There are some folks here that claim to not like non-FOSS software, and admonish others for helping newbies use it. The examples given included Acrobat, Flash, and the Java Runtime Environment. Some of us do work in the Real World (tm). Yes, we have a strong preference for FOSS, and will use that to the exclusion of non-FOSS whenever possible. But when a particular FOSS application is not available, or is incapable of performing a critical task, then the choice is to do nothing, or to perform the task with the best tools remaining. FOSS zealots can piss and moan, or they can do something positive. Rather than complain about the helpful non-FOSS FAQs and guides for newbies that others are writing, the zealots can write *better* FAQs that explain now to perform those critical tasks with FOSS. And if there are critical tasks that cannot yet be performed with FOSS applications, those zealots with programming skills can correct the deficiencies of the FOSS apps. Pretending those deficiencies aren't there is stupid, especially when some are so easy to fix. You are reading this message on a computer that was designed and manufactured using hundreds of non-FOSS CAD applications. In fact, some of those non-FOSS design applications have licenses that make the M$ EULA look positively Stallmanian. I am working to fix that, using the tools available to me. To deny me those tools because of some silly claim that this somehow increases freedom is to strain at gnats and swallow camels. The people that actually contribute to Fedora are working very hard to improve open source, and I am thrilled by their efforts, and brag about them to others. We really are making rapid progress. But we are NOT THERE YET, and it would be a horrible tactical mistake to claim victory and start hunting heretics instead of attracting converts. It is the heretic hunters of the previous generation of software designers, with their licenses and their laws, that we are fighting now. Let's not become the enemy. Think positive. Promote and improve FOSS software. If the competition works better, then improve your own efforts, don't attack users for making practical accommodations to the real world. We don't need to be perceived as rigid, authoritarian lunatics. That's the other side. Keith -- Keith Lofstrom keithl@xxxxxxxx Voice (503)-520-1993 KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon" Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs
