On Sat, Oct 30, 2004 at 07:51:19PM -0500, Jonathan Hutchins wrote:
On Saturday 30 October 2004 06:42 pm, Leo Mauler wrote:
One might as well try to argue that one shouldn't use WINE and WineX in Linux...
Completely different situation. These allow you to use legacy software you already own and already have data in. I found an inexpensive wireless card with a linux driver, at CompUSA. There's no real reason to buy one that's incompatible.
Perhaps a better comparison is to say that one should also refuse to use any piece of hardware for which the source code of the firmware on any kind of on-board ROM device is not free-as-in-free-software free.
That comparison is apt because, so far as I understand, hardware manufacturers are forgoing putting firmware on ROM devices much any more, and instead that firmware is what is being downloaded from the proprietary-only drivers. It's a bit like flashing the ROM of the hardware, but instead of being ROM, it's on-board RAM, and instead of being flashed, it's just loaded up like any other data.
So, under this comparison, one wouldn't be able to use most hardware, including most motherboards. Granted, there are now open source BIOSes available, but I expect only the most extreme are arguing that you shouldn't buy a motherboard unless it comes loaded with one of these or is known to work with them.
Finally, taking this completely to the extreme, one might argue that in order to encourage the industry to shed its proprietary ways, one should only use designs developed by the Open Cores project (http://www.opencores.org) and produced in fabs (are there any) that use only openly-available (those on which all patents have expired?) fab techniques.
Seriously, it's a continuum. It's better to use as much free stuff as you can, but it's more important (or less delusionally ridiculous) to create a market for free stuff than it is to think you're going to make the market for non-free stuff disappear by refusing to buy or use something.