[Wylug-discuss] Wylug-discuss Digest, Vol 66, Issue 3

[Christopher Brown]

On 16 September 2010 22:33, Simon Whiteley <simon at diesel1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> On Thursday 16 September 2010 13:00:01 wylug-discuss-request at wylug.org.uk
> wrote:
>> The Free Software Foundation Europe started a new campaign this week to
>> expose  the frequency with which governments advertise non-Free PDF reader
>> software applications [1].
>>
>> As part of this campaign, we have written a petition [2] which we will
>> send along with an explanatory letter to offending institutions, explaining
>> why  they should stop these practices and link to Free Software programs
>> instead [3].
>>
>> If you support the campaign, please spread the word about it, and help us
>> to  gather as many reports and signatures as we can on the pages linked
>> below.
>>
>> Kind Regards,
>>
>> Sam Tuke - Free Software Foundation Europe
>>
>> 1. http://www.fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/
>> 2. http://www.fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/petition.en.html
>> 3. http://pdfreaders.org/
>
>
> This kind of 'commercial product placement' by publicly funded organisations
> is fundamentaly wrong.  Unless GNU/Linux and other alternative software is
> given the same kind of promotion, particularly when needing to open such
> documents, we will further entrech the mindset of 'Microsoft is computers'.
>
> I signed immediately and urge everyone who reads this list to sign and ask
> anyone they know to do the same.

I thought this new PDF reader crusade was a joke the first time I read
it but then of course its backed by the FSFE who appear to be even
less in touch with reality than the FSF.

Take a straw poll of people faced with a pdf file they don't have the
reader for - I think you'll find an overwhelming majority of people
just want to open it and couldn't give two hoots about how they do it.

"The download pages referred to will provide source code, should you
desire to build the software."

Yes, I'd absolutely love to do that. After all, I have all the time in
the world and wish to replicate the effort put in by package
management people the world over. </sarcasm>

Seriously, the FSF people need to spend just one day in the real
world. Give people what they want and then discuss the pros/cons of
proprietary software.

How about a link in the software's About menu? Something diametrically
opposite to the Microsoft "Is this software legal?". How about "Truly
Free Software!".

Ugh. This is just a Gnuisance.


-- 
Christopher Brown