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Re: get the project officially started



On Thu, 06 Dec 2001 10:26:08 Josef Dalcolmo wrote:
> 
> The reaction showed me however, that most people at least on the FSFE
> mailing 
> list oppose the idea of porting Free Software to a proprietary OS, and I
> also 
> was told that RMS himself said something like: "don't improve a
> proprietary OS 
> with Free Software, because people will associate the good tools with the
> OS 
> instead of the Free Software movement".
> 

What makes windows rule over desktops yet is not a matter of software
quality (most software for windows is very crappy) but a question of
standards.

Running windows has always been an excuse to also run IE, outlook, WM
player,
M$ messenger, M$ office, etc etc.. They promote it in lots of ways.

Most home windows users i know personally don't even buy their windows
versions,
but get them from piracy. When i argue that Debian is free (as in beer),
they respond
that windows is free too.

And i guess M$ doesn't care much, their strategy is based on conquering the
desktop
(even at the cost of permitting piracy) to establish their applications and
then their standards.

Once their standards are established (they are), bussiness will be forced
to use M$
expensive products to keep on standards: because clients run IE they'll
want to run IIS,
because the predominant document format is .doc they will need M$ office,
etc etc..

This is where they'll want to get money from. If we don't beat M$
standards, we can't
really have a chance to compete with them.

Think about what Debian GNU/win32(whatever) will supose, it can become the
most used
collection of utilities for windows... we have a big lot of free
applications, and they're of high
quality not like most windows crap. with no banner, no shareware nags, with
BTS support,
all them optimised for new 64bit architechture.. If we manage to extend our
free software
to the windows desktop, then we'll be able to compete with M$ standards
that rule the 'market' today.

of course this is just my humble opinion...

-- 
----------------------------------------------------
Robert Millan          Debian GNU/Hurd user
zeratul2 wanadoo es    http://getyouriso.dyndns.org/
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GPG ID C8D6942C
237F 8688 C2E5 BC64 E152  97B4 FB28 D41B C8D6 942C
----------------------------------------------------
Join us in civil disobedience and distribute DeCSS!!
----------------------------------------------------
/*     efdtt.c     Author:  Charles M. Hannum <root@ihack.net>            
*/
/*     Length:  434 bytes (excluding unnecessary newlines)                
*/
/*     Usage is:  cat title-key scrambled.vob | efdtt >clear.vob          
*/
/*     title-key can be read from the DVD by css-auth. (see livid.org)    
*/
#define m(i)(x[i]^s[i+84])<<
unsigned char x[5],y,s[2048];main(n){for(read(0,x,5);read(0,s,n=2048);write(1,s
,n))if(s[y=s[13]%8+20]/16%4==1){int i=m(1)17^256+m(0)8,k=m(2)0,j=m(4)17^m(3)9^k
*2-k%8^8,a=0,c=26;for(s[y]-=16;--c;j*=2)a=a*2^i&1,i=i/2^j&1<<24;for(j=127;++j<n
;c=c>y)c+=y=i^i/8^i>>4^i>>12,i=i>>8^y<<17,a^=a>>14,y=a^a*8^a<<6,a=a>>8^y<<9,k=s
[j],k="7Wo~'G_\216"[k&7]+2^"cr3sfw6v;*k+>/n."[k>>4]*2^k*257/8,s[j]=k^(k&k*2&34)
*6^c+~y;}}



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