Absolutely terrible idea
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| swbrown Apr 17, 2006 4:56 PM EDT |
Making it easy to add in proprietary codecs will reduce the pressure to get non-proprietary codecs in use. This is a great way to kill non-proprietary codecs and ensure you're chained to proprietary ones forever. There's a reason RedHat doesn't do this by default. This is it. |
| r_a_trip Apr 18, 2006 1:39 AM EDT |
You know that, I know that. The new breed of GNU/Linux (ab)users don't know that. They have been trained for years to shut down their brains and to just click until something happens and then the desired result appears automagically. They are only interested in short term convenient personal gain, no matter what the long term detriment is. The new breed couldn't care less why Free Software or Open Source exists. It is cheap, easily obtainable and they can successfully push developers around to cater to their Freedom diminishing needs. They are perfectly comfortable with renting their software instead of "owning" it. Take Novell's new XGL for example. It is a technology that is totally dependent on proprietary graphics drivers. Betting the farm on XGL to get the GNU/Linux desktop "competitive" with Vista and OSX is throwing away over 20 years of painstaking Free Software development. (Nevermind it screws over all the people unfortunate enough not being able to afford an expensive GFX card). If a Free System is dependent on non-Free software to function, it is de facto just another proprietary system. Still, if you point that out to new "community members", they laugh at you and say that black and white thinking is hurting GNU/Linux adoption (they call it Linux) and there is nothing wrong with proprietary software. Except that proprietary software is fully incompatible with the philosophy behind Free Software. Mixed systems don't exist. Put in a proprietary piece and your OS has become proprietary; non-Free. That simply doesn't register with them. They couldn't care less about the philosophy that made GNU/Linux happen in the first place. They only see the short term benefits of using the system. They are not willing to give up a little convenience for the sake of long term viability of GNU/Linux as a Free System. They are starting to outnumber us ideologically motivated GNU/Linux users too. My bet is that in about ten years GNU/Linux will have become a proprietary subsystems encumbered monstrosity. The new influx, that is now screaming for large scale contamination most vehemently, will be the group that is moaning the loudest about being exploited when GNU/Linux has become a parody of a Free Software System. Us ideologically motivated people either will have moved on to one of the BSD's or we will be using GNU/Hurd and most probably we will keep those as ideologically clean as possible. Time to bring out the good old RTFM. ;-) |
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