Re: Non-free software and GNOME

[Miguel de Icaza <miguel ximian com>]

Christian,

   I like to think that GNOME has always worked with other communities
to achieve the ultimate goal which is to bring free software adoption
to the desktop.  Sometimes this means cooperating and integrating
technologies like Mozilla, and we have worked hard with third parties.

   Although I preffer free software options to proprietary ones most
of the time I see nothing wrong with mentioning software which might
be of interest to gnome users and which could help the deployment of
more linux systems on the desktop.

   I have been using a Windows machine to play QuickTime movies for
some time now, until this week Ben showed me a product from Codeweaves
that lets me run QuickTime natively on Linux.  It is a proprietary
product (20 dollars) that I plan to purchase (I am in the process of
reinstalling this week Red Hat 7.1 + XFS + Ximian + Evolution
snapshots + moving my backup), but it means that I can avoid using
Windows now to watch movies.  Sure, not an ideal situation, and I
would run a free version as soon as it exists, but I think it is worth
giving some publicity to projects like this (Codeweavers does a lot of
free software development.  If this will help them stay in business, I
am going to do it).

   You have been doing a great job Christian, as Daniel pointed out
before: you brought up the GNOME summaries from the dead, and I enjoy
a lot reading what you have collected each week in those summaries. I
would like to encourage to keep doing this great job.  If you think a
piece of proprietary software is worth mentioning in the notes, please
go ahead.

   I will support whatever decision you make.  Speaking for myself
(not Ximian, not GNOME), I like what you have done in the past.

Best wishes,
Miguel.