[gNewSense-users] Re: gNewSense-users Digest, Vol 32, Issue 27

[Peter Rock]

If someone says flat out that they are giving up on gNS and going to
Windows for the reasons outlined in the original email, I will tell
them about Ubuntu.

One can characterise "tell" as 'recommendation' or 'promotion' or what
they will and they can throw links to 'community guidelines' while
chastising me all they want - but it won't change my behaviour in such
circumstances. IMO opinion, saying (or implying) "that's too bad for
you that gNS doesn't do what you need and that you value that over
freedom, have fun with Windows" is a disservice to Free Software.

If promoting a non-free distribution of GNU/Linux (no matter what the
circumstances) is really that bad, then rms himself should stop joking
about it with his St. iGNUcius act. Saying things like, "you're in the
Church of Emacs if you install GNU/Linux and a saint in the church if
everything on top of it is free" tells me that even rms himself thinks
it's a *whole* lot better to install something like Ubuntu versus
Windows.

I *get* that non-free software should not be recommended as a general
practice. But I read that for common situations such as -

"Hey folks, I'm new to gNS and I'm trying to get YouTube videos to
play. Any recommendations?"

and it would be wrong to reply, "install Flash!"

but I think telling someone about Ubuntu versus Windows when they have
stated clearly that they are giving up on gNS is an entirely
reasonable way to play that completely different ballgame.