Non FOSS and Fedora

[Andy Green]

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On Monday 12 January 2004 11:44, Rui Miguel Seabra wrote:

> Yes, this is not a paranoid vision, there's an EU directive proposal
> aiming to turn copyright infringement a public crime, I can give you the
> pointers for that, a starter could be a version of the proposal:

Even so, someone must get their wallet out to go after these people before it 
would cause a problem.  Its hard to understand why someone would spend that 
money and time to protect from redistribution something that is given freely 
(and is out of date in the case of Acrobat).  So you're correct but surely 
this isn't the problem.  (Seem to be saying this a lot recently).

Acrobat for example allows cut and pasting of PDF content, something I didn't 
find in the Free viewers.  My choices are (1) use Acrobat, (2) waste time 
uselessly retyping stuff, (3) research some pdf -> text applet I don't know 
about, (4) sit down and learn enough X APIs to add this functionality.  I 
installed Acrobat.  Being a pure white-gowned, effulgent angels singing in 
harmony, floating above the floor FOSS user is counterproductive if I can't 
get my work done or it wastes more time than it saves.  BUT pragmatism is a 
temporary workaround --  I'm not happy with it and as soon as there is an 
alternative I'll switch.  The fact I'm using it and holding my nose reminds 
me I wish I had a FOSS alternative every time I use it, (that and the other 
problems it has that are never going to be fixed because it is closed and 
pretty much orphaned at Adobe.)

Therefore my take is by all means publish such guides for apps where there are 
incomplete FOSS alternatives, hopefully also mentioning whatever FOSS 
alternatives exist.  Otherwise what is the original poster suggesting, 
telling people that they CANNOT describe such procedures on their own 
websites?

- -Andy
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