It all comes down to devotion. All of my attempts at maintaining a
"free" system have eventually been thwarted by things like wifi
drivers, video-codecs and Java. I would, for instance, never go so far
as to purchase a wifi card with a chipset that is supported by open
drivers if the computer in question already has another wifi card.
Perhaps if I had an abundance of money. I don't know and probably
never will.
I'm all for keeping things "free" but when forced, I bend rather
easily... for now. I did manage to get Processing running with OpenJDK
but there was some functionality missing so that previous applets
didn't all work. But perhaps later applets will be designed around
compatibility with OpenJDK if possible.
Essentially, I guess it's a question of letting true "free-ness"
gradually seep in.
Pall
On Apr 3, 2009, at 9:18 AM, Rob Myers wrote:
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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irc.goto10.org #pure:dyne
