Is free software major league or minor?
Is free software really capable of serving end users or not? This issue has political consequences, which is part of what makes it important: either free software is “minor league” or it’s “major league”. Which we believe has a big impact on what our expectations can be and what our political and ethical stance towards proprietary and free software should be.
If it’s “minor league”, then we get to use the excuse that “Hey, we’re volunteers, you can’t expect us to compete with the big-money teams!” and not being usable by end-users is just par for the course. Therefore, we should stop trying to market GNU/Linux as a viable alternative to proprietary operating systems for end users. For the consumer market, Microsoft wins, we lose. End of story.
If it’s “major league”, then we get to thumb our noses at Microsoft, but at the same time, we have to be willing to be judged by the same end user standards as any proprietary system. In other words, “unreasonable” end user expectations are just par for the course.
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