Text 50910, 53 rader
Skriven 2008-11-09 19:12:51 av Alan Zisman (1:123/789.0)
  Kommentar till text 50902 av August Abolins (1:123/789.0)
Ärende: Ubuntu 8.10
===================
August Abolins -> Alan Zisman wrote:
 AA> Alan Zisman -> Jean Parrot said the following
 AA>  on 11/9/2008 2:54 PM:

 JP>>>     I salute the persons who code for this OS, so much above my
 AZ>> head and it all works just as good as MS, or very close to it.


 AZ>> And all by volunteers offering their time for a project that's being
 AZ>> given away! (OK-- some significant pieces of code have been added
 AA> to the
 AZ>> project by companies like Sun and IBM, created by paid employees).



 AA> I thought Ubuntu was a GNU project.  Gnu is characterized by
 AA> non-proprietary and free.


Donated code is non-proprietary and free-- however, that doesn't stop
corporations from hiring employees to write code, while being paid, that will
be donated to the project.

Moreover, Ubuntu now makes it easier for users to make use of proprietary
code-- for instance, after installing, it notifies me that there is a
proprietary driver available for my ATI graphics card, and offers to let me
install it with a single click, where before it took more work.

Personally, I think this is a good thing, though the GNU zealots might
disagree. Similarly, I think it's good for Linux distributions to make it easy
for users to play MP3 music files, or watch a variety of free but proprietary
video codices, rather than try and convince them that sticking to open source
formats is the correct way to go.

Reminds me of a food-coop grocery chain I used to shop at when I lived in
Quebec in the 1970s named Coprix. (I don't know if they're still around)...
their stores were large supermarket-sized, and stocked all the stuff you could
find in a standard supermarket, but where standard supermarket managers go to
school to learn how to stock shelves in order to encourage customers to buy
higher-priced and higher-profit brands, they used the same skills to encourage
customers to make the most economical choices. And attached to the shelves for
products like cake mixes, they included recipes to make the same cakes from
scratch- and pointed out both the nutritional and cost advantages of doing
that. I liked their attitude of letting the user choose- but giving them enough
information about alternatives to make an informed choice.

-- 
==================================
- email: alan (at) zisman (dot) ca
- website: http://www.zisman.ca

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