Free Software Magazine #3

Posted May 23, 2005 17:01 UTC (Mon) by wilck (subscriber, #29844) [Link]

Sorry but... these guys have yet to get a clue. I strongly doubt that "Free Software Magazine" and LWN have many common goals.

Take Promoting free software on non-free platforms.

Sounds as if it was written by an 18-year-old college student trying to please his teacher (it wasn't; I know). Elaborates in much detail about "ideological" vs. "pragmatic" users.

Comes to some beautiful conclusions:

Whenever ideological users discourage developers from free development of any kind, it violates the core principle that developers possess the freedom to develop as they feel is appropriate ... an ideological user has no right to complain when another developer targets a non-free platform with a particular application ...

Huh? I didn't know that there were any "core principles" in Free Software that rule out "discouraging" or "complaining about" anything. Free speech, free complaining!

An aspiring developer can create a media player that uses native functionality (such as QuickTime or Windows Media) that allows the playback of more formats than similar applications found on free software platforms. This is becoming increasingly important as content owners adopt DRM technology.

That "aspiring developer" obviously works on "free" Software that could never be ported to a free platform. Nice exercise, but with no value whatsoever for people interested in Free Software. I'd call that developer a person who is actively working against Free Software.

Finally, from the point of view of funding the creation of free software, there are cultural advantages to developing free software that includes non-free platforms

Finally, a serious argument which reveals the real background of the article: It is easier to make money on closed platforms.

I admit that Firefox' success on Windows has helped make the Web more accessible to Linux and other Free Software users during the last few months. I very much doubt, though, that this argument can be extended to other non web-related software.

PS: As you may have guessed, I am what the author calls an "ideological user".

PPS: The most dangerous ideology is that which calls itself non-ideological.