[Fedora-packaging] Re: supporting closed source operating systems?

[Richard W.M. Jones]

On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 07:30:12PM +0300, Axel Thimm wrote:
> So, when Joe Random starts preparing to use Fedora as a platform for
> building gimp or some other interesting F/LOSS bits for a proprietary
> system that is harming Fedora *Linux* are we really open to this?

It's not at all clear that being able to build Gimp (as an example) is
harming Fedora.

There are at least three cases:

(1) User switches from Photoshop to Gimp (and other free apps) and
eventually, much later asks themselves 'why am I bothering to pay for
this Windows stuff when Linux runs all the same apps I'm now using?'
and they are then able to easily switch to Linux.

(2) User switches from Photoshop to Gimp, but continues using Windows
forever because they simply prefer the 'Start' menu and other Windows
desktop features.

(3) Because the fedora-packaging mailing list has successfully
prevented any free apps from being available for Windows, user is
forced to switch their entire system (all their apps, operating
system, document formats) all at once from proprietary to free.

Which is likely to happen?  No idea.  You could, I guess, devise a
study to see what typical users do.

Rich.

-- 
Richard Jones, Emerging Technologies, Red Hat  http://et.redhat.com/~rjones
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