Pall Thayer wrote: > Well you know, now when free os's are finally making some headway > amongst users drastic measures must be taken to maintain its > "exclusivity". So it looks to me like all of the most widely used > distros aren't "the real thing" and therefore don't count.
It's more that if people had accepted non-free software where free alternatives were available in order to be "pragmatic" at the start we wouldn't have got any distros at all in the first place, and it's important not to give up or slide back now. > I can just imagine what FSF meetings are like. Everyone brings their own > desktop computer with them because after finally getting their laptops > to hibernate they can't wake them up and everyone's tangled up in > ethernet cable because no one can get their wireless cards to work. I visited the FSF office last week. The only addition to some of the laptops was a wireless card with a chipset supported by free software drivers. ;-) My laptop has all binary blobs removed from the OS, a usb wireless connector, and the Linux Libre kernel installed. My eldest son has an old thinkpad that doesn't even need external wireless. It's doable. And its becoming easier. But it's only becoming easier because people are keeping up the pressure. (Debian Legal's opinions on whether *documentation* licences are suitable for *software* are always informative but are a category error. I personally would like to see the FDL deprecated in favour of BY-SA, but then Debian Legal aren't keen on BY-SA protecting people's freedom against DRM because they think that restricts people's freedom...) > But, on a more serious note, you can also argue that for a distribution > like pure:dyne (as a media artist's distro) to attempt to adhere to the > FSF's definition would very likely defeat some of the value of the > distro. No? If the aim of puredyne is to be installed on any old machines people have in the classroom or the lab and work straight away so that people can just get on with making digital art then hardware manufacturers refusal to respect users freedom will *sometimes* be at odds with that. - Rob. (PS - I'm the chief gnu webmaster but I'm speaking in a purely personal capacity here.)
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