On Fri, Apr 16, 2004 at 10:01:40AM -0400, Joseph A. Caputo wrote:

> > On Thu, Apr 15, 2004 at 11:43:08AM -0400, Joseph A. Caputo wrote:
> > > An interesting question... I don't hear anyone complaining (though
> > > I'm sure *someone* is) that Windows/Mac drivers are not OSS. 

For the record, I am. I also consider it a problem that Windows and Mac are
themselves not FOSS.

> The only folks really getting 'snubbed' are kernel and XFree86 developers
> (or whatever name that project goes by these days).

Developers are the people who write our software. If they don't have the
freedom to write and distribute the software that we (the whole community)
needs, we all lose.

> Why?  Why should it be important to my mother who turns a computer on 
> once every 2 weeks to look something up on the web?  Who really has no 
> 'need' for a computer, but occasionally uses it just because it's 
> there?  Why should I preach OSS ideology to her, when all she wants is 
> to have the damn thing work on the few occasions she uses it?  Where is 
> her right to "just use" in blissful ignorance?

No user is an island.

At work, I support both free and non-free software for users who barely know
what software is - and the non-free software is keeping them from "just
using" their computers in the way they want.

All software has bugs. The difference is that anyone can fix the bugs they
find in free software; because of this, by the time you've hit a bug, you
can be almost guaranteed that someone else has found the bug, and fixed it.
By contrast, with proprietary software, you're dependent on the vendor and
whether they consider the bug to be worth their money to fix. Much of the
software I deal with has turned out to be buggy and crippled in this way,
and the vendor isn't interested in fixing the bugs. Even though I
(personally) probably couldn't fix these bugs, many people can; my users
suffer because the software is closed-source. If we (as a community) had the
freedom to modify and distribute the software, my users - even though they
barely know what a bug is - wouldn't be constantly cursing at broken
software.

My users have several programs they would like to use, together. They are
all proprietary and provide no (open) API's that could be scripted. Even the
functionality they have is not available to be automated (because it must be
accessed from the program's GUI). In some cases I can work my way around the
problems (eg: manually export an XML dump, work with that, manually import
data back in). In other cases, it's simply not possible (eg: the to-do lists
in FastTrack and Now Up-To-Date & Contact cannot be integrated). Result:
"I'm sorry, you have to enter this data twice. Click here, click here,
select "advanced options" ... and the user's eyes start to glaze over. If we
had the freedom to use and modify the software, the users could "just use"
their computers in the way they want to use them.

Some of our backups are done by a proprietary backup tool (also very buggy,
see above) whose output is in a proprietary format. When one day the tool
could not read its own output to recover the files, a tech support
script-monkey (notice we don't have those in the FOSS community?) told me
that the format is proprietary, and that if it's corrupted I'm SOL. If I had
the freedom to modify ... eh, you get the idea :)

> Yes, Freedom is important, but FOSS is a transient issue that is tied to 
> the current state of technology.  Civil liberties are forever.  When it 
> comes right down to it, I always retain the freedom to unplug my 
> computer and walk away.

Obviously we are all on this list because we like to use computers.
Real-world civil liberties are more important, and lasting; but as long as
we are using computers we deserve to have the freedom to do so. Software
freedom is fundamental to being able to "just use" our computers the way we
want and need to. As long as we use software, we need to care whether it is
free.

-beth

-- 
Beth Skwarecki
http://www.loxosceles.org/

 Don't mess around with large whales because they symbolize nature and
 will kill you.
                --Dave Barry