2007/6/1, Kenneth Gonsalves lawgon@au-kbc.org:
this is pure BS. No one migrates to foss/linux because of freedom. They migrate because it works. The guys who are mouthing off about freedom have been struggling for 20 years to build a kernel
They are still struggling because Freedom is not the primary motivation. When Linux, the kernel filled the last main component for a complete Free Operating System, the biggest motivation -- Freedom -- is gone, and now the driving force for Hurd is a technically superior kernel replacement that the current operating system research recommends -- micro kernel design. Again that supports my argument -- there are people who develop (may not be end users but I look at the entire community of users and developers) because Freedom is important.
We didn't give up until java was completely Free. What do you think was the drive behind gcj, classpath, kaffe, cacao, jamvm ... when java was available free or cost and it worked?
When flashplayer is available for free of cost and it works and it even comes by default in many GNU/Linux distribution why gnash and swfdec?
Why people develop Free Software replacement for PDF viewers when Adobe gives acrobat reader Free of cost? Doesn't it work?
Same for 3D drivers for ATI, NVIDIA....
GNOME was started because QT wasn't free, you look back and you can see there are people who value Freedom and don't use GNU/Linux because it just works.
I didn't just mean just the end users, I meant the entire Free and Open Source community when I said there are people who care about Freedom and we reached this far because of their efforts.