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On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 16:04:11 +0100 "Ben Goodger" <goodgerster@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 3/25/07, Matt Lee <mattl@xxxxxxx> wrote: > > > > Ben Goodger wrote: > > > > > How about freedom of choice? > > > > To speak of the freedom to take away the freedoms of others is > > absurd. > > > Ubuntu provides users the freedom to more > easily limit their own freedom as they see fit. Ben, you're talking about freedom as it relates to you, today. Matt is talking about the implications for tomorrow. If free software is not provided to replace all proprietary code, the free software users of tomorrow do not have the freedom to choose free software - take that one stage further and if proprietary code usurps free software today, it REMOVES freedom from tomorrow's users - they won't have access to the free alternative because it ended up with bit rot from too little usage. Proprietary code that is promoted over and above a free software alternative takes freedom away from those who want to use the free alternative in the future because the free alternative might not develop fully. Please, Ben, think of tomorrow's users as well as the needs of today. What suits you today could come back to haunt you tomorrow. It is better to use a LESS functional free software alternative TODAY in the hope of improving it, than to use a proprietary version today and pay lip service to the needs of others in the future. You cannot realistically hope to improve the free software alternative if you don't even use it and using a proprietary version only encourages the propagation of that proprietary version. A little sacrifice today is not a lot to ask. > Yes, and in doing so provide their users with more freedom of choice. > I don't agree with promoting opera, because it's crap, but if a user > wants it then it should be provided as neatly as possible. Now that there are very strong free software alternatives, Opera is less of a problem but, in general, promoting the proprietary is bad news for the free alternative. -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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