Linux Bling With 100% Free Software
This is a strange song. It was sung first by fans of Linspire. Now it's Ubuntu. The idea is that bundling all manner of proprietry binary drivers and multimedia codecs, and having 3D special-effects-desktops is necessary to further the cause of Free Software. The plan is these will attract huge steaming wads of users. Then when the huge steaming wads of users attain a certain critical mass, somehow all that proprietary guff will become Free, and joy will fill the land.
They are right about one thing- bundling all these things will make Linspire and Ubuntu attractive to more users, because not everyone is interested in free-as-in-freedom, or they have needs that are not met by Free software. So the result will be more people using Linspire and Ubuntu. Where are these users coming from? If they are attracting Windows users and causing them to fling Windows into the burn barrel and never ever use it again, I say huzzah and hurrah! The drinks are on me! If I were Queen of the Internet I would wave my Scepter of Power and kick off every single Windows PC. No exceptions. I'm tired of paying the price for all those trivially-easily-infected machines ruining the Internet and costing the rest of us mass money. I'm tired of Microsoft locking up the market and taking away customer choice. If it weren't for Free and open source software, we would have zero choices. OK, so five flavors of Vista = choice, sorry.
But the details of this plan are vague. How will embracing non-Free code will result in more Free code?
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Non-free software
I think that it's best to stay with free software as much as possible. The proprietary software will probably never become free.