-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 On 30/01/13 12:10, Alexey Eromenko wrote: > The Qumble projects intends to teach Windows users the advantages > of Free and Open-Source software The goals in terms of advantages of open source and free software are radically different. Open source promises «better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost [...]»[0], whilst free software promises to «respects users' freedom»[1].
Furthermore, the former frequently fails to deliver on these advantages - -- the latter doesn't. Free software is always free. > by providing collection of such software on a single disc, plus > providing video (such as the Revolution O.S. trailer, in WebM > format) and open-source books (The cathedral and the bazaar and > others). How does any of this promote free software? It promotes a bunch of programs, films and books -- but how does any of this teach the user that they need to value their freedom? > release of source allows external observers to inspect the true > functioning of the program, which means that you can be confident > that the program treats your private data with respect. Can you, really[2]? While it is indeed easier to uncover privacy violations in a program that respects freedom 1 than a proprietary program, it is still entirely possible for a program that is distributed with its source code available to violate user privacy. > [...] entirely free software such as Linux, LibreOffice, and > Mozilla FireFox. These are then available free of charge to schools > or anyone else who may not have a large budget available for > software. So, you can see that the freedom of software is important > for everyone, not just software developers. Price is not the biggest problem of proprietary software -- it is merely a symptom that some proprietary software shows. It is not a symptom of free software, because it has freedom 2. > the highest quality OSS for Windows Why not distribute a live CD or USB, that allows users to run in a much more free environment? Even if it has blobs to make sure wifis etc. work out of the box, it would be a significant improvement over Windows. If it were a live CD or USB, you could even include a list of well known GNU+Linux or free BSD distributions, and maybe a quiz or something that could help people decide which one they should try for themselves. Lastly, your site does a fair job at explaining that freeware and shareware is not good enough, but it does *not* do a good job at explaining free software. In fact, using terminology such as "free of charge" immediately following "free software" is detrimental. You should use "gratis" instead -- or at least make the distinction "free speech, not free beer" more clear. I hope and think that your project does more good than bad for free software, but I wish it were a bit more sagacious. [0] http://opensource.org/about [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html [2] https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/ubuntu-spyware-what-to-do - -- Alexander alexan...@plaimi.net http://plaimi.net/~alexander -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.19 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iF4EAREIAAYFAlEKUQ4ACgkQRtClrXBQc7V5cgEAtW8XIA+vHacKTuigGd3qV48K M7SCVJqDOJEY8JBy7zcA/08h0Cu4uq7xWag8wbOFTLTBIzNo+EaeMNHMmbldhqWg =HdVs -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----