Am I the only one disturbed that tax money is funding this development? Sure, taxes support bunches of stuff, both necessary and unecessary. But this is Free Software!
People should, and must, have the freedom of choice to select the software that they use. But the collection of taxes is not voluntary. Anyone working on a Free alternate to GPG is forced to fund their competition.
Can't we develop this stuff on our own without the help of Big Brother? Do we really need a subsidy?
I work in the medical software field, so I'm qualified to comment:
"Even highly scientific stuff needs spiffy GUIs and the like, stuff that anyone can write."
Bullshit! The user interface needs to be simple, plain, unadorned, with all necessary information instantly accessible. When the patient is pried wide open during open heart surgery, a "spiffy" interface will kill him!
"Got the fastest FFT out there, and only five people in the universe can understand how it does it? I can write a GIMP plugin frontend for it."
If you don't understand FFT, and you program medical software that uses it, you're a idiot. This isn't a GIMP plugin, it's a person's life!
"The point is morality."
I'm surprised. You got that one right! It's immoral to subject someone's very life and death to a particular political view. A truly moral physician would use the most accurate, bug-free, and technically superior software. It doesn't matter that if it's open or closed source. You may believe, and even be right, that the open source solution fits the bill, but if it doesn't, then what? Let the patient die?
"It's WRONG to sell the right to use software. If you do it, you're a software hoarder, and you're evil."
I will tell you what true evil is. True evil is disallowing a physician to save a person's life just because the software he uses doesn't suit your personal fancy. Well fuck you! If that's what GNU is, I don't want anything to do with it!
Has anyone even thought through the implications of Open Source medical software? Look at what a typical OSS project is like: release early and often; if it doesn't work today, don't worry there's a new release tomorrow; the users are the testers; etc., etc.
Aaaargh! Don't any of you even dare releasing any medical software until it has been 101% tested by experts in the field. A thousand eyes may see all bugs, but I don't want those eyes being medically illiterate hackers. And neither do I want it under a license that has a warranty disclaimer. If the developers don't trust it enough to warranty it, then neither should my physician. After it's finished, tested, beta tested and FDA approved, then, and only then, can you release it to the public.
If you think I'm off my rocker for saying this, keep in mind that this is what I do for a living. I'm a QA engineer for medical software. When the developers have done their own unit testing, integration testing, received FDA approval, and signed off on it, then I get it. And what usually happens is that I find a literal life-or-death bug in the first day of testing.
1) anti-communist atrocities and pro-US atrocities
and
2) pro-communist atrocities and anti-US atrocities
You forgot a third alternative, namely, that along with his hatred for Chinese sponsored atrocities like Tiannamen and forced abortions, he is also opposed to US sanctioned atrocities like Haiti, Cambodia, etc.
"We tend to believe that Microsoft is an evil empire, and it didn't get there with the government's help. The classic monopolies all came from unregulated markets..."
Gee, I bet you learned that in a government-owned school;-)
Seriously, though. If you get to the root of it, corporations cannot exist without official government approval. A corporation is a legal entity recognized by governments, that have distinct rights from individuals. This legal fiction allows the owners to avoid personal and individual responsibility for their actions.
Microsoft is a corporation. It could not exist without the official approval of the Washington State and US Federal Governments. If Bill Gates had to compete on his own without the extra legal protections that incorporating gave him, it is extremely doubtful that he could have done it. And if he had done exactly the same actions as an individual that gave MS Corporation a 90% market share, he would have been thrown in jail or sued up the wazoo years ago.
Let Billy Boy play by the exact same rules as you or I, and there's no way he can create a monopoly off of a shoddy product.
"My only problem is the bit about the "repressive ideals of Communism"."
True, there are no true communist states in the world today. Nonetheless, we can look to Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mao for examples of "repressive ideals". There is one, big, huge repressive ideal that makes me reject the whole of communism and socialism.
Subordination of the individual. Under communism/socialism, the group is more important than the individual. Put another way for those that don't see anything wrong with this, communism supports the majority over the minority. Incidentally, I don't like pure democracy for exactly the same reason.
If communism/socialism is done voluntarily, as demonstrated by certain US communal societies (Amana, Oneida, Kaweah, Shakers, etc), then there is no problem with it because it's still individuals making choices. But when a government steps in and tries to mandates communism/socialism, then things start getting screwed up big time. (There are governments today that call themselves "socialist", but this is a different socialism than advocated by Marx)
You think that software patents are evil, yet you have FOUR of them? Who cares if you were once young and *evil* in acquiring them? You don't have to keep them.
Open them up. License them out for all comers for free. Donate them to the public domain. Do something other than complain that they're evil, for God's sake!
Nuclear weapons are evil (I have 4, but that was when I was young and naive)...
I've got to say that I agree with you 99%. The other 1% is where Microsoft committed acts of fraud and extortion (in the libertarian sense of those words). I have no problem with a monopoly if it was achieved through the natural workings of the marketplace. The anti-trust laws agree. The next step for Judge Jackson is to determine if the Microsoft monopoly still allows competition in the marketplace, maintained its monopoly through coercion or fraud, or violated any of the anti-trust laws.
People vote with their dollars, and all too often they vote for conformity. Sad but true. I know all too many bright and intelligent people who use Windows for the sole reason that all of their neighbors do.
If the government slaps down Microsoft for merely being big and wealthy, it will be a sad day. If, on the other hand, they are slapped down for genuinel acts of coercion, fraud or extortion, then it will be a happy, but delayed, day for justice.
If a "parasite" takes your freely given code, adds some modifications to it, then refuses to give you those modifications, your original code is still yours. He has stolen nothing. His modifications are his, and his along.
This is simple freedom of speech! If I am free to speak, then I am also free NOT to speak. Thus, I don't have to release my source code. Unless, of course, you think that the free software is more important than free speech...
The only thing that keeps me from doing this to GPL'd code (besides my respect for authors' wishes) is the fact that said code is *owned* by you. But the FSF does not believe that code should be owned...
"Using your "enemies" law against them...is a common tactic of the underdog."
But what if the *law* itself is your enemy? In the case of the FSF, they are fighting copyrights and software ownership. If it's evil for Microsoft to do it, it's still evil for the FSF to do the same.
"Can anyone give an example of proprietary software that can be used `non-infectiously'?"
MFC.
Seriously.
If I have the license, I can link in the MFC and distribute however I want. Under a GPL library (not LGPL) I cannot do this.
However, the MFC license has other problems much, much larger than infectiousness:-)
Okay, another example:
I can create a program that links to both the MFC and Tools++ at the same time. Neither of these tools has a problem existing along the other. However, as Corel learned last week, it's against the rules for an app to link to both a GPL and a non-GPL library at the same time.
Okay, okay. Here's another one.
The old Qt library under the old license. It was classified non-free. But I could statically link to it and release my app under any Free license without danger of infection.
This is all well and good, and I largely agree with you, but it is not what RMS is saying. Here is one quote: "Using proprietary software makes you less free because it means you are living under domination," letter to license-discuss@opensource.org, October 17th, 1999, from Richard Stallman.
Actually, Richard and Stig are both right, according to their own definitions of "freedom". But at least one of these definitions is wrong.
Stig feels that this particular freedom is "freedom from restrictions". Even though free software licenses all have restrictions to some degree or another, they all have this in common: a level of restrictiveness that is several orders of magnitude lower than that of proprietary licenses. The kinds of restrictions on these licenses are analogous to "you can use my swimming pool with the restriction that you must bathe first".
Richard believes this particular freedom to be "freedom from domination". Freedom from domination, coercion and violence is a very good thing to be for. But who exactly is dominating me when I use proprietary software? No one. I can use Solaris anytime I want of my own choice, and likewise discontinue its use by my own choice at any time. Sun (as an example) does not dominate me when I use Solaris. Would Sun ever attempt to do so I would immediately discontinue its use. Richard Stallman apparently feels that not having full access to someone else's source code it "domination". This is a gross misdefinition. Sure, it may be inconvenient, but keeping control over one's own source code is hardly coercive.
The FSF does not believe that people should own software. Copyrights are ownership of software. Thus, the FSF does not believe that people should copyright software!
But the GPL is based on a copyright! Who cares if they use the word "copyleft" instead, it's still the same thing. If no one owns emacs, where did all those restrictions on it come from?
The only way that things can be free is either 'gratis' or 'untied'. People can be free in the sense of 'libre' or 'free choice'. To call these two concepts related is wrong. It would be analogous to calling sonnets unfree because they aren't 'free verse'. Only people can have liberty.
Why should it bother *you* that *my* friends don't share?
Software should not be owned. If my friend asks me to make a copy, it would be wrong to refuse. By putting a copyright on the software, you are asserting ownership over it, and denying me my natural right to share it. People not only deserve free software, they deserve software without conditions.
If you make the stuff public domain, there is nothing to stop the repository from slapping a GPL license on it to prevent YOU, the original developer, from using their enhancements on your own public domain projects.
Perhaps think about submitting them under a MIT like license. No one would be able to change the license, but they would still be free to use whatever license they wished for any derived code.
Maybe it's not a virus, but it is infectious. One line of GPL code in a 100K BSD app will force the entire app to be GPL as well. If that isn't infectious, then what is?
If this is the behavior you want with the GPL, then BE PROUD OF IT, and stop snivelling about it not being viral. Stand up and proclaim to the world that you use the GPL precisely because it's a viral free license!
But the topic at hand is a component repository. If everything in it were GPL libraries, then only GPL apps could use it. Not even LGPL libraries would be able to use it! I'm assuming that this repository would be for the whole community, not just GPL-only coders.
If it's going to be GPL'd only components, then the majority of Open Source licenses will not be able to use any of them. So why call it Open Source? Why not simply "The GPL Component Repository" instead?
Far be it for me to tell the repository maintainers which components they can or cannot accept, but I think if they were a bit more flexible, and allowed at least LGPL components, then it would be much more useful for the Open Source community. I think the freshmeat method of listing which license a component is under would be even better. Then we could have GPL'd, LGPL'd, BSD'd, AL'd, MPL'd, etc, components, and a developer could choose which component best met their needs.
"However, the reason that most things are in 2D is simply because they were designed for 2D only systems."
The reason most things are 2D is because they are in fact 2D! I'm old enough to remember a world without computers so I can assure you that the reason most data is 2D only is because they are truly 2D, and not because someone hasn't invented a 3D interface.
Take another look at your home. Even though it is a 3D structure, by and large, everything is organized as 2D. Your family pictures are placed upon a 2D wall, your dinnerware is stacked in rows, your music CD's are stacked upright or along a shelf. Even drawers are merely 2D containers stacked atop each other. The reason for this is simple. If you have to reach around plates in your cupboard in order to get a glass, you'll end up breaking a lot of plates.
Virtually all data that is represented by a GUI is one or two dimensional. Ascii is one dimensional. Formatted text on a page is 2D. Source code is 2D. Most images are 2D. Sound is 2D. File system hierarchies are 2D. Most CVS trees are 2D, but there are as many 4D as 3D ones.
Look at the objects in your home. What interfaces are 3D? None are in mine (push buttons are trivially and realistically represented in 2D, so they don't count). Your VCR and TV have 2D interfaces. It doesn't matter how wrapped it is over a 3D surface, your automobile still has a 2D interface.
Look at history for an example of what is natural for 2D versus 3D interfaces. Writing has always been 2D, so keep it 2D. Architecture is always 3D, so 3D CAD would be very useful. Art is either 2D or 3D, and should be displayed as appropriate.
Here's what would be bad in a 3D interface: those unreadable 2D windows in the 3Dwm screenshots, stuff that moves, in either 2D or 3D (don't give the user vertigo).
Here's what would be good in a 3D interface: 3D widgets (cool), representing z-order by depth (naturally), representing 3D data in 3D (of course).
What we still need for a decent 3D interface: a precise 3D input device.
1) You make it easier to install so that people will be able to use it in the first place, so they can find out on their own how powerful it is.
2) Not everyone is, or should be, a computer whiz. To expect this is ludicrous. Not everyone knows how to set the time on their VCR, but that shouldn't deny them the right to rent a movie.
3) Real accesibility issues should not be ignored. I have a friend who is very computer literate, and is entirely capable of installing Debian, Slack or BSD. Problem is, he is unable to type, and needs a mouse and/or voice based interface.
So you want either GPL, or non-GPL but bug-free. There are many people who want GPL or nothing at all, but you indicate that merely being bug-free is good enough. What about just plain Free? It doesn't have to be GPL in order for you to have the freedom to modify, repair and redistibute the driver.
I can only assume that you want any bug-fixes to be copylefted as well. While this may sound good on the surface, realize that most bug-fixes are one line or less of code. Most developers would be glad to give the licensor carte blanche to a single line fix, rather than demanding specific licensing terms for it.
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Am I the only one disturbed that tax money is funding this development? Sure, taxes support bunches of stuff, both necessary and unecessary. But this is Free Software!
People should, and must, have the freedom of choice to select the software that they use. But the collection of taxes is not voluntary. Anyone working on a Free alternate to GPG is forced to fund their competition.
Can't we develop this stuff on our own without the help of Big Brother? Do we really need a subsidy?
"as for linux, in 2.4 SMP kernel, it is about 3000% more efficient than sun solaris and scales better."
I thought so. You really don't know what you're talking about, do you? Somebody scrubbed too hard while washing your brain.
I work in the medical software field, so I'm qualified to comment:
"Even highly scientific stuff needs spiffy GUIs and the like, stuff that anyone can write."
Bullshit! The user interface needs to be simple, plain, unadorned, with all necessary information instantly accessible. When the patient is pried wide open during open heart surgery, a "spiffy" interface will kill him!
"Got the fastest FFT out there, and only five people in the universe can understand how it does it? I can write a GIMP plugin frontend for it."
If you don't understand FFT, and you program medical software that uses it, you're a idiot. This isn't a GIMP plugin, it's a person's life!
"The point is morality."
I'm surprised. You got that one right! It's immoral to subject someone's very life and death to a particular political view. A truly moral physician would use the most accurate, bug-free, and technically superior software. It doesn't matter that if it's open or closed source. You may believe, and even be right, that the open source solution fits the bill, but if it doesn't, then what? Let the patient die?
"It's WRONG to sell the right to use software. If you do it, you're a software hoarder, and you're evil."
I will tell you what true evil is. True evil is disallowing a physician to save a person's life just because the software he uses doesn't suit your personal fancy. Well fuck you! If that's what GNU is, I don't want anything to do with it!
"RMS is way more eloquent than I am."
And apparently way more intelligent as well.
Has anyone even thought through the implications of Open Source medical software? Look at what a typical OSS project is like: release early and often; if it doesn't work today, don't worry there's a new release tomorrow; the users are the testers; etc., etc.
Aaaargh! Don't any of you even dare releasing any medical software until it has been 101% tested by experts in the field. A thousand eyes may see all bugs, but I don't want those eyes being medically illiterate hackers. And neither do I want it under a license that has a warranty disclaimer. If the developers don't trust it enough to warranty it, then neither should my physician. After it's finished, tested, beta tested and FDA approved, then, and only then, can you release it to the public.
If you think I'm off my rocker for saying this, keep in mind that this is what I do for a living. I'm a QA engineer for medical software. When the developers have done their own unit testing, integration testing, received FDA approval, and signed off on it, then I get it. And what usually happens is that I find a literal life-or-death bug in the first day of testing.
Your argument presupposes only two alternatives:
1) anti-communist atrocities and pro-US atrocities
and
2) pro-communist atrocities and anti-US atrocities
You forgot a third alternative, namely, that along with his hatred for Chinese sponsored atrocities like Tiannamen and forced abortions, he is also opposed to US sanctioned atrocities like Haiti, Cambodia, etc.
"We tend to believe that Microsoft is an evil empire, and it didn't get there with the government's help. The classic monopolies all came from unregulated markets..."
;-)
Gee, I bet you learned that in a government-owned school
Seriously, though. If you get to the root of it, corporations cannot exist without official government approval. A corporation is a legal entity recognized by governments, that have distinct rights from individuals. This legal fiction allows the owners to avoid personal and individual responsibility for their actions.
Microsoft is a corporation. It could not exist without the official approval of the Washington State and US Federal Governments. If Bill Gates had to compete on his own without the extra legal protections that incorporating gave him, it is extremely doubtful that he could have done it. And if he had done exactly the same actions as an individual that gave MS Corporation a 90% market share, he would have been thrown in jail or sued up the wazoo years ago.
Let Billy Boy play by the exact same rules as you or I, and there's no way he can create a monopoly off of a shoddy product.
"My only problem is the bit about the "repressive ideals of Communism"."
True, there are no true communist states in the world today. Nonetheless, we can look to Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mao for examples of "repressive ideals". There is one, big, huge repressive ideal that makes me reject the whole of communism and socialism.
Subordination of the individual. Under communism/socialism, the group is more important than the individual. Put another way for those that don't see anything wrong with this, communism supports the majority over the minority. Incidentally, I don't like pure democracy for exactly the same reason.
If communism/socialism is done voluntarily, as demonstrated by certain US communal societies (Amana, Oneida, Kaweah, Shakers, etc), then there is no problem with it because it's still individuals making choices. But when a government steps in and tries to mandates communism/socialism, then things start getting screwed up big time. (There are governments today that call themselves "socialist", but this is a different socialism than advocated by Marx)
You think that software patents are evil, yet you have FOUR of them? Who cares if you were once young and *evil* in acquiring them? You don't have to keep them.
Open them up. License them out for all comers for free. Donate them to the public domain. Do something other than complain that they're evil, for God's sake!
Nuclear weapons are evil (I have 4, but that was when I was young and naive)...
I've got to say that I agree with you 99%. The other 1% is where Microsoft committed acts of fraud and extortion (in the libertarian sense of those words). I have no problem with a monopoly if it was achieved through the natural workings of the marketplace. The anti-trust laws agree. The next step for Judge Jackson is to determine if the Microsoft monopoly still allows competition in the marketplace, maintained its monopoly through coercion or fraud, or violated any of the anti-trust laws.
People vote with their dollars, and all too often they vote for conformity. Sad but true. I know all too many bright and intelligent people who use Windows for the sole reason that all of their neighbors do.
If the government slaps down Microsoft for merely being big and wealthy, it will be a sad day. If, on the other hand, they are slapped down for genuinel acts of coercion, fraud or extortion, then it will be a happy, but delayed, day for justice.
If a "parasite" takes your freely given code, adds some modifications to it, then refuses to give you those modifications, your original code is still yours. He has stolen nothing. His modifications are his, and his along.
This is simple freedom of speech! If I am free to speak, then I am also free NOT to speak. Thus, I don't have to release my source code. Unless, of course, you think that the free software is more important than free speech...
The only thing that keeps me from doing this to GPL'd code (besides my respect for authors' wishes) is the fact that said code is *owned* by you. But the FSF does not believe that code should be owned...
"Using your "enemies" law against them...is a common tactic of the underdog."
But what if the *law* itself is your enemy? In the case of the FSF, they are fighting copyrights and software ownership. If it's evil for Microsoft to do it, it's still evil for the FSF to do the same.
"Can anyone give an example of proprietary software that can be used `non-infectiously'?"
:-)
MFC.
Seriously.
If I have the license, I can link in the MFC and distribute however I want. Under a GPL library (not LGPL) I cannot do this.
However, the MFC license has other problems much, much larger than infectiousness
Okay, another example:
I can create a program that links to both the MFC and Tools++ at the same time. Neither of these tools has a problem existing along the other. However, as Corel learned last week, it's against the rules for an app to link to both a GPL and a non-GPL library at the same time.
Okay, okay. Here's another one.
The old Qt library under the old license. It was classified non-free. But I could statically link to it and release my app under any Free license without danger of infection.
This is all well and good, and I largely agree with you, but it is not what RMS is saying. Here is one quote: "Using proprietary software makes you less free because it means you are living under domination," letter to license-discuss@opensource.org, October 17th, 1999, from Richard Stallman.
Actually, Richard and Stig are both right, according to their own definitions of "freedom". But at least one of these definitions is wrong.
Stig feels that this particular freedom is "freedom from restrictions". Even though free software licenses all have restrictions to some degree or another, they all have this in common: a level of restrictiveness that is several orders of magnitude lower than that of proprietary licenses. The kinds of restrictions on these licenses are analogous to "you can use my swimming pool with the restriction that you must bathe first".
Richard believes this particular freedom to be "freedom from domination". Freedom from domination, coercion and violence is a very good thing to be for. But who exactly is dominating me when I use proprietary software? No one. I can use Solaris anytime I want of my own choice, and likewise discontinue its use by my own choice at any time. Sun (as an example) does not dominate me when I use Solaris. Would Sun ever attempt to do so I would immediately discontinue its use. Richard Stallman apparently feels that not having full access to someone else's source code it "domination". This is a gross misdefinition. Sure, it may be inconvenient, but keeping control over one's own source code is hardly coercive.
The FSF does not believe that people should own software. Copyrights are ownership of software. Thus, the FSF does not believe that people should copyright software!
But the GPL is based on a copyright! Who cares if they use the word "copyleft" instead, it's still the same thing. If no one owns emacs, where did all those restrictions on it come from?
"GPL is code freedom; BSD is personal freedom."
The only way that things can be free is either 'gratis' or 'untied'. People can be free in the sense of 'libre' or 'free choice'. To call these two concepts related is wrong. It would be analogous to calling sonnets unfree because they aren't 'free verse'. Only people can have liberty.
Why should it bother *you* that *my* friends don't share?
Software should not be owned. If my friend asks me to make a copy, it would be wrong to refuse. By putting a copyright on the software, you are asserting ownership over it, and denying me my natural right to share it. People not only deserve free software, they deserve software without conditions.
"Write your own and don't whine that you can't steal from us."
:-)
It's not stealing, it's sharing code with my friends
If you make the stuff public domain, there is nothing to stop the repository from slapping a GPL license on it to prevent YOU, the original developer, from using their enhancements on your own public domain projects.
Perhaps think about submitting them under a MIT like license. No one would be able to change the license, but they would still be free to use whatever license they wished for any derived code.
Maybe it's not a virus, but it is infectious. One line of GPL code in a 100K BSD app will force the entire app to be GPL as well. If that isn't infectious, then what is?
If this is the behavior you want with the GPL, then BE PROUD OF IT, and stop snivelling about it not being viral. Stand up and proclaim to the world that you use the GPL precisely because it's a viral free license!
But the topic at hand is a component repository. If everything in it were GPL libraries, then only GPL apps could use it. Not even LGPL libraries would be able to use it! I'm assuming that this repository would be for the whole community, not just GPL-only coders.
If it's going to be GPL'd only components, then the majority of Open Source licenses will not be able to use any of them. So why call it Open Source? Why not simply "The GPL Component Repository" instead?
Far be it for me to tell the repository maintainers which components they can or cannot accept, but I think if they were a bit more flexible, and allowed at least LGPL components, then it would be much more useful for the Open Source community. I think the freshmeat method of listing which license a component is under would be even better. Then we could have GPL'd, LGPL'd, BSD'd, AL'd, MPL'd, etc, components, and a developer could choose which component best met their needs.
"However, the reason that most things are in 2D is simply because they were designed for 2D only systems."
The reason most things are 2D is because they are in fact 2D! I'm old enough to remember a world without computers so I can assure you that the reason most data is 2D only is because they are truly 2D, and not because someone hasn't invented a 3D interface.
Take another look at your home. Even though it is a 3D structure, by and large, everything is organized as 2D. Your family pictures are placed upon a 2D wall, your dinnerware is stacked in rows, your music CD's are stacked upright or along a shelf. Even drawers are merely 2D containers stacked atop each other. The reason for this is simple. If you have to reach around plates in your cupboard in order to get a glass, you'll end up breaking a lot of plates.
Virtually all data that is represented by a GUI is one or two dimensional. Ascii is one dimensional. Formatted text on a page is 2D. Source code is 2D. Most images are 2D. Sound is 2D. File system hierarchies are 2D. Most CVS trees are 2D, but there are as many 4D as 3D ones.
Look at the objects in your home. What interfaces are 3D? None are in mine (push buttons are trivially and realistically represented in 2D, so they don't count). Your VCR and TV have 2D interfaces. It doesn't matter how wrapped it is over a 3D surface, your automobile still has a 2D interface.
Look at history for an example of what is natural for 2D versus 3D interfaces. Writing has always been 2D, so keep it 2D. Architecture is always 3D, so 3D CAD would be very useful. Art is either 2D or 3D, and should be displayed as appropriate.
Here's what would be bad in a 3D interface: those unreadable 2D windows in the 3Dwm screenshots, stuff that moves, in either 2D or 3D (don't give the user vertigo).
Here's what would be good in a 3D interface: 3D widgets (cool), representing z-order by depth (naturally), representing 3D data in 3D (of course).
What we still need for a decent 3D interface: a precise 3D input device.
1) You make it easier to install so that people will be able to use it in the first place, so they can find out on their own how powerful it is.
2) Not everyone is, or should be, a computer whiz. To expect this is ludicrous. Not everyone knows how to set the time on their VCR, but that shouldn't deny them the right to rent a movie.
3) Real accesibility issues should not be ignored. I have a friend who is very computer literate, and is entirely capable of installing Debian, Slack or BSD. Problem is, he is unable to type, and needs a mouse and/or voice based interface.
So you want either GPL, or non-GPL but bug-free. There are many people who want GPL or nothing at all, but you indicate that merely being bug-free is good enough. What about just plain Free? It doesn't have to be GPL in order for you to have the freedom to modify, repair and redistibute the driver.
I can only assume that you want any bug-fixes to be copylefted as well. While this may sound good on the surface, realize that most bug-fixes are one line or less of code. Most developers would be glad to give the licensor carte blanche to a single line fix, rather than demanding specific licensing terms for it.