Do you use proprietary software?

Rasi · 2009-12-21 17:51:51

drcouzelis wrote:

Anikom15 wrote:
You need proprietary software to see my avatar.
No, I don't. "giflib" is free software. If you are referring to the patent on LZW compression, that expired in 2004. But patents on file formats are pretty unrelated to the topic of "proprietary software". (unless that's what the original poster actually meant to talk about)
Everyone uses proprietary software
No, they don't. I just said I didn't. Nobody has to if they don't want to. It all depends on your priorities, or in other words, what's important to you.

well my wife is important to me and since we were unable to get psi+jingle running between our computer and her mum's (not even a stunserver helped), we are stuck on skype. Also watching movies on my big tv is kind of important to me, cosy evenings sadly nouveau does not support the tvout of my card, neither does nv, so i am stuck on nvidia.

Apart from that i dont use anything else that isnt free.

Last edited by Rasi (2009-12-21 17:52:17)

JohannesSM64 · 2009-12-21 17:57:32

ewaller wrote:

IIRC, even RMS has recognized a place for it in this world.

Source?

ewaller · 2009-12-21 20:03:45

JohannesSM64 wrote:

Source?

Okay, maybe I did not recall quite so correctly.

From http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html
RMS does give a pass on "Private" software.

In general we do not believe it is wrong to develop a program and not release it. There are occasions when a program is so useful that withholding it from release is treating humanity badly. However, most programs are not that important, so not releasing them is not particularly harmful. Thus, there is no conflict between the development of private or custom software and the principles of the free software movement.

They define private as a subclass of proprietary. Admittedly, this is not what we are talking about.

He does define one valid use of proprietary software:

The Free Software Foundation follows the rule that we cannot install any proprietary program on our computers except temporarily for the specific purpose of writing a free replacement for that very program. Aside from that, we feel there is no possible excuse for installing a proprietary program.

But they continue...

We don't insist that users of GNU, or contributors to GNU, have to live by this rule. It is a rule we made for ourselves. But we hope you will decide to follow it too.

edit:fixed a typo

Last edited by ewaller (2009-12-21 20:04:53)

Themaister · 2009-12-21 21:12:26

I'm one of those that tries as far as possible to use free software, but when there isn't a real alternative to a certain proprietary app, I don't really have a problem with using closed software if I need to. I guess most GNU/Linux users are like that.

pillz · 2009-12-21 23:02:00

Opera, flash-plugin, MS-fonts, audio/image/video codecs, unrar

afaik, thats all the close-sourced stuff i've got. I plan on trying to limit it further in the future, maybe.

Blue Peppers · 2009-12-22 08:55:01

Flash, Nvidia (Though I'm not using it atm), Virtualbox, unrar, opera, worldofgoo, komodo, skype

In many ways, I'm kinda proud that I've got past the "foss advocate" stage, and now I can use my computer fully, with out worrying too much about where the software is open or closed.

Arch Linux

#26 2009-12-21 17:51:51

Re: Do you use proprietary software?

#27 2009-12-21 17:57:32

Re: Do you use proprietary software?

#28 2009-12-21 20:03:45

Re: Do you use proprietary software?

#29 2009-12-21 21:12:26

Re: Do you use proprietary software?

#30 2009-12-21 23:02:00

Re: Do you use proprietary software?

#31 2009-12-22 08:55:01

Re: Do you use proprietary software?

Board footer