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Re: [OT] Freedom vs. entitlement (was Re: HOWTO enhance Debian by removing HAL)



On Tue, Aug 04, 2009 at 07:12 -0500, Ron Johnson wrote:
> On 2009-08-04 06:14, Siggy Brentrup wrote:
> >On Sun, Aug 02, 2009 at 18:13 +0200, Siggy Brentrup wrote:
> >>On Sun, Aug 02, 2009 at 09:28 -0500, Chris wrote:
> >
> >>I am concerned about X's dependency on HAL.  Years ago I was using my
> >>SGI Indy with a superb SGI Monitor and US keyboard (brackets and
> >>braces at the right places) to have up to 6 xterms onscreen; the
> >>machine is too slow to do real work.  I didn't yet recover far enough
> >>to know for certain, but planning to run current sid on that box you
> >>might hear my curses over the ocean when I find out I have to run HAL
> >>or use ancient X.
> >
> >In case you didn't hear me:
> >ARRRRRGS THIS @#%$§*@ XORG STUFF NOT ONLY DEPENDS ON HAL, moreover
> >HAL forces me to install usbutils.  USB 1.0 specs were released
> >one year after this fine box was built!
> 
> Sadly, at some point, software "outgrows" really old h/w, no matter
> how good the box.
> 
> >>>To me, the freedom is still there. I now have the freedom of either
> >>>removing it or leaving it. The choice is still mine.
> >>We'll see, my choices are: current X, no HAL.
> >
> >Where's my freedom, I'm stuck with ancient X if I don't want to
> >run otherwise unused SW?
> >
> 
> The GPL gives you freedom to view, modify and use the source code.

You state the obvious.
 
> Your claim to a "freedom", though, is a misplaced sense of
> entitlement to other people's volunteer efforts.
> 
> IOW, by using the binaries that are a product of other people's
> labor, you forfeit your "right" to complain about them doing what
> they want to do in their spare time.

With this argument we might as well make dash essential instead of
bash and no I don't want to begin yet another discussion of that
seemingly unsolvable issue.

> >going to pin X to stable <grrrrr>.
> 
> Rather, pin it to Lenny, so you don't bump to Squeeze when it goes
> stable.

*LOL* At least half a year before this happens (squezze not even
freezed) I'll definitely be in a situation where I am able to rebuild
X for mips from source w/o hal dependency.

Thanks for listening
  Siggy
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