On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 8:00 AM, Hector Oron <hector.o...@gmail.com> wrote: >> For any device where the manufacturers try to close it off to hackers, >> we're always going to have to jump through hoops specific to that device >> to get Debian installed. They can easily disable bootloader >> features but on netbooks, maybe they won't: PC makers are used to having >> a BIOS with screens saying "Press F1 to enter Setup". > > It is nice if we can hack manufacturers toys, but if those are > non-free to hackers, why should we "officially" support them?
allow me to tell you a story. around 1998 or 1999 i did my first samba "nt domains" talk, it was i believe at queen mary's, london. audience of maybe 400 people. questions-time came, and someone asked, "we are free software developers. we have openoffice. we have nfs. we have industry-published and open standards. we have all the tools we ever need. why should we bother to even _talk_ to the proprietary windows world?" and everybody clapped. and it was one of the most stark and defining moments that has haunted me ever since. why? the answer is simple: because this person - and the rest of the audience - clearly indicated that they were self-serving technologists. by applausing the questioner, they clearly indicated that they were perfectly happy in their "free/libre" world, and that the rest of the world, who were (and still are) being duped and cartelled into proprietary software could, as far as they were concerned, go to hell in a handbasket. now having spent a significant fraction of my personal money over the past fourteen years breaking various proprietary strangle-holds (the largest of which was nt domains in samba), such that other free software people could take over and maintain at least _some_ way for the average computer user to cross the proprietary / free-libre polarised barrier, you'll excuse me if i perhaps sound a little unhappy at the question you ask. maintaining and developing free software on free/libre/open/opened hardware is easy, and i fully recognise that somebody has to do that (otherwise there's nothing for people on proprietary systems to "cross over" to, is there? :) so the question comes down to this: whom do you serve? do you serve yourself, or do you serve others, who have less skill with computers than yourself? also i think it's worth pointing out something else, which may not have occurred to many people yet. regarding free software vs proprietary: we've won. i'll say that again: the "battle" is over. free software has won. the critical threshold point where awareness has entered peoples' heads, such that free software's prominence and long-term usefulness is guaranteed as _long_ as the core experts continue to get paid full-time (*) to work on the insanely difficult bits, was passed some time in the past eighteen months. (key to that success i think is, much as i don't really like either of them, is android and ubuntu). the reason why awareness of the fact that the "battle" is over is very simple: free software doesn't have a PR or a marketing department, and thank god it never will. that's all i want to say, hector. l. (*) anyone who thinks that free software's critical core components can be done purely by unpaid workers or on a part-time basis is truly deluding themselves. > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-arm-requ...@lists.debian.org > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org > Archive: > http://lists.debian.org/dd0a3d701003050000w275c75ecnf2177e54ec070...@mail.gmail.com > > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-arm-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/ced5f0f61003050518u610fd8aate3e23a63b8377...@mail.gmail.com
