[YLUG] Install practice results

[Ewan Mac Mahon]

On Sun, Oct 22, 2006 at 10:21:34PM +0100, Pete Fenelon wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 22, 2006 at 10:04:40PM +0100, Arthur Clune wrote:
> > 
> > You'll lose more friends from 'flash/mp3 doesn't work' than from the
> > 'proprietary stuff has no place in linux' lot. The latter group are
> > probably capable of doing their own install for starters.
> > 
> 
> Absolutely. Zealotry isn't going to convert anyone away from
> entirely-proprietary systems.
On the other hand allowing all the important stuff to be locked up in
proprietary layers on top of a free kernel doesn't help users enjoy the
freedom they ought to.

> A measure of pragmatism is needed. 

> I would hazard a guess that far more users are interested in software
> that's free-as-in-beer than free-as-in-speech.
>
I would think that more users /think/ they are. IME the practical
advantages of freedom are things people tend not to recognise until
they've experienced them. People who'se previous experience is
overwhelmingly of one single system tend to assume that anything it does
is simply 'the way things are'. When they see that actually, things
don't have to be that way, and all the bad stuff was something that was
deliberately done to them they can get quite upset.

However, on a practical note, I don't think they'll get the experience
of freedom they need if we send them screaming back to Windows because
we broke the web by not installing Flash etc.

Also - Flash 9; I think not, but has anyone actually tried it? It's not
as if the 'stable' Flash 7 is all that good in the first place. 


Ewan
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