On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 2:46 PM, Matt Lee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 3:42 PM, Ryan Prior <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hold up, fellows. I don't see the need to rehash that argument on this > list. > > Anyone who is interested can search Wikipedia, ask in > irc.freenode.net/gnu, > > or read essays by rms and esr. > > Well, it's a different argument. Should free culturists speak of free > software?
They have no reason in particular not to, but to the extent that each person must pick his or her fights, expecting free culture advocates to take naturally to free software is not necessarily reasonable. As has been discussed on this list, many activists find that MS Windows or Apple OS X serve their present needs better. Thus, it falls to us as free software developers to make as much free software accessible to creative developers as possible. It is clearly in Free Software's interest to attract creative developers, and I would argue that it is in Free Culture's interest to promote the development of Free Software, as it lowers the barrier to entry, bringing more users into the creative fold. > > Here's my question: is it more important to create a platform for > creative > > types to leverage as much free software as possible given their limited > > hardware, or to develop a pure free software platform which caters only > to > > creative types who are lucky enough to have compatible hardware? > > Generally, people with slightly older hardware find it very well supported. I'll speak strictly for myself: I have to use non-free HAL and WiFi drivers in order to run my 3-year-old Toshiba laptop. I plan on building my next computer specifically to support Free Software and I have done extensive research to make that possible. However, when I bought this computer, free software compatibility was not of paramount importance. I also need to use non-Free software on the old desktop machine I use at home. It needs proprietary AOL extensions to connect to the internet (AOL being the only locally available dial-up provider, with no broadband solution in sight) and requires non-free HAL components. It is 6 years old. I suspect that many artists are in similar positions - they buy their computers without giving thought to the compatibility with free software, and we should be accommodating of that in order to gain their support and show them what Free Software has to offer. Those who adopt Free Software are more likely in the future to buy hardware which is known to work well with Free drivers, which will benefit the Free Software community and ecosystem. > Those of us with laptops less than 6 months old are the ones who suffer. Not the only ones, unfortunately. Thanks for the reply. -Ryan Prior
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