Re: [Fsfe-uk] Why FS is a Good Thing

[Alex Hudson]

On Sun, 2002-03-10 at 20:55, Imran Ghory wrote:
> > No. Although it is currently free (beer) to distribute, they are turning
> > it to non-free (beer) distribution. But StarOffice has never been Free
> > (speech). Please don't advocate using StarOffice - it, like Netscape, is
> > not Free Software. But OpenOffice and Mozilla _are_ Free Software, so we
> > can talk about those and recommend them to anyone. 
> 
> But isn't OpenOffice based on Star Office code ?

Nope, other way around - StarOffice is based on OpenOffice code, but
includes 'more' (like AdabasDB). OpenOffice is Lesser GPL'd (IIRC), so
Sun can merge proprietary applications with it to make StarOffice. Check
out the openoffice.org site - the FAQs are very informative.

> > I would also say that while the text showed many of the benefits of
> > using Free Software, it doesn't make much point about the freedoms Free
> > Software gives you. 
> 
> Yes, maybe it should also cover the "openess" aspect of free software
> more

aka. Freedom 1, the freedom to inspect a program :)

> The problem isn't really in convincing people who use linux though, the
> majority of people who we need to explain about free software to are
> Windows users, and there are hardly any pieces of free software for
> windows in wide spread use. 

The examples I gave weren't really with GNU/Linux users (or *BSD, or
other Unix) in mind; they were with Windows users in mind. Hence the
example of Evolution: don't underestimate the importance of Outlook to
people, it's a killer app. To show people that they don't need to run
Windows to get Outlook functionality is incredibly important on a
practical level (incidentally, one of the biggest weaknesses of Free
Software currently is - IMO - that there is no Exchange
equivilent/compatible).

Although getting Windows users to use Free Software is a step forward,
there's no reason why we shouldn't be aiming to go the whole hog - get
Windows users to get rid of Windows and install a completely Free OS. We
don't want people to just make small steps; we want to show them that
they can make a huge step and go all the way. Of course, if they're not
comfortable with that they can take as big a step as they like, but the
point is that we can show them a complete replacement, not just a
partial one.

Cheers,

Alex.

signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part