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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • The FSF’s stance is just based on our current capabilities. Most people still use proprietary operating systems. We are capable of developing free alternatives of non-free programs, even very complicated ones. But it’s not realistic to think that we can currently replace all firmware for any device if we don’t know how it works. The amount of products that have the RYF certificate is already very small. Even Librem 5 didn’t manage to get it. When it becomes easier, I’m sure they will change the requirements or add more levels.

    I’m pretty sure Libreboot contains proprietary firmware now and GNU is planning to develop an actually libre fork. So it’s silly for the developer to criticize the FSF for not being radical enough. It makes me think that the person doesn’t really believe in what they are saying.

    But then the author says they want us to have proprietary firmware packages in our systems. So they want our OSes to be less libre… They even compare not including proprietary firmware to burning books… I stopped reading after that.







  • That is true and the reason for that is not capitalism, of course. Most projects don’t have UI experts and when someone wants to help, devs usually don’t listen. Sometimes there are technical obstacles too (old framework, hardcoded UI), but probably not in web or Electron apps.

    compared to their paid alternative

    Keep in mind that Libre Software can be commercial too, so you really mean proprietary alternatives.







  • So, yeah, sell me on Linux, please.

    Windows has spyware, so that should be enough reason to not use it for someone like you. You will have to spend some time to learn GNU/Linux, but for most office tasks it shouldn’t be difficult, especially if you are good with computers. Most popular distros already come with a PDF viewer and Libre Office, so it should be able to do almost everything you want out of the box. VLC player can play all common video types and is easy to install. Libre Office might have issues with some Word documents though, so you might need to look into that. A web browser (usually Firefox) and probably some email client will be preinstalled as well.

    You might need to check if your printer and scanner will be supported out of the box or if extra drivers from the manufacturer are needed (then check if they are available on their website). I think printers will probably work fine out of the box, but scanners might require extra drivers (this depends on the model - there are models that don’t).

    If you need more motivation, look into the Free Software movement: https://youtu.be/Ag1AKIl_2GM