On Mon, May 31, 2004 at 11:32:02PM -0500, Joe Wreschnig scribbled: > On Mon, 2004-05-31 at 22:01, Marek Habersack wrote: > > > As for coding alternatives, I've written a small chunk of Free Software over > > > the years. Whether it's an alternative to something that only existed in > > > non-free form previously, I can't honestly say. But certainly free > > > alternatives to non-free software have been written - xpdf as an alternative > > > to acroread, kaffe as an alternative to the Sun JDK, and Mono and dotGNU as > > > an alternative to .NET. What exactly the authors of those free alternatives > > > were motivated by, I truly cannot say, but it's entirely possible that part > > > of the motivation was because they were non-free, people stood up and > > > publically said so, and someone thought "I'd really like a Free Software > > > version of that piece of software". > > I fully agree with you on that and you've given very worthy examples of > > applications that replace the non-free ones. But note one thing - NONE of > > their authors came moaning that "acrobat is bad, it has to be removed, guys, > > remove it" - but they sat down and wrote the software. And what I was > > talking about were people who go talking about something being wrong, about > > politics, theoritizing and pointing fingers but doing nothing in order to > > change anything. If somebody comes and says "the tg driver is bad, because > > it is non free and I will remove it" and offers no alternative then, in my > > book, that person loses _all_ the credibility as a software developer and > > a person that can be trusted to do some task which requires responsibility. > > So, if no free alternative exists, any proprietary program (whether we > have a legal right to distribute or not) can be in Debian if someone > packages it. (Don't respond with "I'm not saying that", because you > are.) Am I? Where? Where am I saying that an illegal program should be distributed? AutoCAD was given as an example - the example didn't include discussion about the legal rights to distribute that. I assumed that, for the sake of discussion, the person had the right to distribute the hypothetical AutoCAD. So let me ammend my statement, just for you: I wouldn't oppose the inclusion of otherwise non-free AutoCAD if its upload was accompanied with the document/license stating that Debian can legally distribute it. Is it more clear now? > No, really, what the fuck are you smoking? Did you lose your place on > the road to SuSE or something? Debian consists *only free software* > whether or not some non-free program exists that can do something novel. Fuck man, what are YOU smoking? Don't get so worked up, it ain't worth it, really. You fail to read what you write, you attribute your dillusional context to what _I_ said, and you're accusing me of being on crack? A piece of advice for you - don't read between the lines, just read what was written, ok? > > (P.S. I have, with various people, freely reimplemented two entire > (music, graphics, code) proprietary games because I want to avoid > non-free software. So, don't lecture me about sitting down and coding.) Are you nuts? As far as I remember I addressed the "lecture" to Matt, not to you and there were NO names involved, and especially yours - or I am really on crack and don't know what I wrote. All of the sudden, you pop up like a jack-in-a-box and start yelling at me. Kudos to you for reimplementing the games and other programs, glad you did that, but why the fuck are you bringing it up right now and right here? Did (and where, if yes) I say that YOU, Joe Wreschnig, are the smartass that says something has to be done but does nothing? If not, then kindly fuck off. > > But it might be just me. > > If it's not, I fear greatly for the future of free software. :( Yeah, with your attitude most of the people involved in free software will die of heart attack get a grip, marek
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