Does the use of non-free drivers restrict your freedom? Or does saying that you shouldn't use them restrict your freedom? Which restricts your freedom more? Which is better? And why? Everyone has an opinion on this. Tell us yours!
Non-free drivers - good or bad?
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I read David Jonathon's article Anybody Up To Writing Good Directory Software? the other day, which got me thinking about software directories in general. As David mentioned, many of the software directories one finds when doing a quick google search are free as in beer, not as in freedom. But what interests me is the software directories that already exist, providing a combination of both free as in beer software, and open source software. Sites such as Freeware Downloads and Shareware Download don't advertise themselves as providing free as in liberty software, but each of them have a good selection of open source software available... if you know where to look.
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So, why, why do people and companies develop free software?
More and more people are discovering free software. Many people only do so after weeks, or even months, of using it. I wonder, for example, how many Firefox users actually know how free Firefox really is—many of them realise that you can get it for free, but find it hard to believe that anybody can modify it and even redistribute it legally.
When the discovery is made, the first instinct is to ask: why do they do it? Programming is hard work. Even though most (if not all) programmers are driven by their higher-than-normal IQs and their amazing passion for solving problems, it’s still hard to understand why so many of them would donate so much of their time to creating something that they can’t really show off to anybody but their colleagues or geek friends.
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They're a necessary evil
They're a necessary evil right now. I bought my hardware (before switching to GNU/linux) to use it, so I need binary drivers. It's that simple. Otherwise I'd be wasting my money and missing out on valuable functionality. The alternative would be using a proprietary OS with just a few Free apps.... I'd rather take a free OS with a couple blobs.
The ideal would be to buy a
The ideal would be to buy a computer especially built for Linux.
I don't see a lot of people complaining that Mac OS X is not compatible with their computer.
And buying Linux-compatible hardware will eventually encourage hardware makers to open source their drivers.
Non-free drivers are a necessary evil, but should not be included by default in Linux distribution because of a pragmatic reason ... non-free drivers don't have long term support, and in this distro version your hardware may be supported, but in the next distro version the old driver may not work with that new kernel the new Linux distro has.
Not to mention that if bugs are discovered, no one can fix them but the company that made them, not to mention that when you need security how do you know that the driver doesn't activate a back-door or something like that ... I mean can companies be trusted ?
History shows us otherwise.
And most people at this point blame it on the Linux distro, which is unfair.
I see that most people think that non-free drivers are excluded from many distributions because of the idealistic views maintained by the Free Software Foundation.
This is only partly true, and the real reasons are more pragmatic than not.
So?
So I shouldn't use Free Software on my current computer?
And how many people buy Macs? I see more ads for computers with Linux (crappy distros that are replaced by pirated Windows, but they're still being advertised) than for Macs, which are comparable in number to ads for FreeDOS boxes (I'm Argentinian and completely serious about this). A tiny minority of computer users buy Macs, I currently don't know any Mac user (Desktop Linux users? One non techie, and several tech guys).
In any case, I doubt I'll ever buy a desktop with anything preinstalled, as I'm not into brand name computers. I can build my own, tailored to my needs. I would buy a Linux laptop, though.
I understand that it's not the distribution's fault, but I need my computer to work.
Allow them until they are no longer needed?
I'm not sure how the whole drivers thing works exactly but...
If we allow them, we are more likely to get converts to FOSS. Then, once there is critical mass, won't we be at the point where proprietary drivers will no longer be needed or where they'll cease to exist?
Hardware manufacturers would then be hounded to FOSSify their drivers by a major percentage of their consumers. Who, in turn, as a larger group than we have now, would be better able to improve the drivers further and faster than the manufacturers could on their own. And they would have larger sales figures and a better community reputation as their reward.
I might have missed something big here but it seems to me that the ends justifies the means. We sacrifice a little freedom now so we can have a lot more or total freedom down the track.
Feel free to let me know how I'm wrong.
That may be sooner than you think...
If we allow them, we are more likely to get converts to FOSS. Then, once there is critical mass, won't we be at the point where proprietary drivers will no longer be needed or where they'll cease to exist?
I agree that allowing them may encourage more people to switch but I'm not so sure this will result in there being no need for proprietary drivers. Also, the fact that there would be no need does not mean the manufacturers would feel compelled to free the source-code. If end-users are "happily" using proprietary drivers on a number of OSs then where's the incentive for the hardware manufacturers?
I think hardware people are quite stubborn/jumpy and will require there to be more demand before they'll supply. We all know that the supply would increase demand but they generally seem quite unwilling to take (even slight) risks on this. The Linux-on-Dell issue has shown me that if we can get enough voices shouting then they will eventually listen and this story...AMD promises open source graphics drivers (links to Slashdot) has definitely warmed the cockles of my heart. :o)
I really hope this is the start of something bigger.
Ryan
A bad good
We hate them. They're proprietary, and take away freedom. Unfortunately, we got to have them. Like alejandroz, I too bought my computer before installing Kubuntu. I can't help that I'm using an ATI Radeon x300 card.
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Andrew Min