On Thursday 27 November 2003 17:05, Clinton Goveas wrote:
And coming back to the topic ;) of the FSF and how to get it popularised (or more acceptable) so no one gets the impression that it is "dead". :)
I suppose the website will have to be maintained and updated regularly.
GNU/Linux has it's own momentum and force. Apart from a few in the computing industry who cant see beyond their wallets, everyone who is introduced to GNU/Linux eventually gets the message and slowly starts to use it almost continuosly. This is my personal experience with people who have absolutely no idea what a beast the computer is.
All the negative arguments against libre software are put forward by people who cant figure out how to hoard wealth while we are dishing out stuff for free by the Gigabyte (and making good money too).
The task of convincing governments and organisations is complicated by the fact that there is no one USP for libre software. It is like the sea - everything is good if you know to swim and fish - or bad if you dont. And off course once you teach em to swim and fish they are likely to eat and splash about happily with or without you. Unless you supply good boats and nets and info about new tasty fish. So perish the thought of growing insanely wealthy doing nothing more than standing on the shore peddling dried wormy and virus ridden fish. GNU/Linux has fragmented the market in every possible way. Consequently if you decide on a target market and build a product specific to this market libre software beats the shit out of closed software without even getting sweaty. But if you decide on something wishy washy like Linux for the dektop you are going to face a problem - deciding whose desktop. The engineers desktop is completely different from the school teachers or lawyers or sound engineers. It is a great opportunity for small focused companies targeting specific markets. Take the case of a sound engineers desktop. The cost of closed software runs to more than 1.5 lacs. Does GNU/Linux make sense now. So what does GNU/Linux lack? only our ability to see opportunity. Will one become wealthy selling GNU/Linux yes. But then "wealthy" is a very relative term. It will certainly prevent buccaneers like BG from accumulating insane mounts of money peddeling trash.