I agree with you in that point. But I was talking about letting the users
know when things work. As an example, I switched to Ubuntu in 2004 because my
hardware worked, in 2005 i bought a computer and the wireless didn't worked
so I stopped using it (because I was a non-technical user). Later that year
the wireless started working (proprietary drivers but still), and because of
that I started to use Ubuntu as my main distribution. With that in mind I
started to learn a little bit more about Linux and after that about
Gnu/Linux, then I started to understand the Free Software View, and started
to agree with it (even if I didn't understand it quite well).
I then made the switch to Arch Linux, but came back to Ubuntu a lot of times
because things just worked out of the box in Ubuntu and not in Arch. But I
tried and tried again until I finally stopped using Ubuntu and started using
Arch Linux... And the story goes on until the day I got my Asus 1215N that
make me came back to Windows since it is the only one with support for the
Nvidia.
Now that I understand (90%) of the Freedoms and the GNU/GPL in general, I
prefer to use a Distribution like Trisquel or Parabola even if sometimes
things don't work (like some sites with Gnash or even some devices), than
accepting a non-free software of driver that will take my freedoms away.
But to arrive at this place I had to have something working, and only when
this "something" was working that I started to thing about the General view
and not about the Specific View.
I started this because I remember a few days ago about a user that wanted
support for a Wireless Card and then stopped to use Trisquel since the
Wireless Card didn't work. It is true that, he's reaction is (almost) the
perfect way to tell about someone that don't understand the importance of
freedoms given my a distribution and a project like this one over the user
(like myself a few months ago), but it show's that, even the most "mentally
prepared" user that wanted to make the switch will have problems if simple
stuff don't work (like the hardware).
Now it is true that we don't have enough people to solve this problem. But we
already have a lot of developers (that sometimes uses Distribution with
non-free stuff) that creates Free Software which all of us uses everyday
(like the Nouveau Drivers). And what I was saying is that, we need to support
both parts, but by now I am more willing to support something like the
Nouveau drivers, because I know that it will break another bridge between the
Free Software and the Non-Free Software, and by the same way it will help
improving Trisquel and let more and more people come to Trisquel and only
focus on what is important here... the freedom of the user over the
machine/developer/entreprise/software etc... And this even if he/she isn't a
developer.
Even the housewife could take a big step and improve the Free Software Idea
just by sharing ".odp" files when she is working at a public place instead of
the ".pptx" because she nows and understands why it was created and why she
should use it.
I wrote so much that I'm pretty sure I made a mistake somewhere... so if it
this the case excuse me :D
