"Well, this is my first post since my first post, so is technically my second post (I remember American Pie 2, a film which I watched before American Pie, so I didn't understood to much).
I want to talk about what got me occupied for most of the time in the last week (and some days of the week before that too!) and that is putting the software in two 'almost new' PCs, one for my father and the other for my grandfather ('almost new' because they where used)
The thing is that they bought two PCs 'almost' identical (one of them got like twice as much memory as the other) but after some in-family discussion we agreed that the one with more memory will go to my father and the other to my grandfather, because he doesn't know even how to turn a computer On.
Then it came the part when I, the one that knows about computers in the family, was going to install all the software they needed in their PCs.
Since like 5 years ago I have been a strong advocate of 'Free Software' and with Free Software I mean just that, no second readings. Well, for those who doesn't know anything about free software I explain that is software which their creators put the 'source code' available as part of the software, so if any one got a problem with the software (and knows a little about programming) will take the source and edit the software so they can edit it and doesn't got a lot of strange symbols which only machines can understand, instead of a language that you and I can learn. The benefits of free software or 'open software' are that if someone is using it, knows the programming language and find a problem with the software, he or she can edit it and correct the bug with no problem or add a new feature they find useful, so the software evolves faster and got less problems or security issues. The other main benefit is you can use it without paying royalties to any company and if someone provides you the binary (that's the program translated to those funny symbols which only machines can understand) you can install it free of charge on your machine.
Linux and other software like Mozilla Firefox or OpenOffice.org are classified as this type of software, and the idea has been exported to other formats like Encyclopaedia with an open Wikipaedia.
I like the concept, specially since you can install a program without 'stealing' software from company that charges for it and the idea that is, mainly, community driven, so the community decides which are the things they like about a software and what don't.
Now it comes to my problem with the 'free software' and that is extremist. There is a project called Debian, which is completely community driven and is trying to give the world a completely free operative system and the software necessary to do whatever you need to do in your life (well that's not the idea, but a kind of) , they are mainly based on Linux and the project is very democratic. I like the idea of a project rather than a company because many times a company just want to change the direction of a product and just cancel product lines without previous notification to their customers but in this kind of project their customers can also participate in the development of the product.
But there is a problem with this model. The problem is that the Debian project is created by software programmers to software programmers, they don't even think in the 'normal person' or 'newbie' as they call him or her (not to mention the people who have never used a PC in their life). I came to this after trying to install a Debian derivative to those two PCs. I said I tried because I didn't do it. Debian was to much difficult to install. Now is much easier than it used to be, but it's still difficult, specially when it comes to recognise peripherals. I tried to use it, but It was too difficult, It needed the port, the model, refresh rates and a lot of other data. I would overcome all those problems if It would be a PC I was going to use, but It was not. It was a PC that It would be use it: one by a person which likes simplicity and the other by a person which barely knows how to turn the PC On and maybe doesn't how to turn it Off, and they needed something easier to use, and if it's difficult to install, it certainly would be difficult to use.
I finally installed Linux in those two PCs, but I used one based in a company, but as is open software, got support from the community and all the benefits that comes with open software, but It was easier to use and to install, just make mouse clicks and a little bit more.
With this I don't want to underestimate Debian's efforts, I like the project, but I think they need to be more 'open' to the general public and not just to the programmers and make their project for the 'normal people' not a freak-only OS.<
But there is other problem with Debian and that is: extremism. The Debian project is aimed at create a completely 'free' operating system, and that means COMPLETELY free and that means all the sources need to be available to the general public (which, as I explained above, means just the programmers, who are the only ones that can understand them) and other requirements that are too many to explain in detail. Well there are some software you can use in a free operating system (Acrobat Reader or Sun's Java for example) but that there are no sources available (they are 'closed source'), these software is not included in Debian because is not free. They sometimes add some software which is not free, but in a special part of the project and is even more difficult to install
Again: I like the project, but they need to 'open' it to the software that is useful, but is not free. I think that a completely free operating system would be great, but, unfortunately, now there is not such a OS, so you need to adapt to what you got, and if you just got closed software, but you can use it without legal problems in your OS, use it and don't make it more difficult to use it, until there is a solution. There is a difference with software like Windows Media Player or MSN Messenger that the company that makes them don't like the software running in an 'open' system at all, in those cases, you need to work with what you got, and that's create other software.
I plan to return to this point in a future post, more about free software in general, but until then ;-)
Camahueto.
