling it to start with. I know of one case at least where a consumer was sold a Windows XP PC where virtually nothing worked. It transpired the well-known PC retail outlet had simply chucked Windows XP on a PC designed to run Windows 98. Oddly enough when XP was ripped off and '98 installed everything worked. I don't say 'you must always use OS software'. I prefer 'you should use OS software *where available* and try to push the development of OS software where it currently is not available'. > 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. Well said :) > >> 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. This is why I am persisting with MADWifi rather than using NDISwrapper. I'd rather have a pure open source wireless setup than a butchered setup with a Windows driver underneath it all. > 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*. Fair comment, but as above a user can only use what is available to them. If they need a specific function delivered that OS cannot currently provide then they must have the choice to use an interim solution, necessarily closed source. Kind regards, Julian -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html