[BadVista Advocate] Ubuntu?

[Michael Fötsch]

John Sullivan wrote:
> So while people "on the ground" might help other people switch away from Vista
> by installing a variety of distributions, let's keep the official message of
> the campaign clear by only recommending the fully free ones like gNewSense. 

I find the question whether binary drivers are okay or not extremely difficult to answer. When I switched to GNU/Linux a few years ago, I didn't think about it twice when I installed the nVidia driver, Flash, RealPlayer, VMWare with Windows on it, ... It just helped me make the switch, and I didn't know any better.

A few years and what must have been hundreds of Stallman essays later, I'm using only free software, and I try to advocate it in this way.

Still, I don't feel bad about recommending Ubuntu to new GNU/Linux users. The thing is, they wouldn't switch if, say, they can't use the Internet anymore because their wi-fi device isn't supported. Once I have a chance to tell them about the issue, they'll even know why they should buy a different wi-fi device next time. But in the meantime, none of us would tell these people, "Bad luck. No GNU for you, you loooser!"

So, in my opinion, it's not evil to recommend Ubuntu. Ubuntu isn't evil. Users who can't (yet) do without  proprietary software aren't evil.


But exactly *because* this question has no easy answer (except the dogmatic ones), and there are so many gray areas, promoting only free distributions isn't only the *right* thing to do, it's also the *easiest* way to go. Otherwise, we'd find it extremely difficult to settle on a common definition of what is and is not acceptable.

Anyway, I don't consider it a particularly strong message to say, "Don't use proprietary Vista. Use GNU/Linux, we have proprietary drivers too."

Kind Regards,
M.F.





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