Re: [Fsuk-manchester] Ubuntu begginers guide, reply

[MJ Ray]

Pete Morris wrote: [...]
> I used to go to quite a lot of the free software meetings, but I got
> increasingly fed up of being told I was a bad person simply because
> I (to borrow a good example) wanted my home wifi to work. I know
> others who say the same. 

I doubt that a lot.  I think it's views like this being put forward
and claimed as from the mainstream which gives advocates of the
mainstream such a bad name in some free software groups.  It's so far
from what most groups experience.  It doesn't reconcile anything.  It
doesn't convince anyone.  It just drives the wedge in further.  It's
not helpful.

I don't know the situation, but I suspect it should be "wanted my home
wifi to work without buying compatible hardware" or "without
installing awkward extra third-party drivers" or something like that.
It's been pretty trivial for years to get wifi to work by swapping to
good hardware.  I further suspect it was that someone suggested
Pete Morris was being foolish or naive, rather than "a bad person".

> [...] Sometimes free software groups can be like religious
> zealots rather than empowering, preaching fire and brimstone to
> people who want the most simple (and reasonable) of things.

Yes, making wifi drivers is most simple(!)  So why didn't you just
write the drivers for your home wifi if there weren't any?

> Do you know what I like most about my Maverick installation? The
> desktop background it came with. It's as petty as that. I really
> like the colours and the lens flare, and I think it looks pretty
> cool. After that, my next favourite thing is the software centre,
> because it makes it easy to install new programs without having to
> hunt around on Google. "The right to modify the source code" comes
> somewhere low down the list near the bottom I'm afraid. Sorry to
> shatter any illusions or break any hearts.

But "The right to modify the source code" is what gives you those
other things, ultimately.  It's a shame some haven't realised that.
Compare it to the latest Windows7 I saw, where the admin can't even
change the desktop background!

There's this great talk from a conference I was at recently which I
think shows how the freedoms are relevant to a fairly non-techie
community http://blip.tv/file/4411674

Hope that helps,
-- 
MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op.
Webmaster, Debian Developer, Past Koha RM, statistician, former lecturer.
In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
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