Does anyone here avoid contrib or non free software?

[annadane]

Out of principle, I suppose, or for security reasons. I suppose if a given contrib software is in the repo (ie, simply adding "contrib" to your sources.list works) then it's been properly vetted. Non free software in the repos is more of a concern but I expect contrib to be more reliable in that sense

[oysterboy]

I do avoid contrib and non-free, out of principle. Will only (and very grudgingly) make an exception if some piece of hardware (e.g wifi card) cannot function at all without non-free firmware. What I like about Debian is that non-free software is clearly identified as such, and that no non-free software is installed without my being aware of it.

[sjukfan]

Only slightly. I spend more energy on avoiding things that isn't in the Debian repositories (looking at you docker). But if possible I'll always go for open source.

[No_windows]

Not really....... I use Virtualbox, although I've now switched to Oracles own repo.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

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empty@Helium:~ $ vrms

No non-free or contrib packages installed on Helium!  rms would be proud.
empty@Helium:~ $

QEMU > VirtualBox, Chromium > Chrome, bsdgames > Steam

Well, maybe not the last one but you get the idea

[pendrachken]

Do I avoid non-free or contrib? NO!

Why you ask? Because I use my machines for real work, not out of some sense of zealotry.
If there is a FOSS solution that works I use it, but if a proprietary solution works better for what I need... well then I will use that. I have way too much to do, and can't waste time poking and prodding some FOSS thing that can only do 80-90% of what I need when another program ( that happens to be proprietary ) can do 95-100% of what I need.

[mor]

Do I avoid non-free or contrib? NO!

Why you ask? Because I use my machines for real work, not out of some sense of zealotry.

Is not buying blood diamonds a form of zealotry?
Or maybe buying only fair trade products?

A comment like this betrays a pretty unfair attitude, especially from someone who, for whatever reason, is indeed benefiting from the fruit of what you call zealotry.
Kinda like getting all excited and proud for getting -say- energy efficient lights for a house and then saying "hey, I need my <insert brand of manufacturer who exploits cheap third world labor> shoes to train".

You might not be using Debian for ethical reasons and that's fine, you're welcome too, but believing that free software is the right thing is exactly what made Debian possible, and most importantly making sacrifices, such as bending over backward to do actual work (yes, even those who use only free software do actual work!) without choosing personal convenience over principle, is what makes the difference between doing the right thing and just being there to witness it.

I am alas one of those who still uses some non free stuff so I'm not being holier than thou here, but I certainly look up to those who can hack it, not down.

Bye

[pendrachken]

Do I avoid non-free or contrib? NO!

Why you ask? Because I use my machines for real work, not out of some sense of zealotry.

Is not buying blood diamonds a form of zealotry?
Or maybe buying only fair trade products?

A comment like this betrays a pretty unfair attitude, especially from someone who, for whatever reason, is indeed benefiting from the fruit of what you call zealotry.
Kinda like getting all excited and proud for getting -say- energy efficient lights for a house and then saying "hey, I need my <insert brand of manufacturer who exploits cheap third world labor> shoes to train".

You might not be using Debian for ethical reasons and that's fine, you're welcome too, but believing that free software is the right thing is exactly what made Debian possible, and most importantly making sacrifices, such as bending over backward to do actual work (yes, even those who use only free software do actual work!) without choosing personal convenience over principle, is what makes the difference between doing the right thing and just being there to witness it.

I am alas one of those who still uses some non free stuff so I'm not being holier than thou here, but I certainly look up to those who can hack it, not down.

Bye

Nice false dichotomies and strawmen. Unfortunately your argument is missing, well, the whole argument if you take them away. Using proprietary software hurts no-one; well supposedly it hurts ME according to RMS, but I haven't noticed anything more than the slight ache of "damn, wish this was $0.00".

As for "people who don't choose personal convenience over principle", their work suffers for it. Period. By definition even. If a person uses something that doesn't do the job fully, just because it is "open" that person is a fool.
That would be like me using H2SO4 instead of HCL in my lab... because "they are both acids and will dissolve stuff", never minding the fact that I need to run further reactions that require Cl- ions from the HCL in the solution that was originally called for...

[debiman]

me:
leans back with a tub of popcorn.
a great show is about to begin!
:popcorn:

[kedaha]

Do I avoid non-free software? Absolutely!
How can you know exactly what non-free software does in your Linux system? The answer is one can't so it's the last thing I want on my server & indeed on my desktop system.
Apart from that, on principle, I'd cheerfully see Debian ditch the non-free stuff and leave it to Ubunto & similar distros with proprietary leanings. But I have used such software in the past but I don't need it now & don't want it. Similarly I once used Windows but will never go back to it.

[sjukfan]

Try to just don't be a **** about your choice, it's a lot easier that way.

Wrong way

I don't use <insert software> because only Hitler uses that.

Correct way

I don't use <insert software> because I don't think it fulfils my needs.

[NFT5]

Do I avoid non-free or contrib? NO!

Why you ask? Because I use my machines for real work, not out of some sense of zealotry.
If there is a FOSS solution that works I use it, but if a proprietary solution works better for what I need... well then I will use that. I have way too much to do, and can't waste time poking and prodding some FOSS thing that can only do 80-90% of what I need when another program ( that happens to be proprietary ) can do 95-100% of what I need.

I take much the same approach, although I tend to justify on slightly more practical, I think, grounds. If it were just me then I might lean more towards free software but I need to consider the capacities and needs of other others, be they employees or family. They don't care. They just want software that works and when it doesn't then I'm the one who has to fix it. I really don't have time to do that, I'm not a full time help desk, so I look for the best solution. FOSS gets first choice and preference when it can even do the job 90% as well as non-free, provided it causes no problems. If it causes any grief or a reduction in productivity then I'll move to an alternate solution.

[mor]

me:
leans back with a tub of popcorn.
a great show is about to begin!
:popcorn:

I wonder if you said so just because the situation is clearly prone to be the beginning of a show or because it's me involved. Either way thank you because your comment has undoubtedly influenced me in keeping my reply short and to the point.

Anyway, ready your popcorn.

@pendrachken
You said I used a few false dichotomies in my reply and I honestly wonder where did you see them.
I hope you're not referring to my examples about fair trade and shoes, because those are not dichotomies, they are analogies, used as examples of similar situations, not as counterarguments.
A false dichotomy, and a blatantly ridiculous one, would have been: either you think free software is good, and you're good person, or you don't and you're a bad person, but I never said anything like that.
But then again, please educate me about dichotomies.

And since we're talking fallacies, where would the straw men (men, plural, you mean that there is more than one?) be?
A straw man is defined as the refutation (or rather the attempt at refuting) of someone's argument, opinion, idea by attacking something entirely different and often irrelevant that he or she is not even saying.

The only thing that I have attacked is your attitude, I haven't gone to the extent of rebutting your argument (well, your statement, not much of an argument there).
I may have made incorrect inferences from your words (unlikely) that made me see attitude where there wasn't any, but that's not a straw man either.

So, what were you saying about fallacies?
Did you mention those two just because they are the ones you remembered the names of?
Want to review your reply?

Bye

[annadane]

Do I avoid non-free software? Absolutely!
How can you know exactly what non-free software does in your Linux system? The answer is one can't so it's the last thing I want on my server & indeed on my desktop system.
Apart from that, on principle, I'd cheerfully see Debian ditch the non-free stuff and leave it to Ubunto & similar distros with proprietary leanings. But I have used such software in the past but I don't need it now & don't want it. Similarly I once used Windows but will never go back to it.

How do you feel about contrib?

[pendrachken]

me:
leans back with a tub of popcorn.
a great show is about to begin!
:popcorn:

I wonder if you said so just because the situation is clearly prone to be the beginning of a show or because it's me involved. Either way thank you because your comment has undoubtedly influenced me in keeping my reply short and to the point.

Anyway, ready your popcorn.

@pendrachken
You said I used a few false dichotomies in my reply and I honestly wonder where did you see them.
I hope you're not referring to my examples about fair trade and shoes, because those are not dichotomies, they are analogies, used as examples of similar situations, not as counterarguments.
A false dichotomy, and a blatantly ridiculous one, would have been: either you think free software is good, and you're good person, or you don't and you're a bad person, but I never said anything like that.
But then again, please educate me about dichotomies.

And since we're talking fallacies, where would the straw men (men, plural, you mean that there is more than one?) be?
A straw man is defined as the refutation (or rather the attempt at refuting) of someone's argument, opinion, idea by attacking something entirely different and often irrelevant that he or she is not even saying.

The only thing that I have attacked is your attitude, I haven't gone to the extent of rebutting your argument (well, your statement, not much of an argument there).
I may have made incorrect inferences from your words (unlikely) that made me see attitude where there wasn't any, but that's not a straw man either.

So, what were you saying about fallacies?
Did you mention those two just because they are the ones you remembered the names of?
Want to review your reply?

Bye

Lets see:

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Is not buying blood diamonds a form of zealotry?
Or maybe buying only fair trade products?


False dichotomy - at the very least insinuating that using non-free software is the same as purchasing products made from others suffering. Also a somewhat of a strawman argument as human suffering / exploitation wasn't mentioned in the original argument, as well as a character attack since non-free software is being equated with products that are founded on human suffering.

As an aside, non-free software is almost always written by people getting paid a living wage. FOSS may or not be written by people getting paid for their time. While it may be true that it is a so called "labor of love", it can also be argued that by only using said software and not contributing back, you are exploiting the people who wrote the programs, therefore a user of FOSS that doesn't contribute back to the project is in essence similar to those who exploit others I.E. your blood diamonds / fair trade statements.

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A comment like this betrays a pretty unfair attitude, especially from someone who, for whatever reason, is indeed benefiting from the fruit of what you call zealotry.
Kinda like getting all excited and proud for getting -say- energy efficient lights for a house and then saying "hey, I need my <insert brand of manufacturer who exploits cheap third world labor> shoes to train".


Yes, it's unfair to not fit in with what the masses around you in the world think. Oh wait, if that was true it is unlikely that America would exist due to everyone being an English Protestant, OR that right now I should convert to Christianity ( catholic ) because that is what most people in my state are. Read up on democratic tyranny by Alexis de Tocqueville to see why this is a bad idea, whether by FOSS zealots, or anti-FOSS zealots.

As a further aside, I have contributed back to the Debian release. I found the reason behind a release showstopper bug that was actually so simple it was overlooked. When KDE 4.x was set to be released to the next stable almost all upgrades from 3.x > 4.x lost sound, while fresh installs had no problems. There was a simple dependency issue with upgrades not having a dependency listed for phonon-backend that was fulfilled by the fresh base install.

As for the shoes - same thing as the previous answer as to why it is both a false dichotomy and strawman / character attack.

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You might not be using Debian for ethical reasons and that's fine, you're welcome too, but believing that free software is the right thing is exactly what made Debian possible......


What made Debian possible was people decided they wanted to put together a bunch of software into a cohesive whole. Being FOSS only made it easier, not made it possible, as even if the whole distribution was non-free it would still be possible to do - all you would have to do is get permission / not violate licensing ( see BSD, it is considered not "free" since anyone can release closed source compiles without contributing back).

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A straw man is defined as the refutation (or rather the attempt at refuting) of someone's argument, opinion, idea by attacking something entirely different and often irrelevant that he or she is not even saying.


Actually a strawman argument is giving the impression that you are refuting an argument put out by the opposing side, all the while you are refuting an argument not put out by the opposing side - I.E. me saying I don't use FOSS if it doesn't fulfill my needs to at least a certain percentage, and then you arguing about blood diamonds and fair trade.

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So, what were you saying about fallacies?
Did you mention those two just because they are the ones you remembered the names of?


I teach Logic and Philosophy part time ( my rates are reasonable if you want ) and Science the rest of the time, I could write entire essays on what you have said to refute you, but this forum is not the place for that. Needless to say I remember a few more fallacies and / or argument styles than the ones I have pointed out.