ESR Advocates Proprietary Software

mvdwege writes "Apparently, Eric Raymond has decided that proprietary software is now a good thing, according to The Register. I must say it is rather revealing how easily he is willing to compromise on this particular freedom. Is his earlier vocal proclamation of the importance of freedom (still visible on his homepage) mere posturing? And if so, how about his vocal support of other freedoms?"

Comments

GNUpod, gtkpod etc.

[Psionicist]

"We have a serious problem. Whenever I try to pitch Linux to anyone under 30, the question I get is: 'Will it work with my iPod?," he said. "We are not yet as a community making the painful compromises need to achieve widespread desktop market share. Until we do, we will get locked out of more hardware."

Of course it works with iPod. Take a look at:

* GNUpod and gtkpod
* iPod Shuffle Database Builder

And then there's another one with a funky name I cannot remember.

Re:GNUpod, gtkpod etc.

[shreevatsa]

Yes, this was already covered yesterday — The iPod can be used, very well, and easily.

Re:Um....

[babbling]

You're misunderstanding the stance of the Free Software community. Even the FSF says that it should be up to people to choose whether they will accept proprietary software. They say that they have chosen not to, except in certain circumstances that usually don't arise anymore. What they do say is that people should not be forced into using proprietary software.

Re:That's not quite what he said.

[Speare]

What is an acronym, and what is an initialism, depends on how you pronounce it.

NAFTA is an acronym, because you don't pronounce it En-Ay-Eff-Tee-Ay. Same for SONAR and SCUBA.

"The ESR" would be pronounced like The Ee-Ess-Ar. Not an acronym. The ESRB, the NAACP, and OSDN are all initialisms.

Re:Exactly right, this is just todays 'rant' artic

[kripkenstein]

We CAN'T write and distribute Free Software for most of that stuff because of patents.

We can't write free software - but we can get multimedia stuff to work, if we pay for the license to do so. You can get your DVDs to work 'out-of-the-box' on Linux - just use Linspire. People who believe in the ideals behind Free Software won't (including me), but for those that are worried about 'losing the desktop', options are available.

If this was the thing holding Linux back from being a massive success, Linspire would be selling millions of copies. That they aren't says something.

(Note: I wish Linspire all the luck in the world, even though I don't use their product.)

Re:ESR is not associated with Free Software moveme

[CRCulver]

He wrote a few utilities and a book or two, but short of maintaining the Jargon file, it's hard to see what he did on a day to day basis that allowed him to be quite so prevelant.

ESR's essay The Cathedral and the Bazaar inspired Netscape to open-source its browser code, which resulted in the Mozilla browser and Gecko, one of the best browser engines around. Netscape's decision in turn paved the way for open-source ventures from a number of hitherto opaque corporations. That "book or two" got quite a ball rolling. That's why ESR is so respected today.

Re:So, allowing proprietary drivers iPod support?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think that's the case at all - Apple isn't supporting Linux because there is no standard "Linux" to support. Do you take iTunes and make it for the Gnome desktop, or the KDE desktop? If you do one or the other, it still might work on all, but it becomes a nightmare to support. They'd just rather not open up that can of worms just yet.

Re:Slashdot's wonderful humor

[chromatic]

Can someone explain to me what is meant by compromising on freedom by using proprietary software?

Good luck upgrading your kernel or X.org or switching processor architectures if you're using NVidia's binary blob.

Re:Mod This Parent Up !!!

[Jack Action]

The FSF is not comissioning any new large scale undertakings at the moment.

This is just blatantly wrong.

What do you call Gnu Flash? Other projects FSF is directing include Free Bios and an open 3D Card driver. More projects are listed here. Just like gcc was needed in the 80s, these are the utilities users need now.

At the risk of being modded for flame bait, I'll also point out that it seems most criticisms of the FSF are based on plain ignorance.

Re:ESR is not associated with Free Software moveme

[Anonymous Coward]

that makes him a "one hit wonder". the question being asked was, what does he do day to day that makes him worth listening to?

Re:Can't wait for Theo's response

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you serious? Those are some very minor "problems", and best of all, they're quite easily solved!

What you need to do is install KDE. KPDF will handle all of your PDF files, and it's a far nicer tool to use than Acrobat Reader. Konqueror on OpenBSD supports the Linux Flash plugin via its Linux emulation layer. Amarok, combined with the audio and video codecs from mplayer, will likely play all of your media files.

If you haven't used KDE in a while, if ever, you really do need to give it a try. It provides all the features that you would expect from a Windows XP desktop, with the stability and speed commonly associated with quality UNIX software.

or not

[dbIII]

The compiler, glibc, classpath and such are actively developed. However, all of those would continue if the FSF were to fold.

That is becuase they are from the GNU project and not from the FSF - it appears that even RMS proposing to put the gnu prefix before the word linux did not raise awareness of it as much as he wished! A lack of basic awareness of what GNU does and what the FSF does and thinking they are both the same thing renders the argument of the proir post clueless. Both groups share members and resources but they are not the same thing - don't take it from me, they have had web pages for many years.

And no - to the far more clueless, gnu/linux is not a gnu project. There is a gnu operating system, it is called hurd. The gnu/linux renaming was initially proposed for distributions containing gnu tools, linux and X and was first proposed as LiGnuX - but personally I don't think is should be called gnu/linux unless those who put a distribution together wish to credit gnu in the name as RMS intended.

RTFA, he's not advocating closed-source...

[borgheron]

He's advocating that Open Source start to engage the interest of younger people by making open source work better with things like iPods and other proprietary formats. This is a far cry from "advocating closed source." Being useful is part of the deal here. How else is FOSS supposed to catch on, if no one wants to use it?

GJC