On Mar 26, 2008, Andrew Farris <lordmorgul@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > In the context of a user wanting his system to be free from using > proprietary drivers... how can it possibly 'hurt' him to have drivers > for hardware he doesn't even have be present on his disk. This thread > and effort seems entirely pointless to me. You're missing the point. It indeed doesn't cause me any direct harm if there are non-Free bits that I don't depend on in the kernel or the distro I use. That's why I can choose Fedora. But this does cause me harm when I want to recommend a distro to someone else. I can't recommend my distro of choice, Fedora, because Fedora endorses and promotes non-Free Software, and this endorses and feeds the social problem that I devote my life to fighting. I can't distribute my distro of choice, Fedora, because Fedora doesn't permit me to do so in a way that doesn't involve my distributing non-Free Software and feeding this social problem myself. Regardless of what happens on my computer, when I recommend Fedora to others, or give them copies of Fedora, they might become dependent on the non-Free bits, and only realize it after recommending it to others, saying things like "it just works". I've seen this happen to many Ubuntu users, including ones that were fervorous Free Software advocates but who didn't realize there were hidden non-Free bits in Ubuntu. When they figure that out, they may even come back to me and ask me how I could recommend it to them, being the 100% Free Software guy that I am. See how it can hurt me? > 'shipping' bits that don't get used is completely innocuous. *That*'s the mistake you're making. It's not. It has long-term detrimental social consequences, and that's why I oppose it. That's why I refuse to do it myself, and that's why I discourage others from doing it. That's why I'd like Fedora to at least offer people a choice of distributing a Free Fedora, rather than forcing people to choose between not sharing Fedora or advancing the social problem that the Free Software Movement was created to stop. You may find this text enlightening: http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/blogs/lxo/draft/flisol-libre-2008.en -- Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/ FSF Latin America Board Member http://www.fsfla.org/ Red Hat Compiler Engineer aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org} Free Software Evangelist oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org} -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
