[Liverpool] New FSFE Free PDF Readers Campaign

[Sebastian]

On 09/16/2010 09:04 PM, Richard Smedley wrote:
> On 16/09/10 20:31, Sebastian wrote:
>> If some people who make software want to be a pain in the arse, or
>> become exceedingly rich out of it - I say let them. At least that's my
>> interpretation of freedom. As long as they also let us have Open Source
>> software (and don't try to stop us), and people are not taking credit
>> for other people's work - that's fine with me.
> [ snip ]
>> I not only want to be free, I also want to be left to my own devices. I
>> am not against aggressive marketing, mind control and disinformation,
>> just so that I can get preached to, proselytised, and bombarded with
>> 'campaigns' from the opposite end of the idealogical spectrum.
>
> While you make a fair point about freedom and live-and-let-live,
> this thread is about *government* promoting proprietary
> software before Free Software.

I would have agreed more - if they would have lobbied the government(s) 
to include alternatives in their recommendation - not to *remove* 
completely the proprietary software. For pete's sake - we are actually 
talking about a piece of software which costs nothing - it shows exactly 
that sort of fundamentalist, "let's push our principles even when they 
are not exactly relevant" type of attitude I was talking about.

>
> While people are free to license their own software in any
> way they choose, government hold *our* money, and must
> use it responsibly

And our money would be better served if the government stops 
recommending a piece of software which costs nothing - and starts 
recommending another one that costs nothing? I'm not quite following the 
financial sense here.

One of the important points here is that, practically speaking, as the 
pdf standard got extended, and Adobe Reader kept on adding all sorts of 
(for good or for worse) functionality - other pdf readers are not a 
simple drop-in replacement for Adobe Reader for a variety of documents 
which use Javascript, encryption and other nonsensical wizardry. So just 
using something else instead of Adobe Reader for all sorts of forms used 
by the government would create a support mess in plenty of cases. That's 
surely going to increase the tax payers' bill, not decrease it.

If they would have pushed for further standardisation of the pdf format, 
including Javascript support, encryption and anything else that is in 
the way - so that there is no pdf file out there which can't be 
interpreted correctly by any fully compliant pdf software - I would have 
actually thought they live on planet Earth - and not on "I live in my 
own tree house and the rest of the world revolves around my ideals" land.

Sebastian

[well, that's the theory - it's not happened
> yet :-/ ]
>
>   - Richard "Don't blame me, I vote Monster Raving Loony" Smedley
>
>
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