Freeware - Exercise in futility?

[daniel.robert-HInyCGIudOg at public.gmane.org (Danny)]

(Sorry, I tried to send this earlier but was called away to a meeting  
during which time my webmail session expired.  I apologize if my  
comments are now duplicates or no longer relevant to this discussion.):

When I first switched to Gentoo, I couldn't get my printer working  
forever. I had all the cups stuff installed I could think of, extra  
ghostscript libs, etc. Turns out, I needed the foomatic packages  
(duh), but there were no dependencies linking cups to foomatic for  
some reason, so despite the printer driver indicating that everything  
was A-OK, I never saw a printed page until my foomatics were installed.

Anyway, I'm not quite sure how to respond to the original  
poster...I'll try and take a few of them on:

1) [in response to "if freeware can't win the day...what hope is there  
for the individual?]:
What's the relation here between freeware and the individual? An  
individual can create non-free software, and large corporations can  
create free software...and vice versa. But I'm mostly confused about  
the statement 'win the day'. How do you measure a 'win'? Many  
magazines and newspapers will discuss success in terms of dollars are  
cents, and in that regard, it would be difficult to post a free  
product as a 'winner'.

To take the most obvious example, hasn't Apache\'s httpd "won the  
day?" It's one of the most successful free projects ever; in my  
opinion it's as successful as any project can get. Again, has nothing  
to do with dollars and cents, and doesn't have to do with 'the  
individual'. In fact, many argue that open source's success is due to  
the fact that there are *more* eyes on the code. The purpose is  
collaboration, not the triumph of the individual.

2. [in response to "linux lacks bells and whistles"]:
Printer drivers are 'bells and whistles?' Let's call it like it is: if  
you can't print from your OS, you have a big problem. You will  
certainly not be replacing your workstation from whatever you have  
that's working to something that doesn't allow basic tasks. However,  
in regards to 'bells and whistles', you don't need to look much  
further than Beryl to see that Linux *has* bells and whistles.  
They\'re relatively new, and therefore not necessarily trivial to get  
working, but that will come.

-Danny

Quoting Derek Atkins <warlord-DPNOqEs/LNQ at public.gmane.org>:

> Al Wheeler <alfred_j_wheeler-H+0wwilmMs3R7s880joybQ at public.gmane.org> writes:
>
>> 2. Linux lacks so very many of the bells and whistles of MS Windows,
>> especially printer drivers, but more and more these days the so called
>> interactive technology drivers. The biggest challenge(s) facing Linux
>> remains ease of deployment and use.
>
> What do you mean?  I've never had a problem configuring Linux to
> use any printer I've ever tried.
>
> -derek
>
> --
>        Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
>        Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
>        URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
>        warlord-DPNOqEs/LNQ at public.gmane.org                        PGP key available
>
> --
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