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Being Free is Hard to Do

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the money-where-your-mouth-is dept.

ValourX writes "What is more important to you -- the four freedoms of Free Software, or the ability to maximize the value of your computer? It's a question that comes up on Slashdot often, but rarely is it so well argued as it is in this NewsForge article. How important are the FSF's four freedoms to you? What are you willing to sacrifice for those freedoms?" NewsForge and Slashdot are both part of OSTG.

5 of 659 comments (clear)

  1. Being Free is Hard to Do by ATAMAH · · Score: 0, Troll

    Said a prostitute to a sailor...

  2. I am so sick of this crap by papasui · · Score: 0, Troll

    How about people start caring about things that really matter in the world, instead of trivial things like whether the software you use is licensed under the GPL or not. Despite whatever Torvalds or Stallman or the Linux community wants you to think: IT'S JUST A FREAKING COMPUTER! If you really want to change the world, do it in your own commmunity. Help out some kids who don't have friends or parents. Donate time/stuff/money to whatever non-profit organization you like the best. You can change the world around you, but writing a uber piece of software regardless of whether you sell it or give it away probably isn't going to change someones quality of life.

  3. Re:Four freedoms vs Max use? by ACNSlave · · Score: 0, Troll

    all together took around 4 hours At my bill rate, thats about $1,000 USD. Great deal. :)

    --
    Today is a good day to code.
  4. Linux nerds will never understand... by Liberals_Are_Gay · · Score: 0, Troll

    Proprietary software is superior because of its UI. Free software still has this philosophy of "fast UI", but with todays hardware you don't need to have a fast UI or GUI (eg KDE, Gnome) because relatively "slow GUI"(eg explorer) runs just as fast and looks much better with faster CPU/RAM.

  5. article is full of stuff like that, bogus. by twitter · · Score: 0, Troll
    a frind of mine would say that if you need more then a ascii text editor and a graphics app to make a webpage then your in deep trouble.

    That's true because the big automated page makers create a rat's nest.

    The article was on the Troll side for missing most of the improvements in current free software and many excellent alternatives to the programs discussed. For fast and friendly web development, Bluefish and Quanta are hard to beat. I've never used the mentioned Nvu, but it did not look very impressive. Most of the author's slams of GIMP are dated or silly. The GIMP interface is no harder to use than any other complex piece of software and compares favorably to commercial programs. The problem of CMYK color selection has been addressed and we can be sure that free tools will be able to perform the common tasks of color matching from screen to printer if your eyeballs can't. Of course, if you don't have a good eye you might consider your choice of graphics as a career. All in all, the author is either behind or dishonest.

    There are very few things I want to do that I can't get done with free software that's just as good as non free stuff.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.