"FREEDOM" or "USER FRIENDLINESS"

[WalterNyirenda]

I was looking at some articles on the GNU website and I came across one that's talking of "why some operating systems are not regarded as free software". To my surprise, I noticed that Ubuntu was listed as one of those Operating Systems. For some strange reason, I 've always missed that option to install free software only on Ubuntu install/live-CD boot screen and I 've always had the multiverse repositories enabled(out of ignorance...), I remember I once installed a sega genesis emulator(dgen) and was on the brink of installing JDK after finding them in synaptic, thinking that these were free software, I later found out that dgen incoporated some non free code after reading its license and read from some book that Java is(was) not free. With these things in mind, I 've been asking myself why everytime something to do with a free OS pops out, Ubuntu and Mint are on the forefront and completely free OS(eg GNUSense) are completely left out. The supporting argument to the use of these has mainly been "usability", not "freedom". If we introduce people to free software using stuff that's non free, are we achieving our aims as free software advocates? Think of it, there are many people out there claiming that they use free technology but they have a copy of Ubuntu/Super OS running on their desktop, is this doing them any good. What matters the most, "freedom" or "Usability"? To me, free software is mostly a matter of sharing and expanding knowledge, if I use non free software I feel like am setting the world back by a couple of years. When we use non free software we promote big companies to hide the knowledge used to create such software(and everything else) and make it seem like magic to everyone else, of what good is this to rest of the world(zero). Look at how other forms of science excel through knowledge sharing, If all the greatest scientists of the world had chosen to hide their knowledge but provide us their creations, wouldn't we still be in the middle ages? Look even at the case of Windows, would it be where it is if the Unix demis chose to hide all they knew but provide the world with Unix binaries? Take the case of the Internet, it's said hadn't it been for hindrances like Microsoft, the Internet would be far better than today. For once let's forget the message of "Usability" and go for knowledge sharing and expansion.

refs:

          Explaining Why We Don't Endorse Other Systems: http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html

          What Does Free Software Have To Do With Education?: http://www.gnu.org/education/education.html