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GPL concerns maintain user freedomGPL concerns maintain user freedomPosted May 16, 2006 22:33 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091)In reply to: GPL concerns maintain user freedom by einstein Parent article: GPL concerns halt Kororaa live CD (NewsForge)
[...] namely the illusion that the tiny, cantankerous and demanding market segment of gpl-only desktop customers is in a position of strength, and that they can dictate terms to commercial vendors who sell 95% of their product to ms windows users.Have you actually seen anyone "dictating terms"? I have seen people rejecting the provided proprietary drivers, on very reasonable terms; I have seen polite requests for better support, free drivers and tech specs. And people wishing for continued support. No dictating at all. I think it is within our rights to make such requests, since: we have bought their stuff, they promise Linux support, and the natural way to do that is to integrate the drivers into the kernel. Why is it that some people always picture gpl supporters as dictating other people's behavior? Why do we get called derogatory names when we request only what is seen as natural for every other vendor? (If you don't see the derogatory terms, "tiny" and "cantankerous" is bad enough, but being called a "market segment" is really beyond bounds.) nVidia is criticized for how they develop their drivers, because they are Linux drivers, they are not libre, they make users go through needless hoops, they cannot be debugged, and all this just because "It's so hard to write a graphics driver that open-sourcing it would not help". If this does not merit some criticism, then we might as well buy our copy of XP and go play minesweeper.
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