Re: [Fsuk-manchester] Manchester Anarchist Bookfair, 7th June 2008

[Lucy]

On 04/06/2008, Dave Page <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 04, 2008 at 07:18:16AM +0100, Lucy wrote:
>
>
> > Also, (prepares for flaming) I'd be unwilling to distribute just
>  > gNewSense CDs - for the target audience I think we'd need a pile of
>  > OpenCDs and a easy-to-use distro like Ubuntu too.
>
>
> I'm going to have to disagree with you here, but hopefully in a
>  respectful way :)
>
>  I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of handing out Ubuntu CDs in the
>  name of free software, and giving people the impression that Ubuntu *is*
>  free software. This misconception is difficult enough to counter among
>  people who are aware of the intricacies of free software.

I think you make some good points. However, I think that Ubuntu does
more than most distros to make their users aware of when they are
using proprietary software. I'm thinking mainly of the driver manager,
which warns the user when they are using non-free drivers and informs
them of the implications.

>
>  Now, if you were to hand someone an Ubuntu CD while saying something
>  like "Ubuntu is a popular GNU/Linux distribution which contains mostly
>  free software, but with some proprietary software to improve
>  hardware compatiability", I'd have a lot less of a problem with it. If
>  we were burning our own CDs, we could even put that on the label or
>  envelope.

I wouldn't be against informing users of this where appropriate and
giving them the choice of Ubuntu or gNewSense. However, I wouldn't
recommend gNewSense to a new user, as I believe the lack of hardware
compatibility and lack of flash would prevent them from using it.

>
>  I get the impresion that people think that gNewSense is likely to "fail"
>  on a wide variety of hardware, and that Ubuntu is hence better to
>  distribute. I'm not sure how valid that claim is - I've downloaded a
>  gNewSense CD to try on my own systems, but haven't had time to
>  experiment with it yet.

I've also downloaded it but not tried it. Also, I would not run it as
my main operating system because I need the proprietary ATI gfx driver
and Sun's Java5. Again, I wouldn't want to recommend to a new user
something that I wouldn't use myself. I think it's better to give them
a 90% free software OS with a better chance of working than a 100%
free OS. This makes me sad, but I'd rather complain to the hardware
manufacturers than give a user a broken system and in doing so a bad
impression of free software.