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FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core"FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core"Posted Nov 12, 2010 3:49 UTC (Fri) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841)In reply to: FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core" by lxoliva Parent article: FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core" Your statements are both nonsensical and insulting. You refer to the user community as "happy slaves". You characterize distros that work to deliver a system that is most likely to work out of the box on the widest variety of machines, and thereby attract new linux users, as "oppressing users" or "feeding the aggressors". At the start of this thread I was under the impression that the FSFLA had a positive, though unrealistic goal. You have now succeeded in convincing me that the FSFLA's goals (or at least your representation of them) are actively harmful to the adoption of linux. Should we as a community help and encourage users to use linux, even when that means accommodating their needs to use propriety hardware and non-free applications? Absolutely we should! Doing so does not "oppress" anyone. Rather it increases their range of options and therefore their freedom of choice. To advocate as you do that we should deliberately hide or avoid mentioning exactly the information that would allow potential users to realize that using linux is indeed an option -- well, that is counter-productive and just a really bad idea. It is especially counter-productive when you manage to insult everyone from developers to packagers to end users at the same time. Please stop it.
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FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core" Posted Nov 12, 2010 5:17 UTC (Fri) by lxoliva (subscriber, #40702) [Link]
For clarity, the oppressors are those who deny users their freedoms, i.e., the developers and original distributors of the non-Free Software. I wouldn't quite qualify as oppressors those who feed the aggressors, merely aiding them in capturing victims. If it seemed like I did, I apologize for the lack of clarity.
I don't see why the Free Software community should help and encourage users to use a non-Free kernel that induces them to install and use more non-Free Software, whose dependence on non-Free Software is growing faster than its Free core, and whose lead developer is proud of not being a member of the Free Software community, and despiteful to our social and ethical values while at that.
Choosing between non-Free systems is choice, but it's not freedom.
FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core" Posted Nov 12, 2010 5:49 UTC (Fri) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link] Choosing between non-Free systems is choice, but it's not freedom.Nice aphorism. And now you have specifically relegated linux to that category, and castigated Linus for having the temerity to disagree with you. At the end of the road to ideological purity down which you are headed, there will be no useful systems left that are sufficiently pure to meet your peculiar definition of "free". At that point freedom will be just another word for nothing left to choose*. I hope you are happy when you reach that dead end, but I shall not join you there.
*which is not quite the way Dylan said it, but makes at least as much sense :-)
FSFLA: Linux kernel is "open core" Posted Nov 12, 2010 6:55 UTC (Fri) by lxoliva (subscriber, #40702) [Link]
Whereas at the end of the road which you appear to be defending, there won't even be systems left that meet *your* definition of free any more.
I'd rather use whatever freedom and power of choice I have now to try to avert this course. I wish you would, too.
If we give up our freedom without a fight, we'll end up without it. If we fight for it, there's a chance we retain whatever we still have, and even gain back some of what we've already lost. I'd rather fight and risk failing than give it up and be certain of ending up without it.
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