[Pan-users] OT: freedomware vs... Was: Building Pan on Windows?

[Duncan]

Jeremy Elliott posted on Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:57:28 -0800 as excerpted:

> As much as I agree with you in principle, unfortunately most games don't
> work on Linux, so I'm stuck with Windows, since my computer is mostly
> for entertainment purposes.

OT, but FWIW, most games of the sort you're referring to probably aren't 
freedomware, either.

Now I will admit I still play one non-freedomware game, one I'm obviously 
rather addicted to, Master of Orion, original edition (the update I 
remember getting from Microprose says copyright 1993, so the /update/ is 
over a decade and a half old now, and I'm /still/ playing the game), but 
I'm playing it on a Gentoo Linux base, using a self-compiled (from gentoo 
ebuild) DOSBox as the DOS VM, so it's not /entirely/ bad.  Still, I'm not 
particularly proud of it, just honest in admitting it.

But certainly, if it's not freedomware, it's not getting installed on my 
system(s), and that's the only thing.

FWIW, I don't run non-freedomware drivers, either.  Back when I was 
preparing to switch to Linux (2001-ish, not coincidently I upgraded to 
Linux the week eXPrivacy came out), I knew enough to check for Linux 
drivers, but didn't yet understand the distinction between freedomware 
Linux drivers and closed source Linux drivers.  As such, in shopping for a 
graphics card upgrade, I made the mistake of choosing an nVidia card, 
verifying it had Linux drivers and that they handled twinview, but not 
knowing enough to verify the freedomware status.

That's the last time I made /that/ mistake!  Since then, I've always 
bought Radeons for my main machine, and I verified that my netbook ran 
well with 100% freedomware drivers (Intel Atom and pre-poulsbo graphics) 
before I bought it.  In fact, as the Linux version (which I was replacing 
anyway, but wasn't going to pay the MS tax) wasn't made available in the 
US, I had to order it from Canada.  Meanwhile, for quite some time I ran a 
Radeon 9200 (r200 series chip) on my main machine as even tho it was 
dated, it was the best available video card with freedomware drivers for 
some years.  I only recently upgraded, to a Radeon hd4650 (r700 series 
chip), after AMD bought ATI and opened the documentation so open 
development could proceed, and actually, the latest 2.6.33 kernel and a 
brand new beta release xf86-video-ati are required to run it correctly.  
For a few months I was running live git head sources for the xf86-video-
ati driver, as there wasn't yet even a beta release supporting 3D/OpenGL.  
Those on traditional binary distributions are likely still waiting for 
support, which will likely appear for them in the releases due this spring.

But I wouldn't have dumped a decade of familiarity with MS if there wasn't 
a good reason, and I guess I have MS to thank for that "you have to ask us 
for permission to run the software you bought" reason.  Like a defector, 
I've left a lifetime, family and friends behind to escape to a land of 
freedom, and the only way I can ever go back is if that land too, becomes 
a land of freedom.  And just like such a defector, I'm eager to help 
others make the jump as well, when their time comes, but recognize it's a 
decision they must make for themselves, as a lifetime of familiarity and 
convenience isn't a trivial thing to give up, and trying to prematurely 
force the issue only succeeds in a poor integration in the land of 
freedomware once they get here, and possible re-defection back to the land 
of servantware from which they came, or simply migrating between the two 
with no real love or appreciation for the freedom available to them.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman