nvidia

[Les Mikesell]

Frank Cox wrote:
> 
>> I'm sorry, I assumed you were being deliberately provocative.  I
>> couldn't think of any other rationale for your remarks.
> 
> You have either not read, or have failed to understand my previous remarks.

Or just considered them wrong...

>>  Were you
>> seriously suggesting that because I happen to have hardware that needs
>> drivers that are only available in proprietary form, or that I happen to
>> need Maple or Matlab or other commercial software with no OSS
>> equivalent, or that my employer uses Exchange, that I have no business
>> using Linux?
> 
> I suggest that when you are doing things like interfacing with Microsoft
> Exchange and other things like that, your life will be much easier if you stick
> with a Microsoft software stack.  If you wish to move to a Free Software stack,
> your life will be much simpler if you move to Free Software for those things
> rather than trying to ram the "old way of doing things" into a completely new
> system.

Sendmail is the "old way of doing things" and it's completely agnostic 
as to whether it runs on what you consider Free software or any 
commercial version of unix.

> Of course, it's up to you if you want to do things the hard way or the easy
> way; you are welcome to use proprietary software on any platform you wish.

Standards compliance is what makes things interoperate.  There is next 
to no relationship to whether or not the components are proprietary or not.

> It becomes difficult to sympathize with people who are not prepared to help
> themselves, though.  "I want to to X."  In order to do X, you require Y and Z.
> "But I don't want to get Y.  Just make it work with Z and make it look exactly
> the same as it did before.  I don't want to have to learn anything new, ever".

That makes no sense at all.  We want X _and_ Y to work together.

> If that's the situation, then you don't want Free Software.  You want another
> box containing exactly what you have on your desk right now.  "But it doesn't
> work very well."
> 
> See the contradiction?

No.  The contradiction is the part that calls itself free yet tries to 
dictate what other components can do.

-- 
    Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com