On Thu, Feb 23, 2006 at 04:58:38AM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 22, 2006 at 07:32:33PM +0100, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> > > > The only instance where wine is serving a purpose without requiring the
> > > > use of non-free code is when you're better off using native Linux
> > > > software anyway.
> > > TurboCASH is a potential counterexample -- it's a complete, functional,
> > > GPLed, Windows-based accounting suite, which hasn't been ported to Linux,
> > > and which is non-trivial to port to Linux.
> > "...when you're better off using native Linux software anyway". I can
> > give you a number of applications, free or otherwise, that will do
> > accounting on Linux.
>
> You can "do accounting" in vi if you want.
Correct, that's how I keep track of who I need to invoice :-)
(though the "real" accounting is done by an accountant who gets paid for
her work)
> It's not terribly pleasant, but it works well for some circumstances.
> Of the free accounting programs available, TurboCASH actually looks
> pretty optimal for a range of circumstances, notably small businesses.
Like I said, there are a number of free applications that allow you to
natively do accounting on Linux. Since Belgian law is rather strict on
those issues, creating free software which would make accounting legal
is rather hard[1], but there are a few applications which will run
perfectly well on Linux and that allow you to legally do your
accounting.
[1] one of the requirements is "the inability to modify stuff after the
fact", which is very hard to meet as a requirement if the source is
out for everyone to view. Yes, I agree that such a requirement
cannot ever technically be met, but it's still there; and without
meeting that requirement according to some committee, you're not
allowed to use that software to do accounting -- at least not if you
don't want to keep a copy on paper of everything.
[...]
> > > I don't know if it actually runs under Wine though.
> > What are we talking about, then? You're claiming that it's okay to keep
> > wine in main because there's this GPL'd application that you've
> > apparently never even tried and which *may* work under wine, while
> > there's a driver for ndiswrapper which is "useless" (hah) that
> > http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net (i.e., the main ndiswrapper website)
> > actually links to?
> >
> > Are you for real?
>
> I'm sorry, I thought we had a chance at an interesting conversation here.
[...]
Sorry, that was indeed demeaning. It wasn't meant that way, but in
hindsight, it was. Apologies.
> But if we're at "Are you for real?" and "Because you're wrong." already,
That second quote was not by me.
My point was that I don't think your reasoning follows logic; your
example in support of wine is about something that may work with wine,
but that you apparently haven't tried yourself; whereas an example in
support of ndiswrapper which is given by the people who wrote
ndiswrapper (and who could reasonably well guess what will run and what
won't) is dismissed because it isn't useful.
It feels like applying to standards to me. But perhaps I'm missing
something?
--
Fun will now commence
-- Seven Of Nine, "Ashes to Ashes", stardate 53679.4
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