[wplug] Linux/OSS in Forbes

Michael Semcheski lists at immuneit.com
Sat Oct 14 13:57:42 EDT 2006


Joe Gallo wrote:
> By the same logic, can't you just vote with your dollars?

I like Thinkpads.  In my limited experience, they're the best.  If I
need a laptop, I'm going to buy one.  And if it has an Intel wireless
card, that won't affect my purchase too much.  If I could pay an extra
$20 for one with open drivers, I would.  But it might not be offered. 
There are trade offs, and things aren't always perfect.  And I know part
of the FSF's anti-drm movement is more about Tivo locking users out of
their boxes than iTunes and AAC DRM.

It got kind of muddled up, but my point was, the GPLv3 seems like a lot
of pain (forks, fewer embedded applications, etc.) over something that
is annoying but not yet a threat to computing.  In my opinion.

If they really wanted to shake things up for the sake of shaking things
up, I think they could have found other diversions than DRM.  But I
realize, the FSF has too stay edgy.  They seem to be making their
contribution in terms ideologically rather than pragmatically or
practically.

>
> Michael Semcheski wrote:
>> Elwin Green wrote:
>>> <!-- DIV {margin:0px} --> Forbes magazine has a package about
>>> Stallman, the GPL, and Linux. It's online here:
>>>
>>> http://www.forbes.com/
>>
>> Well, does this mean we should table plans for changing our name to
>>  WPLGUG (the Western Pennsylvania Gnu/Linux User Group)?
>>
>> I think the FSF would have better served users by working harder to
>> make Linux truly open source.  The GPLv3 could have focused on
>> getting all drivers to have their source available (think wireless
>> network cards and OpenBSD.)
>>
>> DRM is something that consumers can vote with their wallets on.
>> Just like hardware with binary only drivers.  But binary only
>> drivers are a real problem today.  DRM is something I can deal
>> with.  I can download mp3's from eMusic or rip cd's to FLAAC.  But
>> I can't get a good open source driver for my wireless NIC.
>>
>>
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>>
>
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>
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