Kelly Miller wrote:
Most of the contributions to open source software have come from people who use it in one way or another, or from commercial companies who have decided for their own reasons to add open licenses to the code they own. Anything that increases the user base will almost certainly increase the contributor base. And making it easy to obtain all needed software would help increase the user base.
See, this is the problem with the whole free vs. open source thing. By suggesting that open source works better, while ignoring the whole idea of being FREE behind it, you bring in users who wonder why distros simply don't include -- insert name of closed-source component du-jour here -- and then you get distros that include that particular component in the name of "making things easy for users". However, the REAL backlash from that decision is what most FLOSS programmers are seeing from Nvidia and Adobe now; "We don't need to produce open source software, you can use the closed source stuff instead. After all, isn't closed source better than nothing?"No, it's not.
People should be free to make that decision for themselves separately for every component. That's what standard interfaces are about, to give you that freedom. There is nothing free about things that take that choice away by restrictions or refusal to provide usable interfaces for interoperability.
I have to agree with RMS' statements on that respect; it isn't worth having GNU/Linux replace Windows if it turns into a closed system equivalent to Windows itself. What kind of "victory" is that?First of all, if any virus-spewing Microsoft box can be converted to run stable, well-tested, standards-conforming software instead, it is a victory for everyone on the internet. But open source can never 'turn into' a closed system. The only scenario that might even come close to that would be if some system were so much better that everyone would choose it instead - which would also be a victory for everyone having that choice.
Until you realize that such a system is actually no better than Windows itself. You're still locked in, you still can't see what's really going on, and since it's closed, there will likely be hidden hooks designed to make it hard to use anything else. This is the sort of thing that occurs when you use non-free software.
No, you are never locked in when components interface properly, there are choices for each, and they do not include restrictions that affect each other.
You know, I do find it interesting that for a supposedly unreliable distro, I haven't changed my install procedure on Fedora in 4 versions. Are you sure it's not just because you're hitting stuff that most people don't run into that's causing this supposed unreliability?And uh, for all your posts about the stability of the system, I have to wonder why you're not running Debian stable. AFAIK, that is the only distro line that is guaranteed to work without any bugs of any kind, mainly because it's years behind the others...There are 2 kinds of stability - one is unchanging and can be good for interfaces. The other is reliability. Fedora has neither.
Yes, of course I want to do different things. Why shouldn't I? Stable interfaces give you the freedom to do something different instead of being locked into what comes from a single provider that likes to make it difficult for you to change or use other components.
So do I. I note that I have no problems running 3rd party programs on Fedora. I generally just choose not to. However, things like VMWare work.Asking why 3rd party stuff doesn't work when they're considered outside the system is a little odd, wouldn't you say?No, I wouldn't say that. As with any other operating systems, I expect to be able to run other programs on it.
Yes, after you track down the extra patches that someone has had to write for each new fedora version. So it's just difficult, not completely impossible. How many times have you had to locate those patches so far?
Did you mention things like this about Windows? Every version suffers from this problem. Just ask the people trying to switch to Vista.It isn't Fedora's fault that VMWare's sytem doesn't work with it; ask VMWare why, since the stuff is set up by them.When the same program works on one version of an operating system but not on another, there's nothing to ask. The operating system has clearly failed to provide a usable interface.
Security updates are still being provided to XP so existing users aren't being forced to switch yet as they are continuously in fedora, and there's a chance they will have it mostly fixed by SP2 time. In any case I can deal with a change once a decade or so. But yes, I will complain if any of my current programs don't continue to run or else have push-button updates to fix them.
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Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
