Non FOSS and Fedora

[Keith Lofstrom]

There are some folks here that claim to not like non-FOSS software,
and admonish others for helping newbies use it.  The examples given
included Acrobat, Flash, and the Java Runtime Environment.

Some of us do work in the Real World (tm).  Yes, we have a strong
preference for FOSS, and will use that to the exclusion of non-FOSS
whenever possible.  But when a particular FOSS application is not
available, or is incapable of performing a critical task, then the
choice is to do nothing, or to perform the task with the best tools
remaining.

FOSS zealots can piss and moan, or they can do something positive.
Rather than complain about the helpful non-FOSS FAQs and guides for
newbies that others are writing, the zealots can write *better* FAQs
that explain now to perform those critical tasks with FOSS.  And if
there are critical tasks that cannot yet be performed with FOSS 
applications, those zealots with programming skills can correct the
deficiencies of the FOSS apps.  Pretending those deficiencies aren't
there is stupid, especially when some are so easy to fix.

You are reading this message on a computer that was designed and
manufactured using hundreds of non-FOSS CAD applications.   In fact,
some of those non-FOSS design applications have licenses that make
the M$ EULA look positively Stallmanian.  I am working to fix that,
using the tools available to me.  To deny me those tools because of
some silly claim that this somehow increases freedom is to strain at
gnats and swallow camels.

The people that actually contribute to Fedora are working very hard
to improve open source, and I am thrilled by their efforts, and brag
about them to others.  We really are making rapid progress.  But we
are NOT THERE YET, and it would be a horrible tactical mistake to
claim victory and start hunting heretics instead of attracting
converts.  It is the heretic hunters of the previous generation
of software designers, with their licenses and their laws, that
we are fighting now. 

Let's not become the enemy.

Think positive.  Promote and improve FOSS software.  If the competition
works better, then improve your own efforts, don't attack users for
making practical accommodations to the real world.  We don't need to
be perceived as rigid, authoritarian lunatics.  That's the other side.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom           keithl at ieee.org         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs