On 12/23/2010 5:19 PM, Michael S. Dunsaavage wrote:
On 12/23/2010 4:50 PM, Kostas Boukouvalas wrote:
If a user wants a free as in free beer GNU/Linux distribution that's easy to use and runs all the hardware she can have SLED as well. So, I think that openSUSE project is struggling to create something that already exists. I must be failing to see what you're point. SLED is tailored to desktop users. SLES is tailored to servers. openSUSE seems to be the best of both worlds and more on the bleed edge. What exactly is openSUSE struggling to create? To me it seems to be a stable, but somewhat experimental, release developed by a community of rather intelligent, and willing to help, people.
I see nothing useful of making openSUSE a true free OSS distro. In fact it would hinder it's adoption. I said before that the closed source binaries are a necessary evil. If we didn't compromise and have them, I guarantee Linux adoption would not be anywhere close to what it is. You would never get anyone to even try it if they can't play media files or get hardware to work properly. It would great if big name companies would develop for Linux and open their drivers, but it won't happen any time soon. And without this compromise of allowing closed source binaries into Linux, and I'm not meaning the kernel, then Linux would never have gotten it's 5% to 10% (depending what source you believe) adoption to the desktop.
The FSF also needs to re-evaluate it's campaigns. They're starting to sounds more like zealots.
Just because you value convenience over conviction doesn't give you the right to accuse those with vision and an understanding of certain ideals of being zealots. Not that zeal over a worthy goal is much of an insult. It's pretty easy to disregard the fact that so much of what you enjoy today was only brought about by a lot of people with zeal over worthy goals. I, like you, am no such zealot. f I want a certain laptop and it meets most of my wishes but the video or the wifi requires a binary driver, well I'll get the laptop and use the proprietary drivers. I'll even use proprietary software if it's the only way to do certain things. But I at least consider it a failing. The goal of always working towards expelling and rejecting proprietary _anything_ is a good one. Those of us who lack the integrity to commit to that goal fully also lack the right to criticize those "zealots" who are sacrificing and working to make the world better for the rest of us. -- bkw -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org