Comments on: Freedom for the short-term or the long-term? http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/freedom-for-the-short-term-or-the-long-term/ Random musings from the radical feminist Christian antiracist left - some having to do with Ubuntu Tue, 16 Mar 2010 12:36:39 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: tytycoon http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/freedom-for-the-short-term-or-the-long-term/comment-page-1/#comment-3513 tytycoon Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:07:58 +0000 http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/?p=632#comment-3513 Petar, the link to your blog is broken. Here's a Google cache of Petar's blog for those who want to read it:: http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:http://blog.petarpetrovic.com/ Petar, the link to your blog is broken. Here’s a Google cache of Petar’s blog for those who want to read it:: http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:http://blog.petarpetrovic.com/

]]> By: Jeffery http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/freedom-for-the-short-term-or-the-long-term/comment-page-1/#comment-3009 Jeffery Tue, 07 Oct 2008 23:31:44 +0000 http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/?p=632#comment-3009 As for .docx, OpenOffice.org 3.0 can read and write it, and I believe it's at least a release candidate now. As for .docx, OpenOffice.org 3.0 can read and write it, and I believe it’s at least a release candidate now.

]]> By: Petar Petrovic http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/freedom-for-the-short-term-or-the-long-term/comment-page-1/#comment-2013 Petar Petrovic Fri, 15 Aug 2008 18:20:41 +0000 http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/?p=632#comment-2013 As I said in my first comment, this post inspired me to write something similar. So here it is: http://blog.petarpetrovic.com/2008/08/temporary-drawbacks-of-complete-software-freedom/ As I said in my first comment, this post inspired me to write something similar. So here it is: http://blog.petarpetrovic.com/2008/08/temporary-drawbacks-of-complete-software-freedom/

]]> By: Mikko http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/freedom-for-the-short-term-or-the-long-term/comment-page-1/#comment-2007 Mikko Fri, 15 Aug 2008 08:48:00 +0000 http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/?p=632#comment-2007 I'm starting to think about new radically free distribution (or a Linux website) called MarxOS. It might be enough to disturb some users :-) I’m starting to think about new radically free distribution (or a Linux website) called MarxOS. It might be enough to disturb some users :-)

]]> By: Adam http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/freedom-for-the-short-term-or-the-long-term/comment-page-1/#comment-1994 Adam Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:46:20 +0000 http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/?p=632#comment-1994 I think the fact that we have been running Ubuntu since April 2007 and solely running it since June this year and haven't been unable to open or view anything we wanted to, says a lot for how far along this path we have come. In fact this past spring, when we still had one PC running Windows XP, there were times when we had to use our Ubuntu PC to open some obscure files sent to us because Windows couldn't do it. The Gnome text editor, gEdit can open almost any format document that uses text! I think the fact that we have been running Ubuntu since April 2007 and solely running it since June this year and haven’t been unable to open or view anything we wanted to, says a lot for how far along this path we have come.

In fact this past spring, when we still had one PC running Windows XP, there were times when we had to use our Ubuntu PC to open some obscure files sent to us because Windows couldn’t do it. The Gnome text editor, gEdit can open almost any format document that uses text!

]]> By: Scott http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/freedom-for-the-short-term-or-the-long-term/comment-page-1/#comment-1993 Scott Thu, 14 Aug 2008 04:02:27 +0000 http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/?p=632#comment-1993 Why not dual-boot? Or virtualize? Hard-drive space is cheap, like $1/GB, you can have the best of both worlds. Long term freedom of basing your computer off an open-source OS, and short term freedom of booting a proprietary one once in a while to play proprietary files. Almost every computer company in the world includes a proprietary OS with their products, why not use it? I agree with Petar above, given to how tough proprietary codecs used to be to get on linux, in comparison with where they are now, I think the same progress toward interoperability will happen in the future. Oh, and for your wife's TBS video, VLC ( http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ ) can play windows media, runs on windows/mac/*nix, and I think firefox can even embed VLC to play videos (check the preferences). If all else fails, you can set it to save the file to your computer, and play it with VLC there. That does suck about OOXML though, and I agree, .docx is the dumbest idea I've ever heard. .doc works perfectly fine, and you can even enable saving it as default in 2k7. Why not dual-boot? Or virtualize? Hard-drive space is cheap, like $1/GB, you can have the best of both worlds. Long term freedom of basing your computer off an open-source OS, and short term freedom of booting a proprietary one once in a while to play proprietary files. Almost every computer company in the world includes a proprietary OS with their products, why not use it? I agree with Petar above, given to how tough proprietary codecs used to be to get on linux, in comparison with where they are now, I think the same progress toward interoperability will happen in the future.

Oh, and for your wife’s TBS video, VLC ( http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ ) can play windows media, runs on windows/mac/*nix, and I think firefox can even embed VLC to play videos (check the preferences). If all else fails, you can set it to save the file to your computer, and play it with VLC there.

That does suck about OOXML though, and I agree, .docx is the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard. .doc works perfectly fine, and you can even enable saving it as default in 2k7.

]]> By: themcp http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/freedom-for-the-short-term-or-the-long-term/comment-page-1/#comment-1992 themcp Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:14:03 +0000 http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/?p=632#comment-1992 at my office, we once received a visit from a very angry Richard Stallman because we published a book with a cd-rom of GPL software but didn't print the entire GPL in the back of the book (we did put it on the CD). no real point to this, i just love that it happened. i believe in software freedom, but i am aware that the argument is difficult to make to the average user. it is my hope that the increased use of DRM and the resulting nested incompatibilities that creates will slowly drive people to recognize the superiority of open formats. at my office, we once received a visit from a very angry Richard Stallman because we published a book with a cd-rom of GPL software but didn’t print the entire GPL in the back of the book (we did put it on the CD). no real point to this, i just love that it happened.

i believe in software freedom, but i am aware that the argument is difficult to make to the average user. it is my hope that the increased use of DRM and the resulting nested incompatibilities that creates will slowly drive people to recognize the superiority of open formats.

]]> By: Petar Petrovic http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/freedom-for-the-short-term-or-the-long-term/comment-page-1/#comment-1989 Petar Petrovic Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:32:05 +0000 http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/?p=632#comment-1989 You're completely right and I totally agree with you on this one. But you've probably read the legendary article titled "Windows is not Linux" and there's a section where it says that Linux was created by people to satisfy their individual needs, and they didn't care for others. Hey, I remember that I was unable to play even .ogg files on Linux back in 2000. Back then, you would need to install loads of software and spend hours and hours in the terminal to make it play .ogg files, not to mention .wma or .mp3. Nowadays, however, I can play all of those files with very little or no intervention on my side, because people saw a need to play those files on Linux. My point is, if more and more people keep using open formats, eventually all big corporations will give up on their proprietary ones and just switch to open formats. I know that sounds impossible now, but in the long term, that makes sense, even if that won't turn out to be true in the next 100 years. Oh, well, now you've inspired me to write a post about this on my blog :D You’re completely right and I totally agree with you on this one. But you’ve probably read the legendary article titled “Windows is not Linux” and there’s a section where it says that Linux was created by people to satisfy their individual needs, and they didn’t care for others. Hey, I remember that I was unable to play even .ogg files on Linux back in 2000. Back then, you would need to install loads of software and spend hours and hours in the terminal to make it play .ogg files, not to mention .wma or .mp3.
Nowadays, however, I can play all of those files with very little or no intervention on my side, because people saw a need to play those files on Linux. My point is, if more and more people keep using open formats, eventually all big corporations will give up on their proprietary ones and just switch to open formats. I know that sounds impossible now, but in the long term, that makes sense, even if that won’t turn out to be true in the next 100 years.
Oh, well, now you’ve inspired me to write a post about this on my blog :D

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