On Thursday 10 December 2009, Duncan wrote:
>
> So there is /indeed/ benefits to FLOSS for the ordinary user, and users
> who choose to run nonfree programs are indeed submitting themselves to
> the mastership of that software's lord and master, in a way unlike that
> of running FLOSS, even if they can't write a single line of code,
> themselves.
Of course that is true, I doubt anyone (at leat any FLOSS user) will contest
that. But there remains the fact that some, on the lists (and I mean all the
lists I read that have to do with FLOSS) wipe away citicisms and/or
suggestions or rants with this simple argument: the code is free and
accessible, if the program does not do what you want, change it you self.
No one contests this is _possible_ in theory, but to the average user it is
not. I do code (a little, not very well) in basic or tcl/tk, long time ago in
fortran, I can't even understand C or C++.
The result that I depend almost as much from my "master" than a closed source
user, however with the hope someone else might do it.
To go back to the origin of this talk, obviously telling a normal user either
to join the devs and code some functionalities himself, or to tell him that
the KDE 3 code is free and he can continue developping it himself is just
ridiculous.
Supporting (and loving) an idea or a concept does not mean supporting it
blidly and making it a sacred cow, so I understand most criticisms on this
list as the expression of people who _do_ like and support KDE, but just
happen to be unsatisfied with the way it's going. One can tell them that does
not interrest him, but not that the code is free, because that does not help
the leat a normal user in practice.
regards,
Thierry
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