[Fsf-friends] Freedom matters - So does good software !!

[Dileep M. Kumar]

On Thu, May 06, 2004 at 04:45:02AM +0530, Raghavendra Bhat wrote:

>>>Good, functional and `technically best' is not all that important.

Its better  to say Freedom  is more important than  "functionality and
`technical excellence". But this  is valid only in personal computing,
or academic usage (where we have an upper hand in decision making).

In  business  world only  functional  and  `technically best  products
counts.  They give  less importance to freedom when  compared to other
factors. I know this should change, or may change some time later, but
right now the situation is like this.

I was allowed to install one Debian box at work, only after I was able
to prove that things works as  per the company rules.  My chants about
Software  Freedom  was  always  heard  with a  doubtful  face  by  the
management[1].

>From my experience what I feel  is that, business world never care for
Freedom in computing. Most of those companies who seem to support Free
Software (no  they call  it OSS), have  some hidden agenda.   Take the
eg. of  a famous  RDBMS company.  They  support Linux  kernel, because
they find  their product works better  with this kernel  than with any
other non-free  systems. Not because Linux  kernel is Free  as in Free
Speech.

[1] The company where I work, create non-free software only. 

Regards
-- 
 .''`.     Dileep M. Kumar <dileep@kumarayil.net>
: :'  :    http://www.kumarayil.net
`. `'`     Mobile: 98474-47437
  `-  Debian GNU/Linux - Choice of the Freedom Lovers