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Kevin Carmony Responds to Criticism
sharkscott writes to tell us that LXer's Don Parris took a few minutes to get Kevin Carmony's response to the large amount of criticism he has been taking over offering non-free software in Linspire. From the article: "Essentially, Carmony's position is that, in ten years of holding out, the FOSS community has made relatively few gains, in terms of convincing vendors to release libre codecs and drivers. In other words, the strategy doesn't seem to be working. Additionally, while some will be patient, most users would prefer to have something - anything - that works in the meanwhile."
Last week's Slashdot article on Theo de Raadt was about how he's not using binary drivers.
Nonsense. Not only does the license explicitly separate your programs from GPLed programs (as opposed to the "viral" view), Stallman has repeatedly stated that he has no issues with software being sold or used commercially. If Linspire is going to provide you with access to commercial software AND users are willing to pay for it, then more power to them.
Sure, Linspire may not have bought 100% into the GPL philosophy, but that's not the point. The point is that the GPLed software they're still adhering to the GPL principles by sharing any and all maintenance. If they fix a bug, they have to share it. If they add a new feature, they have to share it. If they decide to try a completely different direction, they still have to share it. Thus the Linux software grows, even if it fails to incorporate CNR or MPEG4. Both of those are matters for other GPL projects to encourage freedom in.
This is true even if they don't otherwise want to make their software free. As Stallman said:
Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's...
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I'm guessing that this response was motivated (at least in part) by the effort of PJ at Groklaw. For those that have visited recently, PJ did a scathing article on Linspire/Freespire. Really harsh stuff which a lot of people found pretty unwarranted. Myself included.
... deleted. Then it descended into farce.
So I posted anonymously as I usually do. The odd thing that happened to me was that I found my post deleted. So I posted again
She seemed convinced that this was an orchestrated attack by Linspire "astroturfers". And when Kevin posted to the forum, she wouldn't talk to him and asked him for an apology from the (imaginary, IMHO) astroturfers. Having said that, Kevin did quote an email he sent PJ which I thought was poor form.
Anyway, I literally sat there for ages watching post after post being deleted which I thought was amazing. A large number of these posts were quite sensible. They just didn't tow the Groklaw line.
When it had calmed down a couple of days later, I posted that here is a place where they discuss free speech, but don't practice it. Quite frankly, the amount of groupthink and censorship I saw left me with a very different opinion of the place.
The best thing about Slashdot's comment system is that it keeps all the posts. Even the trolls.
So by your logic, if I give you a binary blob that 'gets your stuff done' that's it, end of story, right?
Now what if that blob also lets me take over your computer and do whatever I want with it? Maybe I'll use it to send a few million spams... or maybe I'll just snoop through your private documents and check out your pr0n collection. Either way, doesn't matter, since you 'got your stuff done' right?
What you're doing is looking at one side of the equation - benefit - but not at the other - cost.
What 'stuff' exactly do you do with your computers that's worth more than your freedom?
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
By two tracks I mean one track that has a Linspirish philosophy of just make it work for newbies even if that also means including some closed source proprietory software, AND a purist RMS FSF.
Really these two tracks compliment each other the closed source development track brings in newbewies while the purest camp can defend our freedoms and perhaps save our butts if DRM becomes very prevalent.
The point is though why does each side have to try to convert the other to it's philosophy as my way or the highway? Lets let them both run and see what happens, after all that's what's going to happen anyway, it's very unlikely either FSF or closed source software is going away any time soon.
I use OS X which has closed source software in the OS and I run closed source apps as well, but I also run fink/KDE as well on top of the open source Darwin base at times, as well as running Firefox as my browser. Does that mean one "side" or the other should work to convert me? What nonsense, what a waste of developer time, and above all how immature.
Can't you argue about something of real importance like poverty, or war, or whether peak oil is real, etc?
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
Do you honestly think you're a good enough programmer to fix a driver for hardware you have no knowledge of?
:)
Actually, yes. Sure, I won't be able to fix the most complex problems as I'm not a device driver developer, but having the source code gives me options. These range from being able to identify bugs, then after determining their root cause work around them, through to hiring a capable programmer with hardware experience who can do the job.
As a real example, I once found a bug in the read-only firmware of a network card. Fortunately, since the driver for this was open-source and I didn't need the feature that was faulty in the NIC, I disabled it along with the corresponding diagnostics the driver initialisation procedure invoked, then recompiled the driver. Presto, a working network card.
I'm not a programmer hardly at all. It doesn't matter to me if it's open or closed. Either way, I can't fix anything.
I'd like to consider this: just because you personally cannot use the source code does not mean that you can't benefit from it's availability. Even if only indirectly by virtue of the fact that real programmers can do things with it you will like.
Who else but the designers of the hardware to produce drivers (open or otherwise)? They have access to hardware schematics, development plans, and the engineers who designed everything from the fabrication plants to the chips you're writing the drivers for.
. . . and budgets they need to stay within, time constraints due to conflicting priority and limited resources, and a profit incentive to sell you new products that might cause their interests to be at odds with those of their customers. Never mind the fact that they may not be around or in the business of providing the products/services they do currently when you have an issue that only someone with the source code can deal with readily.
When your hardware goes end-of-life, unless you're a huge customer of theirs they have little or no incentive to fix that obscure bug that is now causing you major grief. If the device driver was open source, you could pay a thrid party to fix it for you.
People need to realise that Free Software is about giving you control over the computer systems you rely on by removing artificial constraints (in this case the absence of source code), not (necessarily) about making software cost you nothing. It's about making computing predictably controllable and hence sustainable.
Kevin and Michael are both incredibly nice guys who have a particular angle of insight that no other distro has. That is, that users want something that just works in ways that leave ordinary people knowing what to do, or better, not needing to do anything except the task that interests them. Linspire gets it that most people don't want to do things more complicated than click and run. It takes an enormous effort to make software be just click and it works. That deserves our respect.
All of us are contributing, each in the ways we most understand. This sniping at each other, it is simply harmful.
I think I am going to go install Linspire. Let's face it, I don't have the time to hassle with making mp3s and dvd players and voip work on the big distros either, and I am a Linux developer, I can't imagine what ordinary users do when they want to use Linux on one of these distros that requires you to get libraries that don't just compile and work and somehow install them before your dvds can play. Or have they finally gotten it together recently, someone tell me....
If it is not written by me, it should just click and run.;-) Or at least, make and run.
Oh, and pissing on nvidia is not reasonable. At least they port to Linux, ATI just ignores us.
Charity is something to be thankful for, not to demand. Free software is charity. I like to do it myself, but that gives me no right to demand it of other more sensible persons.
I know you've got a whole bunch of people who've replied to your message disagreeing with you, but there's a good reason your comment is +5 insightful and none of theirs have any moderation at all.
People who get hung up over the politics of it need to remember that a computer is a machine. It's a tool. It does a job. And that's all.
If I buy a car, I expect it to enable me to get from A to B. That's its purpose. I may buy one that looks fancy, or goes fast, or has loads of space, but those are additional features; if it doesn't perform its primary purpose, then it doesn't matter how good it looks or how many seats it has.
Likewise with software, I use it in order to do something. If it can't do what I want, then I won't use it.
Yes, for some people, one of the things they want their software to do is make a political statement, or to provide source code, or to not cost anything. These are perfectly valid things to want your software to do. But they are not what most people want software to do. Most people want software that allows them to write their letters, play games, or whatever. And that's all they want. They have no interest in the politics of it, nor the source code; just the functionality.
We will only get people to use OSS if the software does what they want. You can rant all you like about software being Free, but if it fails in its basic task, then it fails completely.