On Tue, 30 Sep 2008, Josh Paetzel wrote: > Mike Miller wrote: > >> Taking that analogy a step farther -- Suppose you had a friend who >> wanted to promote vegetarian food, and your friend owned a restaurant. >> You went to your friend's restaurant and saw that he had steak on the >> menu. So you told your friend, "I'm sorry that I cannot recommend your >> restaurant to people because I am trying to promote vegetarianism and >> your menu has steak on it!" Your friend thinks it is important to give >> people options. So you continue -- "Look, I don't mind if you serve >> steak, just take it off of the menu so that most people will order >> veggie dishes." >> >> In the analogy, the restaurant is FreeBSD, the menu is the ports >> system, the steak is a proprietary program and the veggie dishes are >> FOSS programs. > > > What if he had vegetarian dishes on the menu as well as steak? That's what I meant -- both were on the menu. > And believed in giving people the power to choose? You can get a > vegetarian meal here....or you can get a steak. Pick what you want. But they are trying to promote vegetarianism and they don't want pepole to choose meat. Why should they put meat on the menu? > If the vegetarian can't recommend the restaurant then, does he not then > stand in the position of wanting to limit other people's choices? He has meat available and will serve it to people who request it, but he just isn't putting it on the menu. > Sure, the nvidia binary drivers are in the FreeBSD ports tree. No one > is forcing you to use them. You're more than free to use the Xorg open > source nv driver. Where I start to lose tolerance in when you tell me I > can't use the nvidia binary drivers either. Or have to jump through > hoops to use them. Now you're infringing on my right to choose. He is saying that you can use them, but they shouldn't be listed in the ports tree. Maybe that means you have to "jump through hoops" but what he really wants is for free software options to be readily available to you so that you don't have to jump through hoops. By making it just a little bit harder to get the proprietary program, he is encouraging development of free software replacements. > I also have to point out that you seem to consider yourself the only > person who can decide what RMS means when he says things. Anyone else > is demanded to provide "proof" I wasn't demanding proof of what he meant, just proof of what he said. His meaning is always somewhat open to debate, as is the meaning of anything that anyone says. I think I understood what he meant about the FreeBSD ports, but if someone thinks I have it wrong, I'm listening. Mike