"Irish Free Software developers Brian Brazil and Paul O'Malley have developed a new distribution, appropriately named gNewSense. Made with the philosophy of Debian and the structure of Ubuntu, it aims to be the freest distribution out there. It's so 'free', that it earned an official endorsement from the Free Software Foundation. Linux Online is grateful to Messrs. Brazil and O'Malley for taking time out of their busy schedules to answer a few questions about their project."
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-07-09
Member since:2005-07-24
"""or you would have seen that it is the politics of free software that has gotten it this far."""
No. It was a lot of hard work, good technical judgement, and an array of good licenses, the GPLv2 being one of those. A particularly important one, in fact, and I give RMS credit for that much.
But that contribution is from a very long time ago. In recent times, Richard has done more harm than good to his cause. Fortunately, these days, his influence has lessened.
Edited 2006-12-21 18:51
Member since:2006-09-19
Your objectivity and lack of bias must be in the shop too or you would have seen that it is the politics of free software that has gotten it this far.
You're both right, but he is more practical in seeing that just politics, no matter how rightous, is not enough.
People need to be able to use their hardware and the content that the rest of the world uses.
Try to tell a teenager that he can't play his mp3 music or use doc, powerpoint files that he needs for school work, or chat with friends on MSN because it's all non-free and proprietory stuff, and you have an instant war at home.
Politics is a good foundation but has to be implemented with good tools.
So software like Openoffice.org and Firefox have been as important contributions to the FSF philosophy as the politics that preceeded.
And that's why distros like GNUSense will go absolutely nowhere and are a complete and utter waste of resources.
It realy is just a political statement and a very hollow one at that. At least without providing tools to supplement non-free ones.
If you want people to fight for your cause you have to feed them. Starving them will not bring them to your side.
Member since:2006-06-19
Member since:2005-07-24
Member since:2005-11-02
GNUSense will be about as successful as The Hurd. And for the same reasons.
Software projects that make technical decisions for political reasons will never be able to compete with software projects which base technical decisions upon technical rationale.
The problem with the Hurd is that they based their technical decisions on a technical rationale - they just had the wrong technical rationale.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:
2005-07-24
My crystal ball is in the shop this week.
But as least I can still point out the very obvious.
GNUSense will be about as successful as The Hurd. And for the same reasons.
Software projects that make technical decisions for political reasons will never be able to compete with software projects which base technical decisions upon technical rationale.
The success that OSS has seen has not been due to political appeal, but due to real and practical advantages in the areas in which it has seen that success.
RMS and the FSF seem totally oblivious to this fact, and they seem unable to learn from their *own* history, repeating the same mistakes over again,and then having the audacity to claim credit for what others, with a better sense of reality, have accomplished.
Please forgive me for despising RMS and the FSF, and for laughing at their continued antics.
Edited 2006-12-21 18:23