Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Seth Alan Woolley <seth AT positivism.org>]

On Fri, Nov 04, 2005 at 10:35:48AM -0500, Paul Mahon wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-04-11 at 01:02 -0800, Seth Alan Woolley wrote:
> > On Thu, Nov 03, 2005 at 12:44:56PM -0500, Paul Mahon wrote:
> > > I can't see why we would care about being on that list one way the
> > > other. The truth is, is that there are packages out there for which
> > > there are no decent (GNU)free alternatives exist, Java is an example.
> > 
> > You can't be serious.  Java coding is a choice one can make if they want 
> > to write in a poorly-designed and monopoly-controlled language.
> > 
> > Just because we could build a java replacement doesn't mean we should.
> 
> I certainly can be serious. Of course it's a choice, so is using a
> computer a choice. I agree that we shouldn't build a Java replacement. I
> also agree the language has many problems, and believe that its
> maintainers frequently do it further harm.

But you said there are no decent free alternatives.  Not exactly Java 
(although gcj does do java's basics pretty well), when you're talking 
about java classes, I find working in other languages much better than 
java's classes.  A mistake made in picking to go with java and its 
native classes is a sunk cost for the developer, but that's their own 
error for choosing non-free software.  It's not my or our obligation to 
support them.  Especially considering when java was created we had 
other, better languages already.

> 
> > > Just moving the grimoire to another host would still violate the
> > > "spirit" of the list, we would still be maintaining it, and thus
> > > advocate its use. 
> > 
> > Not if it's not officially supported by us and supported only be a 
> > separate (possibly overlapping) group of developers that want to waste 
> > their time helping The Man(SM).
> 
> Waste their time?? This is a very odd statement to make... I don't see
> how supporting what users want could possibly be a waste of time. 

My goals do not include supporting non-free software.  Thus it's a clear 
waste of time.  I thought this was for what the developers want to get 
out of an ideal system, not what we think the users want.  We can't even 
ask them easily and they rarely give input when asked.

> 
> Side note, The Man was a pretty funny movie. Jackson and Levi, such
> total opposites.
> 
> > > It looks like a bunch of changes which will make things more difficult
> > > for new users, and we don't get anything for it except our name on some
> > > wall no one much looks at.
> > 
> > We get the ethical and philosophical benefits that aren't being counted 
> > because perhaps it's not very tangible.
> 
> Ethical? Our stuff IS open and free, and its primary stack is all open
> and free, from Linux, to bash, and all the other command line utils it
> uses. I have to disagree that by not restricting what we support to a
> narrow definition we are somehow less ethical than we would be if we
> were restrictive.

Why do you disagree?  Take Kant's categorical imperative as one example 
of an ethical guideline.  If everybody supported non-free software, the 
ecosystem of free software would have fewer resources.  That's a 
reduction in freedom for everybody.

> 
> > Do we really want marketshare over a truly free and good product?  
> > Personally I don't think the cathedral and the bazaar is perfectly 
> > adequate at describing the process of free software developement.
> 
> I want a practical product. SMGL is good, and it is free now. You are
> suggesting that just because it supports people who try to install
> non-(GNU)free stuff that it is not "truly free"? Hogwash. If I thought
> that I'd have to advocate that SMGL only support computers with open
> source BIOS.

We're getting there.

The BIOS functions are mostly unused by a modern kernel anyways, 
especially once booted.  I think that firmware should be as free as 
possible and I try to avoid anything requiring obscure firmware.  Modern 
bioses though are less and less obscure and more and more free as a 
result.

In any case, firmware is something quite different than software on a 
fairly fundamental level.  We have some ways to go, and our primary 
problem with software as an urgent problem is that firmwares are 
typically not as complex and thus easier to support than a large 
software product such as oracle or flash.

I want to reiterate that "ethic" in this case is a motion toward, not 
something I think is a sin if we can't attain it.  I'm not 
Judeo-Christian, so I'm not deluded in that way.

Seth

> 
> > It's, in fact, unfortunate that people like to follow ESR's lead.  Look 
> > at what he's written, I think his experiment was a bust.
> > 
> > Seth
> > 
> > > 
> > > I'm just not seeing the gain for us.
> > > 
> <snip>

-- 
Seth Alan Woolley [seth at positivism.org], SPAM/UCE is unauthorized
Quality Assurance Team Leader & Security Team: Source Mage GNU/linux
Linux so advanced, it may as well be magic http://www.sourcemage.org
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