Mason Loring Bliss wrote:
Support for non-free software is going to get more people to use free
software. Let's take an average Windows user with a typical laptop. We want
him to use free software, right? How is he going to feel about free software
when he can't use his wireless networking? He won't give it a second look.
If, however, he's able to use it and see the benefits of it, it's quite
possible he'll spend some time finding hardware that is fully supported by
free software next time around. But he won't get there without some help.
Your arguement addresses software that is arguably necessary for Debian
to run with all hardware. Keep in mind that there is a lot of software
in non-free and contrib which Debian provides via their website. Some of
this software has free replacements as well.
For example: Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer
http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/pptview
MS fonts (Liberation fonts and GNU Free Fonts are replacements)
http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/ttf-mscorefonts-installer
IMO (FWIW) there should be at least more distinction between non-free
software that is considered "necessary" for hardware to run (eg.
firmware) and non-free software that is hardly necessary.
Andrew - just a user.
_______________________________________________
Fsf-collab-discuss mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/fsf-collab-discuss
