Martine is the heroine of a series of children's books in France. Some time ago I stumbled over this image and laughed very hard.

Hahahahahah I saved it for future references

In all of this philosophical discussion, nobody has mentioned (or perhaps even noticed???) that there are only 20 non-free packages. And 9 of those 20 are kernel or kernel related firmware packages.

In a distribution comprised of 1,244 packages (v14.1), this is astounding... particularly when you consider Slackware's bias toward practicality over politics.

Straight out of the box, only 1.6% of Slackware is non-free.

*walks away mumbling something about storms in teacups...*

Yeah, I'm not losing any sleep over it. The only libre distro I've tried, back in my distrohopping days, was GnewSense. And I quickly unlibred it by installing Flash.

One of the things that appeals to me about it is the thought of writing translators in a language other than C, and that some of what would normally be buried in the kernel could be written as a userland program (e.g. they run (linux) network drivers in userland now using the dde framework). Each year I get less and less motivated to try to understand C code, particularly C code that has the kernel as its environment without the easy, convenient tools we get spoiled by in userland. Finally, I think it would be cool to have a free system less Unixy and more Lispy. Take Hurd, throw in a pinch of Guix and other Guile efforts, that might be kind of neat. Other than certain GNU people, I can't think who's going remotely in that direction.

Culturally both GNU and BSD are more appealing to me than Linux these days. The linux community has some very ugly looking trends. Not everyone in it, obviously. But considering its roots, it's very strange to see the attitude from certain people about other operating systems with less community, that they should just die or are irrelevant, like it's all just about some race to displace Apple and Microsoft, or I don't know what.

I provide financial support to people who develop software I find works for my needs. I use Linux software and also support many Linux developers. I think it interesting that everyone lauds "free" as in speech, but forget that the free speech is sound you create and issue, not someone else voices. GNU/Linux ideal is to ensure that software which you develop, you can freely give to others and they can freely inspect, modify, use, or sell it to others. Notice that last phrase "or sell to other". I don't find it a problem that people and companies choose to sell their creations, which are a result of their efforts. The farmer buys the land, buys the seed, buys the fuel and fertilizer, but adds their skills and labor to get food to grow and harvest, then sells or trades for food, clothing, fuel, shelter, etc. that they need. The developer does the same, buys the hardware (soil), buys the fuel (electricity), etc. and can decide like the farmer to give aways some of the goods or only sell them. So to me the whole idea of Libre software is really saying they want everyone to contribute their efforts free of charge, whether they want to or not. They won't acknowledge the labor and creative efforts of someone else who developed a tool for others. Libre is trying to enforce "free beer" not "free speech" and I personally find that a seed of stealing the labor of another. Pat thank you for the CD's so it's easy to support you, could you add a link to contribute online?

The problem with your analogy is that free or libre software is not meant to stop the prgrammer (farmer) from selling the products of his labour. It is meant to stop the programmer/company (farmer) from altering freely available software (potatoes) and then forbidding others to use the modified software (potatoes) without paying him.

^ There's a big orange "Donate" button here: https://store.slackware.com/cgi-bin/store

A very interesting discussion. All this talk of "free as in speech" or "free as in beer" does tend to make my head hurt. And, this whole discussion centers on software only. Someone needs to build the computer first, then open it up and give it to the developers for a totally libre system, if that is what one wants.

For me, if I plunk down $200 US on a video card, I'm going to expect it to do everything it says it can. If that means a binary blob, then so be it.

That is an acceptable argument.

On the other hand, people who care about free software check what hardware is and is not compatible with free software before buying.

In the end, it is not a debate about whether one's hardware is able to use free software, but rather, whether or not one cares enough about free software to tailor one's hardware purchases accordingly. It is up to each person to decide where on the spectrum he or she wants to be.

Yup. I have a Slackware subscription and look forward to each release. As I can afford it I also contribute to OpenBSD.

Or a Subscription. For me it works out at about £50 per release. Even a poverty-stricken pensioner like me ( :cry: ) can afford that. :)

P.S.
I accept donations, too. Blank cheques only, TIA. ;)

I'll write you a blank cheque in whatever currency you want, if you so wish. (As long as you do not mind it being post-dated to 2080. :D)

OK, I'll put myself in suspended animation 'til then. :)

@rkelsen Thanks, I look at the items so often that I guess I missed the link.
@ Randicus... As for free potatoes, nope don't exist. Someone planted those potatoes with their labor and they have an inherent right to request that anyone picking them provide compensation to the one who planted them. If I read your statement correctly, if software is labeled Libre then no one can alter the item! So the software never improves with added features or fixes. Libre to me is nothing more than a mob community saying we believe that the software you labored to create should be owned by the community and not by you, we are going to take this software from you and declare it Libre, even though you've fixed it or made it more viable. In other words the state will take the property and determine who can use it and when. Sounds pretty commune-ish to me. GPL and LGPL are the right concepts, Libre is a mob community wanting to declare my labor as theirs. No Thanks.