Re: gEDA-user: Free Dog meetings at MIT starting this September!

[Dave McGuire <mcguire-atMUNGEDneurotica_dot_com>]

On Aug 16, 2004, at 2:33 PM, Svenn Are Bjerkem wrote:
>>    Sigh.  Free software has been the way of the UNIX world for 
>> decades.  
>> Stallman *rode* it...he didn't invent it.
>
> Free as in what? Beer or speach?

   Free as in beer.

>  Most HW manufacturers gave the OS away with
> the machine because the customer paid so much anyway.

   I'm talking about non-OS stuff.

>  I think it was when
> Amdahl started making cheap IBM lookalikes that big blue decided that 
> they
> would not give away something that could be used on cheaper hardware. 
> It may
> be that I am wrong, but name a couple of pre-Stallman names that 
> fronted free
> speach software the way he do. If they exist, they need to come out in 
> the
> great wide open.

   No, I'm not talking about loud-mouthed evangelism, I'm talking about 
"software that you can get for free".  Heck, even in the non-UNIX 
world, twenty years ago, I was getting everything I needed in the DEC 
world for free through DECUS, which acted as a clearinghouse and 
exchange point for software for DEC machines (PDP-11, VAX, 
etc)...circuit simulation software, document formatters, utilities, 
language compilers, etc.

   As a big name, Kermit comes to mind.  It's been free since day one 
(and still is), and has been around for decades.

> By the way, the printer driver problem that he wanted to solve hasn't 
> improved
> much. Installing a printer on a linux machine is still the most 
> tedious part
> of getting rid of MS Windows from the desktop.

   Yes I've run into this too.  My biggest pet peeve has been the 
scourge of "WinPrinters" floating around on the market, and the people 
who were clueless enough to buy them.  I've not tried recently, but as 
of maybe a year ago I've had no luck whatsoever in getting any of them 
working when helping people get the %*@#$% out of Microsoft's 
stranglehold on their wallets.

           -Dave

--
Dave McGuire             "...it's a matter of how tightly
Cape Coral, FL             you pull the zip-tie."       -Nadine Miller