This thread is to discuss the article titled:
Free and Non-Free, Developers and Users

I just wanted to point out that developers, often want the product to do whatever they need it to do. Stability and user-friendliness is sometimes secondary.

Another thing I’d like to point out is that we are developing completely free/open and easy methods for most of was previously is in the “non-free software arena” (e.g., codecs: wmv9, mp4; drivers: nvidia-3d is in infancy, ntfs write is reliable/stable, open drivers for loads of wireless chipsets, including atheros, conextant, broadcom, intel, and others have either been reversed engineered or petitioned for or both). The primary job of the distro is to implement these in an unobtrusive way. That said, as new patent-encumbered technologies arise, free/reverse-engineered implementations will always be at least a small step behind.

I wish there was a way to force distributions which include prepackaged non-free modules to pay the owners of that code.

Distros like Xandros and Linspire should have no problem with that since they can pass the cost on to their customers. End users should be able to install them if the owners are willing to grant them free (as in beer).

The "free" distros should concentrate on making it easy for end users to insert them, but they should not be including them in their packages.

You are correct-things are much easier in many ways than what they used to be. A heartfelt thanks to the maintainers and the people who setup the repositories so that most and in many cases all of the dependencies are readily available. However finding or knowing what you need sometimes is not so easy. The ipw2200 driver is a good example of this. There are two pieces to this-a module and firmware. The module is included in the kernel. I've read several posts though where users were frustrated at trying to figure out what was missing and how to get it.

I did not mean to imply the Linux developers are in any way behind with the development of drivers free or non-free. Frankly I think that they do an execellent job of staying up with newly released hardware.

Your last paragraph was and is the whole intent of my post. I think Linux distributions in general would gain many users which in turn would push hardware vendors to open their drivers to the community.