On 02/12/2007, Jonathan Schleifer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Well, it's untrue that you have a choice. For example, in Germany the > tax computation program that companies need runs only on Windows and > they *HAVE* to use it and to send it over the internet using it.
I'm pretty sure that the state forcing companies to use a single vendor's OS in his way is ultimately illegal and/or unconstitutional. If you chose to dig your heels in over this, you could sue the German revenue service and very likely win. But then again, that may be very expensive and time-consuming, regardless of the outcome, so you may chose not to do it -- because it's a royal PITA to do it. Your choice. That said, I heartily encourage ethical civil disobedience whereever legal or administrative travesties are encountered. For instance, I'm a German national myself, and I don't have an ID card, because they have no right to require me to have one (they don't like to admit it, but it's the truth). But they're constantly pestering me to get one, and I keep saying no thanks, I'm fine with my passport (if you don't have an ID card, you have to have a passport, only one of both is required and I chose the less intrusive one). Also, I can't wait till I'm back in Ireland where I no longer need to register my place of residence. When I first left for Ireland, I sent back my German ID card (which I then used to have) in an envelope with no return address -- because they had no right to know my place of residence in Ireland, but the ID card was their property. I had also unregistered at the "Meldeamt", which you can do if moving abroad. I could almost smell the freedom. :) Okay, I digressed. Back to the main topic. > Same for 3D games: You don't have another chance than to use the BLOB > to play them. Not true. You have plenty of other chances. One of my mainboards has a UniChrome Pro onboard graphics chip, and there is a fully free and open source Linux driver for that ( http://www.openchrome.org/ ) and with it, hardware accelerated OpenGL works under Linux. Also, if there aren't fully free and open source graphics drivers for your existing hardware that would allow you to run 3D games, then you can: a) Buy (preferably well-documented) hardware for which free and open source drivers exist. b) Write a free and open source driver for your hardware. (Learn to reverse-engineer and program if necessary.) c) Pay someone to write a free and open source driver for your existing hardware. d) Refuse to play games that require blobs to run. These are all choices. Not all of them are easy or very comfortable or quick choices, but they are choices. Nobody ever suggested that freedom was free. > > > > you kind of promote to > > > > use buggy software (...) by the fact that it is widely > > > > use and as such you can't run something else? > > > This seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable summary of your > > position. > > Not at all. I never promoted the use of BLOBs, I didn't say (and IIRC Daniel didn't say) that you promoted the use of buggy software. We both DID say that you **sort of** promoted the use of buggy software, and I think that's accurate. > I promoted to get rid of them. You repeatedly *proposed* to get rid of them, but actions speak louder than words and you (and I admittedly, I'm ashamed to say) still use some blobs, which is sort of promoting the use of buggy software. > But still I'm forced to use them. No. You're. Not. See above. Your choice. > Same for ICQ: I urge every ICQ > user nearly *DAILY* to switch to Jabber Good. > since the gateway sucks a lot. If the Jabber-ICQ gateway you use didn't suck, would you then no longer urge people to switch? > I even got rid of ICQ once, but too many still wouldn't switch so now I > have it again :(. When you say you "have it again", are you referring to use of the ICQ protocol or software? Pidgin ( http://www.openbsd.org/4.2_packages/i386/pidgin-2.0.1p0-gtkspell.tgz-long.html ) is free and open source and can use the ICQ protocol, so avoiding the ICQ software at least is painless. Avoiding the ICQ protocol is more difficult, I grant you that. But it's your choice to make. > I prefer free software and open standards, but canceling social > contacts because of that is just plain stupid. Back in the days, I would have said that chosing your friends on the basis of whether or not they have a mobile phone is just plain stupid. If your friends won't bother with you unless you sacrifice your PC's security, your money, and your principles, then what good are they? > Most of my real life friends sadly use ICQ and won't switch. I'm glad that I > got a > telephon flatrate now and don't need to use Skype anymore. See? You're paying for a telephone flatrate, so you can easily avoid using Skype. That's a choice right there. And a good one, I dare say. Kudos. > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Are you doing this for non-repudiation? Cheers, --ropers
