Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 13:12:43 +0200 From: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: The desktop apathy Message-ID: <20010531131243.C18115@lpt.ens.fr> In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20010530225235.048b5bb0@localhost>; from brett@lariat.org on Wed, May 30, 2001 at 10:54:30PM -0600 References: <Pine.LNX.4.21.0105252316300.294-100000@molly.telia.com> <4.3.2.7.2.20010527082742.049003f0@localhost> <20010527172838.A11174@lpt.ens.fr> <4.3.2.7.2.20010528020324.0487b570@localhost> <20010528140153.A58103@h24-67-61-12.lb.shawcable.net> <4.3.2.7.2.20010528153532.0488ac10@localhost> <20010529112302.A3636@lpt.ens.fr> <4.3.2.7.2.20010529112012.052768c0@localhost> <20010529194223.P3636@lpt.ens.fr> <4.3.2.7.2.20010530225235.048b5bb0@localhost>
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Brett Glass said on May 30, 2001 at 22:54:30:
> >I don't care. Rather, I'm quite happy with that. If I were writing
> >a commercial quality word processor for free, the GPL is the licence
> >I'd choose.
>
> Alas, you've been a GPL zealot since I've first seen your postings
> here. It is a testament to the tolerance of the BSD community that
> you haven't been sent packing.
Well, I see nothing wrong with the GPL -- to you, yes, that makes me a
GPL zealot. And I don't know about the tolerance of the BSD
community, but your tolerance, moderation and balanced viewpoint,
of course, shine through in every posting.
> >Would you rather pay $5000 per seat or whatever it was for crap like
> >CDE? That's where we'd be if the GPL'd alternatives didn't exist.
>
> Bull. This is no more true than a claim that we'd all have to buy
> Solaris were it not for Linux. Thanks to the BSDs, there is a truly
> free alternative.
Not for the desktop. Consider: in 1997 (when linux was roughly where
BSD is now, in terms of mindshare) the desktop scene in linux was
pathetic: Red Hat was actually selling a commercial port of CDE to
linux. (This was before they "saw the light" about selling only free
software.) Consider, also, that even *today* CDE is about the only
option you have on a commercial unix -- unless you install something
else by yourself. Unix used to dominate the workstation market in the
early 1990s ("workstation" meant Unix, more or less), and look at that
market today. Now Sun and HP are actually considering GNOME for their
own desktops. The commercial guys didn't rescue the commercial Unix
desktop, so I fail to see where your touching faith in their ability
to rescue BSD (or Linux) comes from.
R
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