[pdftex] WHAT is 'free'? NEVER 'fork'! (was xpdf (was: [Gs-devel] Re: .... ...))

[Michael Chapman]

On Sunday 10 February 2002 19:24, Hans Hagen wrote:
> At 04:23 PM 2/8/2002 -0700, Richard Stallman wrote:
> >
> >Is that free software?  A non-free program is not a solution in the
> >Free World.
>
> well, non-free food, non-free medicine, non-free transportation, non-free
> entering countries, non-free anything either -)
>

My wife teaches English to lots of people in companies who seem to have 
problems with their PCs crashing (and as to the network ... ). It is a 
suitable and 'relevant' subject for language teaching.
The trivialising comment "But, you only use Linux because it is free", flows 
quite often.
Within intermediate English classes the best, simplistic response seems to be 
to compare computer software to Nineteenth Century medicine: "Would you 
prefer a quack and her patent medicines or would you prefer someone who uses 
peer reviewed* medical procedures?"
We're not talking about who pays the doctor, just what sort of wagon she 
stands on the back of to sell his pink syrup!

---

Having, 'gone in the deep end', somoneelse (apologies) wrote:

    The Free World seems to be very much hanging on the coat-tails 
    of the non-Free World when it comes to the development of Adobe.
    Basically, Adobe have us over a barrel.

For some months I have been considering quoting/citing Eric Steven Raymond's 
"Homesteading the Noosphere" (but, it must already be known to most, and 
either venerated or anathematised by those) on 
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/homesteading/x217.html
where he discusses:

	"Forking projects is bad because ..."**

As a (not quite) dis-interested observer, on this list, I must admit I have 
been placing bets with myself as to how long it will be before XDF 'forks' 
from PDF ... certainly not before 2^x months where x > 2^2 .... ;-)>
(And I am _not_ saying it will be a "good thing".)

Michael


* before that term, too, was hijacked in the 1980's !!!

** apologies if this is oblique, but the alternative of several hundred 
words, of a well circulated theory seemed less appropriate.