Re: GNOME now

[Richard Stallman <rms gnu org>]

      Tools that use non-free technologies like Skype or
    Vonage are not just popular, but a requirement for many people who pay
    for such services.  How many average people would purchase a device
    that did not support such tools?

Is this a real issue?  On a free operating system, developers can
implement whatever they wish.  And users can install it if they wish.

Support for Skype has already been implemented on GNU/Linux.  You
should never use it, because you would be encouraging someone else to
use nonfree software.  But as for whether it will be supported, the
answer is already yes.

    But, if the "average user" is the target, how does GNOME plan to
    provide access to non-free multimedia that the average user tends to
    access and create?

Companies can implement DRM applications on GNU/Linux if they wish,
and users can install them -- on a free system, we could not stop them
if we wanted to.

But we must not do anything that would make us "provide" this nonfree
software.  That would contradict the principle that we stand for:
software should be free.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
51 Franklin St
Boston MA 02110
USA
www.fsf.org  www.gnu.org
Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software.
  Use Ekiga or an ordinary phone call