ESR Advocates Proprietary Software 422
mvdwege writes "Apparently, Eric Raymond has decided that proprietary software is now a good thing, according to The Register. I must say it is rather revealing how easily he is willing to compromise on this particular freedom. Is his earlier vocal proclamation of the importance of freedom (still visible on his homepage) mere posturing? And if so, how about his vocal support of other freedoms?"
GNUpod, gtkpod etc. (Score:5, Informative)
* GNUpod [gnu.org] and gtkpod [gtkpod.org]
* iPod Shuffle Database Builder [sourceforge.net]
And then there's another one with a funky name I cannot remember.
Re:Um.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:GNUpod, gtkpod etc. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:That's not quite what he said. (Score:4, Informative)
What is an acronym, and what is an initialism, depends on how you pronounce it.
NAFTA is an acronym, because you don't pronounce it En-Ay-Eff-Tee-Ay. Same for SONAR and SCUBA.
"The ESR" would be pronounced like The Ee-Ess-Ar. Not an acronym. The ESRB, the NAACP, and OSDN are all initialisms.
Re:Exactly right, this is just todays 'rant' artic (Score:4, Informative)
We can't write free software - but we can get multimedia stuff to work, if we pay for the license to do so. You can get your DVDs to work 'out-of-the-box' on Linux - just use Linspire. People who believe in the ideals behind Free Software won't (including me), but for those that are worried about 'losing the desktop', options are available.
If this was the thing holding Linux back from being a massive success, Linspire would be selling millions of copies. That they aren't says something.
(Note: I wish Linspire all the luck in the world, even though I don't use their product.)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So, allowing proprietary drivers iPod support? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Slashdot's wonderful humor (Score:2, Informative)
Good luck upgrading your kernel or X.org or switching processor architectures if you're using NVidia's binary blob.
Re:Mod This Parent Up !!! (Score:5, Informative)
The FSF is not comissioning any new large scale undertakings at the moment.
This is just blatantly wrong.
What do you call Gnu Flash [gnu.org]? Other projects FSF is directing include Free Bios [fsf.org] and an open 3D Card [sourceforge.net] driver. More projects are listed here [fsf.org]. Just like gcc was needed in the 80s, these are the utilities users need now.
At the risk of being modded for flame bait, I'll also point out that it seems most criticisms of the FSF are based on plain ignorance.
Re:ESR is not associated with Free Software moveme (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Can't wait for Theo's response (Score:1, Informative)
What you need to do is install KDE. KPDF will handle all of your PDF files, and it's a far nicer tool to use than Acrobat Reader. Konqueror on OpenBSD supports the Linux Flash plugin via its Linux emulation layer. Amarok, combined with the audio and video codecs from mplayer, will likely play all of your media files.
If you haven't used KDE in a while, if ever, you really do need to give it a try. It provides all the features that you would expect from a Windows XP desktop, with the stability and speed commonly associated with quality UNIX software.
or not (Score:3, Informative)
And no - to the far more clueless, gnu/linux is not a gnu project. There is a gnu operating system, it is called hurd. The gnu/linux renaming was initially proposed for distributions containing gnu tools, linux and X and was first proposed as LiGnuX - but personally I don't think is should be called gnu/linux unless those who put a distribution together wish to credit gnu in the name as RMS intended.
RTFA, he's not advocating closed-source... (Score:3, Informative)
GJC