29 Nov
2002
29 Nov
'02
6:27 p.m.
I think there is some point in what Tarun says. He has presented it at a
forum of FSF where he should be concerned about the problems involved in
promoting Free Software than about praising it.
Why do we face problems when we try to convince others about using Free
Software? I think we have to see that a lot of people are more concerned
about the ease of use than about the philosophy. While spreading the
philosophy is important, it becomes equally important to get more people
to use Free Software. Otherwise proprietary software is going to
dominate. And why should we try to convince people to use Free Software
if we are not bothered about how many people use it? We could be content
with talking about Freedom and leaving the decision on the kind of
software to use to the people.
Having said that, I do not mean that Free Software is significantly more
difficult to use. Having moved from Windows to Gnu/Linux only about a
year back, I know that there are several points in favour of Gnu/Linux.
But there still remain several things that could easily put off a new
user. For instance, let us take the case of a word processor. OpenOffice
is as good as any other. But it takes a lot of time to open. A person
who has been using MS Office or Lotus WordPro or WordPerfect would find
this rather irritating. It should be possible to fix this up. AbiWord is
shaping up very well and could be a good replacement. For scientific
purposes, I am sure that Gnu/Linux offers a much better features.
In spite of all this, there is sufficient reason to take the trouble of
using only Free Software - when we consider the ideology. So, I feel, if
we have to make an impact, we have to look at both aspects - philosophy
and user-friendliness (or whatever one may want to call it). So, I think
we should take what Tarun has to say as an introspection rather than as
a criticism.
V. Sasi Kumar
On Fri, 2002-11-29 at 16:21, Tarun Gaur wrote:
Hi Ajith,
By the likes of it, it seems that you are quite senior to me when it comes
to the industry. As far as linux goes, i think i am my self a sort of
vetran. Now, I totally agree with you that criticism alone cannot improve
things. But friend , the ideology is based on how well it can be accepted by
the masses and anything inferior is not generally accepted ( though we may
quote exceptions, but remember exceptions are always in minority ). Now
"inferior" is a relative term. Something that may not be inferior at BARC
(for scientists) may be inferior for the masses (because the needs are
different).
I have never doubted our ability to write wonderful software. But we have
ignored the "interfaces" for the masses for too long. I am sure Richard
Stallman agrees.
Now, you have yourself mentioned that FSF is currently worrying about
helping school children take on GNU/Linux. Now, lets just for a moment pause
and ponder over the needs of these kids and put our software on test. Now
lets forget the problems, lets try and find answers.
As far as the ideology goes, it is spreading and will spread even more the
moment we start touching the masses. Projects like Gnome and KDE have taken
giant strides in the direction. But there is scope of improvement.
Now, to put this point thru i need help of people like you to endorse the
fact that we need to improve the interfaces, we need to consolidate the
services on GNU/Linux, we need to simplify the structure etc and believe me,
we are all set to push Microsoft software to a corner if not oblivion.
Look at the current scenario,
- microsoft is in a transition phase
- We are real good at Server side solutions
- They are consolidating their servers
- We are working on GUIs
Now, we know it is peanuts for people to write Desktop versions of Operating
System who are good at Enterprise Servers. Desktops touch the masses and
this world belongs to masses as masses are in MAJORITY.
Now friends, Let us all contribute. Let us do our bits and be sure we will
reign supreme. A Dream of an ideology reigning supreme is not that bad after
all.
Free software for the brave GNU World.
With regards,
Tarun Gaur
From: Ajith Kumar <ajith(a)nsc.ernet.in>
To: Tarun Gaur <gaur_tarun(a)hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Fsf-friends] Read Richard Stallman's mail
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 14:33:13 +0530
Tarun Gaur wrote:
_________________________________________________________________
Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online
http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963
_______________________________________________
Fsf-friends mailing list
Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in
http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends
Hi Mr. Ajith
I am shocked at the way you have interpreted my quest for ever
improvement.
According to your interpretation, all the CRITICS
carry some kind of
infiriority complex ? Brother, i am just asking all my friends to
improve. I
will quote Richard Stallman's mail posted on
fsf-friends, where he says
that
common user has to be taken serious care of.
First of all i am not an FSF member. I have used GNU/Linux for
applications
like
particle accelerator control and physics experiments. Nuclear Science
Centre's
control system runs on a network of 6 machines , 24 hours 365 days and I am
yet
to see a
'hanging' OS , running redhat 5.2 distro. I developed it 5 years ago.
We have a Data Acquisition System that is fastest among the other labs
like
BARC etc.,
done in Linux. Almost the entire organization uses it for communication,
office work etc.
I know that it is not perfect. I myself face a lot of problems when try to
convince people to
use it. I had a talk with RMS when he visited NSC in March. He asked me to
give more stress
on spreading the ideology than trying to get more people just using Free
Software.
I spend a lot of time and energy to help schools to use GNU/Linux.
The point is we should not project weaknesses alone, the stregths also
should
be projected at the
same time.
As far as I know FSF is mainly worrying about how to get the schools in
Kerala to use Free Software.
with regards
Ajith