Re: [edlug] Stallman's talk

[James Eaton-Lee <james@xxx.xxx.xxx>]

As someone who works indirectly with charities (and has had involved
them before), it really depends upon what view you have precisely of
intention - without getting overly philosophical, it depends loosely
upon whether you're looking at an action itself or the consequences as a
measure of value.. 

If you're looking at the act in itself, you might conclude that
charities shouldn't ever use Microsoft products in their work - and the
consequence would be that very few charities ever made any money. At
all. For a charity which has a small office and a few employees all of
whom are working full time to make money for other people, there simply
isn't the money to train or hire someone competant in *all* of the
fields which they require to administer a set of linux machines to
handle all of their needs: the average small to medium charity office
requires:

i) E-mail
ii) Webhosting (locally or remotely)
iii) Database (access or mssql)
iv) Office packages
v) filesharing amongst the office machines
vi) authentication and logon services
vii) internet connection sharing (dhcp/router)

SBS (Small Business Server) does all of these things - and does it well,
in a manner which is relatively simple to administer for a layperson.
Utilising linux, on the other hand (since I think I'm right in saying
that at the present time, there aren't any boxed solutions which (a la
smoothwall for internet connection sharing) do all of these things. They
could happily use openoffice for their office work, but the majority of
server-related small business applications really need Small Business
Server, and this is one niche in the market which Microsoft have nailed.

On the other hand, if you're looking at the ends (ie. accomplishments)
of peoples' actions, charities almost always make the world a better
place - even if they license a few copies of SBS server and a few
windows 2000 workstations whilst doing it. I would rather Amnesty
International (no particular choice of charity, just one off the top of
my head) exist - and run windows - than not exist at all. This is one
case in which we should endure the lesser of the two evils, because in
this circumstance (as in most), it's better to gradate principles rather
than setting them in stone (and looking in the eyes of everyone sitting
on the fence just as bad as the people in the other camp).

In short, I have no problems with charities using windows, even if I
would prefer (and encourage) them to use linux.

That sounded rather rant-like and got rather long, didn't it? Sorry, I'm
on the train from Glasgow to Edinburgh and I'm replying to e-mail in a
more leisurely fashion than usual ;)

kind regards,

 - James.

On Thu, 2004-05-27 at 17:44, michael calwell wrote:
> Attended the talk today, and enjoyed it. Much as a personally feel I owe 
> to GNU AND Linux , I have a couple of points...
> 
> 1: Assuming that people are fully aware of the issues, are fully aware 
> of the implications of their choices, shouldn't people be free to choose 
> non-free software? That, to my mind, is a basic freedom. Similarly, to 
> write and develop non-free software? IMHO, there's something essentially 
> contradictory in his message that Free Software is innately better than 
> proprietary software, and that you shouldn't develop software along 
> proprietary models. It's like suggesting that you should codeify and 
> enforce Darwinism.
> 
> 2: It's completely throwing the baby out with the bathwater and frankly 
> immoral to suggest to a guy who works for a charity that he shouldn't 
> work for that charity because they happen to use Microsoft Windows. We 
> have to live in the real world and make a crust - we can't all be 
> Richard Stallman and make a good living out of being poor and preaching 
> about Free Software. Furthermore, suggesting that a Free Software 
> advocate can't work for a company that uses proprietary products is like 
> telling a priest that they can't work with sinners. It only compounds 
> the problem.
> 
> 3: He shouldn't have been completely speechless about trends in hardware 
> and lock-in. That's a very, very important issue, and I don't think you 
> claim that you have much to say about the future and direction of 
> computing generally without having a stance on that issue.
> 
> But - you can't fault the guy, he does what it says on the tin. Just 
> like the development model he hates - take it or leave it, but you can't 
> change it.
> 
> -
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> 

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