[Wylug-discuss] New FSFE Free PDF Readers Campaign

[Tim Medcalf]

Agreed - I can't see how this site (at least in its current form) will
really change anything. John makes some excellent points.

I know this isn't really the point of the campaign by my experience of
promoting FOSS to the unenlightened is that its always been most beneficial
to lead with the "free as in beer" bit first...and once people are sold on
that, move on to the "free as in freedom" point.

When people realise that they don't need to spend a fortune on Photoshop et
al, and can replace it with GIMP, Inkscape and Scribus etc it opens their
eyes and they can begin to appreciate the wider implications of proper
software freedom.

Trying to get Joe Public to forsake an application that doesn't cost
anything with ones that potentially don't work as smoothly/reliably/easily
(or are a lot harder to install) is not going to work IMHO.

Just my £0.02



On 17 September 2010 15:42, Nigel Metheringham <
nigel.metheringham at dev.intechnology.co.uk> wrote:

> Having just looked at the page for the first time I agree with John.
>
> The web sites I manage will not point to pdfreaders.org.
>
> Frankly its a "it can't be good for you unless it hurts" campaign.
>
> And if you are using a Mac you will either use the OS supplied
> Preview application, or you will use Skim (BSD licensed).  Only
> the terminally stupid, deluded, masochists or frothing FSF proponents
> would use any of the packages pointed to from the pdfreaders.org page
> - its just embarrassing.
>
> Thankfully at least one of the Windows downloads appear to be sane
> (Sumatra PDF).
>
> Any of the free operating systems will ship with PDF support in the
> base OS.
>
> If you are using Solaris or similar then all we can do is offer our
> profound sympathy.
>
>        Nigel.
>
> --
> [ Nigel Metheringham             Nigel.Metheringham at InTechnology.com ]
> [ - Comments in this message are my own and not ITO opinion/policy - ]
>
>
>
>
>
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