Re: [Fsfe-uk] Mac OS X refund

[Kevin Donnelly]

On Thursday 24 January 2008 11:26, Andrew Savory wrote:
> On 1/22/08, Kevin Donnelly <address@hidden> wrote:
> > Ah, I understand now.  You're a bit like an 18th-century liberal
> > espousing universal suffrage, but not for the lower classes, women or
> > blacks.  I still don't see how the zealotry of insisting that closed
> > software should still have a privileged position in the landscape wins
> > out over the pragmatism of advocating the benefits of free software (eg
> > access to your own data), but that's a circle for you to square.  I find
> > it hard to believe that the time or useability advantages are all on one
> > side, however.
>
> Wow ... that's quite a leap. From "not hardline enough to be Free
> Software" to racist, chauvinist supremacist? You, sir, are a master of
> reductio ad absurdum.

Hmm - not really.  You want things to change, but only a little bit.  
Justifying this by suggesting it's what every "pragmatic" person should want 
does smack of the zealot to me ....

> > I never mentioned Al Gore - I had in mind the common or garden business
> > person, in fact.  Their message would certainly be weakened ... if it
> > were sincere to begin with, of course.
>
> Well, replace Al Gore with anyone doing particularly good works for
> the environment.

That's my point - for the average business person to emote about global 
warming and then do little about it in practice could be seen as 
hypocritical.

> I am not claiming that Free Software is 100% suitable for "prime time"
> on the desktop, so I don't think that using a proprietary OS is
> hypocritical.

I don't think anyone is claiming that - the question is whether we should be 
making it easier or less easy for closed software to retain a 
privileged position in the marketplace.

I do wonder whether the advice you are giving to customers about the Linux 
desktop (for instance) is not a couple of years out of date - only this week 
Nortel was reported (http://www.mbtmag.com/articleXml/LN731846314.html) to be 
looking at switching to a Linux desktop (though I doubt it will go ahead with 
the switch), and there are many other examples.  Are such companies completely
misguided?

-- 
Pob hwyl / Best wishes

Kevin Donnelly

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