Re: Unidentified subject!
On Thu, 31 Jan 2002, martin f krafft wrote:
>> and on a debian mailing list, "unrestricted access to source" is the
>> only "free" we care about. let opera pay for their own advertising
>> and evangelism.
> okay. but there's no browser alternative to opera. konqueror requires
> all the kde stuff,
Well, if one has kde installed this is a non-issue.
> mozilla is to awkward here and there and way too slow,
I think this depends on cpu and ram of the user. I don't find it too
awkward too.
> netscape6 is also non-free,
The only objective thing in the sentence :)
> skipstone and galeon don't provide some of the more advanced stuff i
> need.
And here again, too, ymmv.
> i think one of the most popular flaws of linux-fans is the downscaling
> of expectations and standards just to meet the open source ideals.
Martin, you seem to forget two things:
First : sometimes expectations are fake expectations.
Second: sometimes standards (which standards? who decided them?) are a
jail for the nice stuff I've done.
I can write letters in text, my documents with vi, and store all my stuff
on an ext3 partition. Not only it is just what I need, but I can sleep
all the night well, because I know that people will be able to read my
documents, receive my e-mails, and if something happens to ext3, there is
an expert that know this _transparent standard_ that could help me to
retrieve my ascii data. And if my new pc break downs, I can migrate my
stuff easily to another i586 computer or to another architecture
workstation.
I speak for myself, but for what I've seen, for what I know, the
downscaling of expectation and standards here in the Debian project is
necessary to bring onwards a Free Speech Operating System. Is it
derogative this downscaling? Absolutely not.
Some standards are damaging or brain damaged: fuck outlook express .mbx
files, fuck word .doc files, fuck their nice vb virusses going around
the net stealing my bandwidht and the cpu cycles of my machines. Fuck
.net and passport. Fuck XP registration dialog for entering in the cool
world of hotmail.
Why should I trust my Public Administration running Microsoft everywhere,
if the Microsoft Experience was PAINFUL also for me as a user?
Trying to be 100% Microsoft compliant would be damaging for Debian.
> i don't think you should support the capitalists any more than
> necessary, but you should also not harm your own productivity, or deal
> with less just because you cannot go non-free.
You seem to forget too that sometimes the thing that damage your own
productivity are closed standards. Or stupidly added features or
extensions to protocols. In 1985 someone up at MIT needed to know how to
interface with the brand new laser printer. Both HP and a distant
colleague told him to piss off. Then he decided to go free-software and
produced an editor widely used in the Unix environment, and a compiler
this too used nearly everywhere.
What damaged the productivity of this person in the end? His decision to
go free-software or HP putting a closed standard to its hardware? Hardware
for which the MIT paid to use FULLY? [1]
Oh, yeah, and tell me... what damages people's productivity more than
winmodems? With winmodems you are tied to running insecure and
slow operating systems, only because the producer doesn't want to open
the specs.
Now, to get back to us, the problem is not when you cannot go non-free.
The problem is when non-free software, media or hardware COMPELS YOU NOT
TO GO FREE.
If Opera can interchanges itself and lives well and nicely with open
source software, then Opera is a good software, and you will have all my
blessing... BUT, (I repeat, as how I understood the DFSG and manifesto)
here in Debian the philosophy is to push BEFORE free software and AFTER
alternative free software, AFTER other free software, AFTER the buggy
free software, the non-free software.
> i guess i also just trust opera to not do illegal stuff or anything
> behind my back.
I believe that people programming Opera are nice people committed to do
the best job, and, not only since Eazel-like startups where a failure,
they are doing the most wise thing: running a closed-source company which
sells an excellent closed-source product.
But, I think I am correct if I say that it's not a Debian project to
advocate the use of such products. To render possible the use of that
software on Debian platform is a thing, to advocate it is another thing.
[1] Remember that HP recently began to support her printers on free
software platforms. :) But the bearded old man did not give up all
these years, did not use a webbrowser that opened in 15 seconds and
captured the mouse gestures and blah blah blah.
Ciao.
--
Davide "Gatto Feroce" Inglima
" Paradosso Invernale: perche' d'inverno se apri la <<window>> entrano "
" i <<pinguini>>? " citando Luigi Catuogno a.k.a Kenshy
http://digilander.iol.it/nekochan/
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