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Should the Linux Desktop Be "Pure?"
jammag writes "According to Matt Hartley, many Linux desktop users don't like to admit that there's scads of closed source code commonly used with the Linux desktop. Hartley points to examples like proprietary drivers, the popularity of Skype among Linux users (in preference to the open source Ekiga), and the use of Wine. He concludes that, hey, if the code works, use it — a stance that won't sit well with purists. But his article raises the question: is it better to embrace some closed source fixes, and so create a larger user base, or to remain pure, and keep Linux for the specialists?"
To me, this is a great example of the free software vs open source debate.
Free software is a political movement, concerned with user freedom, and the creation of an operating system made entirely from free software.
Open source is a development methodology that aims to make better free software, but has no problem with using and even developing proprietary software at the same time.
Personally, I think is a real shame that so many distributions have non-free software in their repositories, but they are ultimately more concerned with getting more users to their distro than promoting software freedom.
It's quite telling that the GNU project only lists a handful of distributions, most of which very few will have heard of or used, yet I'm glad that such a list exists.
The distributions which are making inroads to getting on that list, such as Fedora and Debian, and the distributions which move further away from that list with each release, including, sadly, Ubuntu are quite evident of the difference in their communities.
Ubuntu is concerned by things like "marketshare" -- there is no market when your product can be redistributed freely.
Join the Free Software Foundation
Thirded.
We need to free the PC and this means freeing the OS. Free the OS and establish the trend. The pieces will fall into place.
For now, don't freak out if some closed source app is popular with Linux users. Linux should represent choice.
The "if the code works, use it" attitude is what gave us the DOS, Windows, and MS Office monopolies. It's particularly dangerous because most people have no idea what "working" means when they start out using something, and then establish a bad standard.
Being purist about this sort of thing is pragmatic. OK, so occasionally use Skype or whatever if you really need to. But if you simply don't give damn, you risk condemning us to another several decades of bad monopolies of one or the other kind.
Why do you assume that the people who are running "pure" desktops aren't also pragmatic?
To cite the 3 examples FTFA, I don't use skype, I don't run windows apps under wine, and the video card in this box is an ati ... it does everything I want, the way I want it, at no cost to either my freedom or my bank account in terms of software ... How is that not pragmatic?
This is what happens when a venture is noticed by those who just want it all for themselves. They buy their "share" into it, then start altering it from inside.
Linux started as something slightly, if not very, different, but now as every second smart-ass asks themselves a question "Should we not make Linux a commercial alternative to X?", these sort of questions start to appear.
With that kind of thinking Linux ends up being the same kind of lousy crap just about any closed source code product potentially is - a black box of secrets with a tag that says "We guarantee you it works!"
Well, bullshit. Yes, it should remain pure. But most of your wise-ass friends, who pretend to know the way world works would want you to think otherwise. After all, how can something that is developed for nothing in return succeed. Is not all time money, they think. The truth is give anything time and it stands up. Linux is not an example modern economists like to give, because frankly their school of thought cannot fit the concept.
to free the desktop, you need to free the hardware too, so unless you're typing on a Sun T1000, you're already using plenty of closed code
In all those cases, a full and honest disclosure is more than sufficient to vitiate any potential harm.
That is exactly what is missing - especially in the case of DRM. People do *not* understand the limitations of what they are buying, because the vendor is misleading and dishonest. The people shafted when their NFL videos became unplayable with no refund, or their Microsoft video store purchases, or ... have no clue what happened or why. In their mind it was simply a defective product.
And in practical terms, they are exactly right - which is why "Defective by Design" is a good anti-DRM slogan.
Software freedom has not to do with choice nor with forcing people to use or run software. It is the software proprietors who are trying to control what software you can use (theirs, not competitors), how you use it (digital restrictions management), and what you're allowed to do with the software should you get a copy of it (via restrictive licensing).
Software freedom has to do with giving people the freedoms to run, inspect, share, and modify all published computer software. If a job needs to be done with a computer, a free software activist will endorse using or writing a free software program to do that job.
Software freedom activists explain these freedoms in compelling ways so as to convince others to run (and develop, if one is so inclined) only free software. Software freedom activists value social solidarity and see the control proprietors try to impose as unethical and a social ill. The way to combat this social ill is to teach people that we should value our freedom and work to protect it.
The problem with software choice is that it attempts to that free software (which respects your freedoms and encourages social solidarity) and proprietary software (which treats you as a subordinate and prevents you from organizing with your fellows) are equals when in fact they are opposites.
We should care how people are treated and what freedoms they have. We should value our software freedom for its own sake and act accordingly.
Digital Citizen
That is interesting. At first I was thinking" Firefox isn't Open Source, really? , and then I realized that the statement assumes GPL software is the only kind of Free as in Speech software, which it is not of course. Does anyone else know more about this "non-free" as in not-GPL stuff that is in Mozilla based software?
Gobuntu is apparently replacing Firefox with Epiphany, which is a trade-off this FOSS advocate would definately not be willing to make (nothing against epiphany.)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun