Re: Backing GNU to the hilt (was Re: [LUG] Waiting for keyboard input in a shell script)

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.

True. Absolutely true.

There is NO need to have non-free code on a GNU/Linux system. Absolutely zero.

How about graphics card drivers?
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.

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!

Let's not get too software-patriotic here, Neil. If free/open-source/whatever software is inferior to the proprietary equivalent, it makes no sense for the average Blogg to use it. It certainly would make no sense to me to use Rhythmbox, with its truly hideous auto-resizing table, when iTunes is available. Nor do I feel any compulsive need to convert to Supertux in favour of Half-life 2. I have to, because appropriate graphics card device drivers aren't available.

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.

Again, a little more loyal than most people. Truly, proprietary software is a blight on systems, but it's not illegal to use software that doesn't fly under the GPL banner.

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.

3. Always seek to use free on any non-free system.

Yes.

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.
Personally, I don't like using proprietary software, especially Windows; but it shouldn't be made illegal on a free computer...

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?

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.

> 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.

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."

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.

I support you on this point, except KDE. GNOME is a great desktop and I use it all the time now. Granted, by Applications menu doesn't work due to a bug in Ubuntu Dapper, but for everyone else GNOME is far superior to Windows. (Not Mac OSX, but that's proprietary and only for Macs, regrettably.) What, Matt, was the problem with running GNOME? Or, <deity> forbid, KDE? Or even one of the tiddly underfeatured ones like XFCE?

> 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."

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.

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.

By my count, many more. If you count all the tiddly underfeatured ones.

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.

True.