Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the pontificating dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Richard Stallman has written a piece on the state of free software and where it needs to go now, in celebration of GNU turning 20 today. It's available both on NewsForge and Linux.com."
Your assertion fails when you state what open source developers should and should not do in order to gain end-user acceptance. Whereas a commercial outfit has a motive to sell as many copies of the software they create just in order to survive, and must therefore carefully think about and target their audience/market, most open source developers are simply "scratching their itch", and if others can benefit from that, then fine. If they can't, then, well, tough... Projects that directly target the non-developing enduser, such as OpenOffice, and to a lesser extent KDE etc. should, of course, take the non-developer end user as their main audience, something that is very, very difficult. If you are an end user and you need easy-peasy, non technical, non developer software, you can always go for the paid-for open source software (not Free Software, usually) such as Xandros, Lindows, StarOffice, etc. there is plenty of hand holding there.
Unless, of course, you expect handholding for free, a different case alltogether.....
-- People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Where to go party?
by
DrMorris
·
· Score: 4, Informative
There is a webpage for the 20th anniversary of the GNU project, but I can't see any planned events. Does anybody know if there are or have been some GNU parties around the world?
Apparently you didn't fully RTFA. Stallman doesn't believe the goal of getting people to use free software is popularity but because they want the freedom that comes with it. As copyright enforcement through copy protection or other means becomes progressively harsher for the end user, it'll become more clear that the reason that can motivate people to use free software isn't that everyone else uses it but because they don't want to live in an entrapped world of software. To that end, Stallman admits that people will end up using free software that's inferior to non-free software, but given enough users some might begin to help with the project. Maybe it'll be only words of support or a little money to add a feature they want, but the free software can be made superior to the non-free one and people can choose to use the free software as encouragement until it gets to that point. If anything, Stallman is encouraging the communitizing of the people in free software, not the simple leeching of something that's free. In the long term, the former will help everyone. And if end users realize that, they can accept inferior software until it becomes superior.
-- Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
It is true that he has done a lot to further it's progress, but lets face it, this is the person who hates debian simply because they include THE OPTION (which, mind you, has to be enabled by editing a text config file) of downloading non-free software.
He doesn't "hate" Debian at all. That's patently untrue. He has said however, that he doesn't recommend Debian because of the free vs non-free issue and instead encourages the use of GNU/LinEx.
This is the guy who refuses to follow the proper procedures laid out hundreds of years ago by the French revolutionaries (you
all know what I mean), etc
I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
Re:I agree mostly..
by
nysus
·
· Score: 4, Informative
You shouldn't try to make Stallman out to be something he is not. Stallman's whole argument for free software hinges on one single principle: that making an unscarce resource artificially scarce to make a profit is wrong. If you want to debate this one point, that's great. But to insinuate he is some kind of hippie-communist-crackpot for his belief, you do a disservice to logical debate.
The goal of free software is not to create software jobs, it's goal is to promote ethical conduct. Besides, Stallman has never argued it's "bad" to charge for writing code. If someone needs their free software modified, it's perfectly OK to get paid for your work.
So I pose this question to you, and answer it without referring to Stallman: Is it ethical to limit a naturally limitless resource to make a buck?
--
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
Slashdot Mirror
Your assertion fails when you state what open source developers should and should not do in order to gain end-user acceptance. Whereas a commercial outfit has a motive to sell as many copies of the software they create just in order to survive, and must therefore carefully think about and target their audience/market, most open source developers are simply "scratching their itch", and if others can benefit from that, then fine. If they can't, then, well, tough... Projects that directly target the non-developing enduser, such as OpenOffice, and to a lesser extent KDE etc. should, of course, take the non-developer end user as their main audience, something that is very, very difficult. If you are an end user and you need easy-peasy, non technical, non developer software, you can always go for the paid-for open source software (not Free Software, usually) such as Xandros, Lindows, StarOffice, etc. there is plenty of hand holding there.
Unless, of course, you expect handholding for free, a different case alltogether.....
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
There is a webpage for the 20th anniversary of the GNU project, but I can't see any planned events. Does anybody know if there are or have been some GNU parties around the world?
Apparently you didn't fully RTFA. Stallman doesn't believe the goal of getting people to use free software is popularity but because they want the freedom that comes with it. As copyright enforcement through copy protection or other means becomes progressively harsher for the end user, it'll become more clear that the reason that can motivate people to use free software isn't that everyone else uses it but because they don't want to live in an entrapped world of software. To that end, Stallman admits that people will end up using free software that's inferior to non-free software, but given enough users some might begin to help with the project. Maybe it'll be only words of support or a little money to add a feature they want, but the free software can be made superior to the non-free one and people can choose to use the free software as encouragement until it gets to that point. If anything, Stallman is encouraging the communitizing of the people in free software, not the simple leeching of something that's free. In the long term, the former will help everyone. And if end users realize that, they can accept inferior software until it becomes superior.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
He doesn't "hate" Debian at all. That's patently untrue. He has said however, that he doesn't recommend Debian because of the free vs non-free issue and instead encourages the use of GNU/LinEx.
I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
The goal of free software is not to create software jobs, it's goal is to promote ethical conduct. Besides, Stallman has never argued it's "bad" to charge for writing code. If someone needs their free software modified, it's perfectly OK to get paid for your work.
So I pose this question to you, and answer it without referring to Stallman: Is it ethical to limit a naturally limitless resource to make a buck?
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.