Why should I continue with Triaquel 5.5 or anything related to it?
Try think about a car which could be repaired and modified only by company X. Now that would be a good business for company X. Company X could anytime chose that now we don't support certain car models anymore, and if you happen to have a car not supported anymore, then it is tough luck, but hey, you can always buy a new car we support. We are very happy to sell you a new car! Also, we can take your old unsupported car back to us and sell you a new car a little bit cheaper, a rather good deal, (because we don't want that you buy a car from our competitor).
Imagine your car being a black box none else can do anything but the company who manufactured the car. Thus, a car would be like proprietary software. Would it not be ridiculous and very bad for your freedom?
You would not never ever even know has the brakes got proper maintenance and how things work on your car. Your car could be a huge time bomb without you knowing it. Of course you could take your car for maintenance to the company X owning all rights to the car, but then again, all you could do would be to trust them blindly when they say *their* car they have *licensed* to you is the most used car in the markets and offers great value to customers.
This is why educated people like free software.
MOILAMI
My very first car was a rusted out floor, 1971 Mustang, I use to drive that car with cut plywood sheets to partial fill the floor. I felt like a Fred Flinstone, watching the floor move under my feet. The only good thing was the engine and the trasmission, awesome power. Yet, I sold it!
I Could not keep up with the Gas prices of that time. The guy who bought it, did spend some serious cash in buying originals parts and had it completly restored. That is a very rare car today and still running today. I would said: a Propietary antique car, Like an old PC.
My second car was a Volswagen beettle, nice little "Volky", air cool engine, until it caught fire, because the oil pan was made of magnesium. I remenber that day, It was a hot day, waiting in the way stop light intersection, while the police clear a nasty car accident. The volky got hot and smoke started creeping from underneath. I jump out, and forgot to catch my gym bag and my school books. Everthing went on fire in minutes. That was a defective firmware from the factory.
My third car was a Toyota hatchback wagon 1983, 1.8 liter, onlY lasted two weeks, it was stolen, while I was surfing on the beach. That was a very long day. The police found that car, 3 weeks later in some remote mangrove swamp. Strip clean from its parts, the chassis was sitting on four cement blocks. That was a pirated drivers from that moment.
Then, modernization arrived, government public massive transportation, that was fast and at our disposal at any hour, no more cars. That is control monopoly.
Until one day, after saving money for almost 6 years, took a bank loan and bought me a brand new 1989 Chevy pickup s-10, 4x4, that lasted me 7 years. That was a very nice patent truck.
Since then,I had other used cars, for which I traded in after 2-3 years of explotation.
Today, I drive a 2010 Hybrid Toyota Prius, that will be my Apple linux of today and that is real propietary. But it saves me Gas Money.
This experience of my life, it feels and tastes, just like the many MODERN flavors of Linux OSI,
Really, is very strange one discussion about this nowadays.
Now we have 3D, wireless, bluetooth cards with free drivers and firmwares and works very well with Trisquel. Really, today we have all we need with one 100% free operating system, this is incredible. We can watch videos without Flash(WebM and Ogg Theora), surf on the web without Internet Explorer, listen music with FLAC and Ogg...
The Free Software, Free Technology WON!
Thanks to all from free technology and free culture communities.
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Next step: free hardware. There is still a long way, but not so far.
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I just saw watched this episode of the LAS for the first time last night and I was really annoyed with Chris and Matt's analysis of the distro. I think they kind of missed the point of what we are trying to do here.
I was especially annoyed by Matt's comment when he said "I tried to watch a You Tube Video and Gnash Sucks." Ok -- Gnash is what it is, but saying that is sucks is never going to fix the situation, its not going to draw more developers to work on the project, its not going to make it work any better.
Also, Chris discussed how Trisquel doesn't really acknowledge the role of Ubuntu in our success. How often does Canonical go around praising Debian for all of their successes?
I think the LAS is cheesy, and I doubt the credentials of these "expert analysts" on the show.
Compared to every other 100% free distribution I think that Trisquel is far ahead in terms of visual appeal, functionality, and community. I think that should have been the focus of the discussion, not how gnash sucks.
I watched a few LAS episodes a while back: the Trisquel review, a couple of the Fedora reviews, the RMS interview and followup, and a couple Linux Mint reviews. It's really an awful show.
The RMS interview was especially pathetic. One of them was trying to justify development of nonfree software because "it feeds my daughter!" for half of the interview and when RMS said that it's still wrong, he made out RMS to be a someone who hates children. As if that wasn't bad enough, they then dedicated an entire episode after that to arguing with RMS without him being present (and attacking his character). Even people that agreed with them were annoyed by how stupid they sounded and how they didn't allow RMS to defend himself.
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RMS doesn't always come off that well. While I applaud his efforts and strict adherence to principles it doesn't always work in the favor of free software. It is hard getting people to understand the problem with non-free software.
He often gives an example of a printer that he couldn't get the driver/firmware/or some other similar type of code for. Great. But it isn't just some little problem that happened 40 years ago. I think a lot of people can't get past it. It just isn't that important. However it is important and the message isn't getting through because people can't relate. They think RMS is just being fussy and an old grouch.
I'd love to put together a demonstration of all (well, a lot of the hardware) which doesn't work today because of propitiatory software. I think something like this might help people understand the problem. It would connect them to personal encounters and problems with there own computers. Non-free software doesn't just negatively effect programmers. It negatively impacts everybody. I think a lot of “open source” coders don't get that. I get daily emails from developers (and users) on both sides whom seem to appreciate our efforts to free code even though many don't understand just how important it really is to the average user. I think maybe if more people could visually see just how serious and big a threat/problem it is they might agree more with the free software position.
I think the printer example is wonderful and exactly the kind of material you need to explain the practical side of free software. It's how the problem manifests itself. And even though it might've originally happened 30 years ago, we have even now a new thread on the forum about problems with a printer. I believe some people can and do relate.
I think people dislike Stallman because he makes them think about computing from an ethical viewpoint. People don't like it when you say that instead of blindly using whatever they get in front of them they should evaluate the implications of using the software. For themselves and society at large.
And these lazy people start reacting badly and throwing around all kinds of ad hominems to avoid the actual issue. Such is human nature sadly. But as rms has said, there will always be people you cannot convince and you shouldn't waste time trying to do the impossible.
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Absolutely. People are lazy. There are lot of things which are just as important if not more important. They are on another playing field. Eating and drinking are pretty high on my priority list although probably terrible examples, however they might not be for some people here. If I wasn't so enabled (to be concerned and deal with multiple problems) I'd probably put it ahead of thinking about free software issues. There are lots of people who don't have the time or money. It is easy for RMS to say go find another job. However it is hard for some people to actually do that. It doesn't make it right now. And a programmer is almost certainly got no excuses here. Such an individual is going to be able to find another job elsewhere even if it doesn't involve writing code.
I spent 5 1/2 hours helping a woman today. She was in her 90s and losing her abilities. Despite this she had a donated computer and a heavily subsidized Internet connection. She had no real income and lots of health problems. Her living conditions were deplorable (she did have some family and help although not enough). I was there with a new employee and after a few hours we sort of were ready to give up on her problem. I didn't gave up though although I did send our new employee home. I continued though. Now when we first arrived she said she had no money and couldn't pay. Most people would have left. However we didn't. My point here is sometimes there are things in life which you have to prioritize. There is no way she could have helped herself let alone the done the right thing (had she even known what that was- and I'm talking about freedom here and not paying the bill). That doesn't make her actions right though. Anyway- if she had paid the going rate it would probably have wiped out her food budget for the month.
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As an add on to my previous rant -- when Chris says there is no mention of Ubuntu. This crystal clear diagram of "How Trisquel is Made" pretty much sums it up. I am not sure if he wants us to praise Ubuntu on every single page, but this is about as good of attribution as I can think of.
I haven't read every single post here but I'm just going to say this:
If you don't like it, nobody's stopping you from using something like Ubuntu or the stock Linux kernel.
We won't support either mentioned choice here. We're in it for the freedom, that's why we use Trisquel/Parabola or Linux-Libre at all for that matter. If you choose that you can't buy a different wi-fi adapter that doesn't need nonfree drivers or firmware, then nobody's stopping you from using those nonfree drivers/firmware. It's not something that a distribution that is fully free software is going to make an exception for, however.
I personally hope you choose freedom. I'm sure (hopefully) everybody hopes the same.
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onpon4 - I watched the RMS one when it came out and it was really annoying to watch. I think RMS can be a little overwhelming to some people, but despite his hard philosophy he has contributed so much to the community. No one ever wants to say it but where would Linux be without GNU?
I think that a Linux tv show or podcast is a great idea, but the folks at LAS execute this very poorly.
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I wasn't terribly impressed either. It is easy to take advantage and it is easy to love the idea of "Linux" and then by association shows like this. Unfortunately most people don't really understand what the issues are. The people involved in the show have a financial interest in putting freedom down. Yes- it pays the bills for them, but it also seen as a threat to future financial successes.
Who buys the commercial time? Companies who are profiting off closed software. Even ThinkPenguin to some degree is doing so. Trying to avoid it is hard. Developing business models that are not is a challenge. We need more business people leading the way on the financial side of things whom understand and respect free software principles. Being in it for more than just money is critical. There is no reason such business models have to fail. The Trisquel user base alone is a not insignificant part of ThinkPenguin's business. That is evidence free software business models are feasible. I think Trisquel scaled up is also a workable model. The distribution just needs more users in order to finance it. Donations alone could probably do that with a bit bigger user base.