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

[Simon Ward]

On Wed, Jun 04, 2008 at 03:39:04PM +0100, Lucy wrote:
> I'm not comfortable asking a non-technical user to make sacrifices
> with wireless, flash and 3d, etc. I would rather try to convince the
> manufacturers to make free drivers instead (and get the new users to
> do the same).

This echoes Aq’s sentiment of “don’t bollock the user”, which I partly
agree with.

However, when you’re distributing something in the name of free
software, it should be free.  Having people only use free software, and
educating them to get hardware that works—it’s the hardware that doesn’t
work, not the free software—should make hardware vendors more aware.

For hardware vendors, with the aim of making money, there’s no money in
making their software free if everyone just uses their non‐free drivers
anyway.  Making them realise they are losing sales because their drivers
are non‐free is a good way to get them to provide free ones.

Simon
-- 
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a
simple system that works.—John Gall

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