[Fsf-friends] Free as in free beer Re: Freedom {X VS X} AND Rich User Experience

rajeev joseph sebastian rajeev_jsv@yahoo.com
Wed Apr 28 11:54:47 IST 2004


Dear Mr Gaur,

Free as in Freedom, not Free as in Free Beer.
> Dear Rishi,
> 
> "WE" here stands for FSF evanglists who value
> FREEDOM as much as you do. I 
> really wonder whether FREEDOM again means not trying
> to write good software. 
> What you call FREEDOM for yourself is the hard work
> of countless Open Source 
> guys towards a common goal - promoting Free
> software.

Not really, FREEDOM arose from the GNU conception of
Free software, not the OSI conception of free
software. 

Of course free software is doing a LOT. Apache, et al
are doing a marvellous job at the cost of
fragmentation, which is the holy grail of Software
Configuration Management (which I learnt in Semester
7).

In any case, the end-user as you said does not _care_
whether software is Free. (but whether it is free
matters to them a lot.) In that case, wouldnt it
better to make Free software, than merely free
software ?

The usefulness, flexibility, usability etc of software
is a totally seperate consideration from whether
software is Free or not. The former is measured by the
way the artifact operates (ie, engineering values and
metrics), and latter considers the means of
distribution, utilization and improvement (ie, social
values and social perception of the process of
engineering)

> 
> So you mean to say that if the software come for
> FREE I should not expect it 
> to be good. What a foundation "WE" (FSF evangalists)
> are laying down for 
> others to follow.
> 

I still wonder whether you are arguing on the side of
Free or free software.

> Let me remind you I am not talking about "you", the
> IT guy. I am talking 
> about the end user for whom computers is a tool to
> do his work. And trust me 
> he values "RICH USER EXPERIECE" more than getting a
> free software. IS THIS 
> WHAT YOU CALL FREEDOM?
> 
> FREEDOM for who? You or the MASSES? I repeat lets
> move from "PHILOSOPHICAL 
> MINORITY" to "MASS MAJORITY" and for masses your so
> called "SHALLOW" user 
> experience matters.
> 
> Windows market share is a testimony to this SHALLOW
> concept.

windows market share is due to the inferiority of the
masses: they are not fit to evaluate the choices
available to them (I am also making a point abt
democracy here). windows market share is due to heavy
marketing ... when was the first time you saw a
GNU/Linux ad on TV ? (I saw the IBM ad about 2 weeks
ago) I saw the Microsoft "1 degree seperation" .NET ad
about a year back (if i remember correctly). 

However, look at the technical market for OSs and
professional software ... almost every one of those
runs on Unix and variants. The technical market knows
their options, and more importantly understand them.
This is the method I take the side on - make every
company on Earth dependent on Linux, and the rest
(your so-called shallow tool-Lusers) will follow.
Morover i dont see anything "RICH" about about the dry
packages that comes with an MS-XP install (Solitaire,
Minesweeper, Notepad, Wordpad, anything else ? oh yeah
regedit). Whereas the basic install of PCQLinux .... I
really LOVE gnofract4d and Celestia and OpenOffice 
... that pretty much makes for a VERY rich user
experience than XP could hope for (then again i'm
talking from the viewpoint of a _legal_ basic
installation :) )

> 
> I remind you again ... i am not decrying linux ....
> of FSF. I am myself a 
> strong supporter and have followed linux from its
> nacence.
> 

On a side note, a "strong" supporter would call it
GNU/Linux not merely linux ;) just joking ...

Rajeev J Sebastian
Stendek R&D
Kochi


	
		
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