Re: [Fsfe-uk] Mac OS X refund

[Noah Slater]

On Mon, Jan 21, 2008 at 01:06:31PM +0100, Andrew Savory wrote:
> Accounting is the only one for which there are no "good enough"
> equivalents.

I would argue that the lack of CMYK support in GIMP along with a few
other issues prevent GNU/Linux being used for high end design work.

> "Foundations solidly in non-free" is a bit of an exaggeration when it is
> built on top of Darwin, I think.

I was refering the deep rooted Apple philosophy more than anything.

> This is the problem that an awful lot of FLOSS advocates suffer from: the
> inability to see that the "all or nothing" zealot approach doesn't tend to
> work very well in some circles.

I wouldn't consider it zealotry, more "leading by example."

> My presentations have become significantly better since I opted to use what
> I consider to be the best presentation software out there: Apple's Keynote.
> Therefore my effectiveness at describing the benefits of FLOSS at a senior
> level has increased.

If I was attending one of your presentations my first question to you
would be "if this FLOSS thing is so great, why are you using so called
'non-free' software to deliver this presentation. I get the impression
that FLOSS may be good in theory, but simply isn't ready for the
mainstream." and I suspect that anyone thinking straight would be
thinking the same thing.

How would you answer?

> Writing presentations is one. Email (I fought for years with mutt, evolution
> etc. before finally accepting mail.app is better for *me*). Code (when I get
> the chance) is done in a proprietary text editor that I find *I* am
> significantly more productive in (yes, I've tried all the others for a long
> time).

I agree with your points, things like this are largely down to
personal preference... but this is besides the point, because I was
listening right up until the point you said...

> Conservatively, they give me a 10x boost on productivity.

I call BS.

So where you might spend 1 hour reading and replying to email in the
morning I must spend 10 hours, presumably in an uphill battle against
all the horrible, ghastly things mutt does wrong.

> But more than that - do we really live in a world where proprietary software
> must not exist? Isn't the freedom to be able to write and license software
> however you like and to choose whichever software you want to use just as
> important as the four freedoms?

No, absolutely not. You are arguing for the freedom to restrict
freedoms, which is patently absurd.

> That's the message I'm getting here.

Great, that's the whole point.

> > I think the "ethical" argument is a great way to upset people and
> > > harm the adoption of FLOSS.
> >
> > Drop the OS bit from the middle and what you have is a socio-political
> > movement centered around the very concept of computing ethics. It
> > sounds to me like you, personally, should be using the term OSS
> > because this statement is clearly contradictory.
> 
> Sorry, can't parse that ... can you restate?

You were claiming that the "ethical" argument is a great way to upset
people and harm the adoption of FLOSS.

I was pointing out that the free software movement is centered around
the very concept of computing ethics and hence your statment is
entirely contradictory.

-- 
Noah Slater <http://bytesexual.org/>

"Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as
society is free to use the results." - R. Stallman