Use of non free CAD software

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caoszu82
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Joined: 11/14/2018

Hi, I have Windows 7 in one partition and Trisquel 8.0 in other partition. Windows can't access to my info at
Trisquel. I want to know what's wrong if I use non-free CAD software in Windows in that case.
Thanks.

Magic Banana

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Joined: 07/24/2010

Windows does not implement the support of popular filesystems other than FAT, NTFS and exFAT. ext2fsd is free software for Windows to support ext2, ext3 and ext4 filesystems: http://www.ext2fsd.com

With a default install of Trisquel, the user data are on XFS though and nothing exists on Windows to read that. You need the "Other type" (or whatever it is called) of installation to specify an ext4 filesystem for /home.

For your freedoms, you should use a free CAD software, such as FreeCAD or LibreCAD. Both are in Trisquel's repository.

caoszu82
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Joined: 11/14/2018

Thank you for the information about XFS. It's still not clear to me what's wrong if I run a non-free CAD software in Windows if all my info is safe at Trisquel partition.

chaosmonk

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Joined: 07/07/2017

It sounds like you are talking about security. It's true that Windows is not very secure, and you are wise to store your personal data on your Trisquel partition instead. However, while security is important, and while free software is oftentimes more secure than proprietary software, that is not the only reason to prefer free software over proprietary software.

Even a totally secure proprietary program would not give you freedom. Your use of the program would still be on the developer's terms, and the more important that program becomes to your life, the more control the developer has over that aspect of your life. Even if they are not abusing that power right now, there is nothing to stop them from doing so in the future, and with something like CAD it could be difficult to migrate your projects to another program when that happens. It is safer to be free from the beginning and avoid relying on proprietary software in the first place.

loldier
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Joined: 02/17/2016

Malicious surveillance features are there nevertheless, or they could be added tomorrow. Privacy and security are complementary conditions.

RMS has a way with this: only use free libre software.

https://invidio.us/watch?v=gfwKnsHd9WM

tonlee
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Joined: 09/08/2014

> what's wrong if I use non-free CAD software

Free software is software you can use, share, modify and redistribute. If you think these
principles are important then it is wrong to use non free software no matter what piece
of software is in question.

It appears you want people to tell you if in your specific case it is not wrong to use non
free software? You will have to make that decision yourself. I use a replicant phone. Knowing
it contains non free software. I dislike it. Same about my other computers.
There are probably a lot of people here who have computers which run non
free software.

On this forum you cannot ask anything about how to use or endorsing non free software.