can we stop supporting closed source please?

[PurpleGurl]

I am weighing in a bit late in this thread. The request seems a bit impractical and sounds similar to "racism." By "racism," I mean, you'd have to teach the OS to know what is closed source in order to discriminate against it running. While you are at it, you might as well add a disparaging error message:

"I'm sorry, you are not allowed to install this program because you are a scumbag who uses closed source software which is written by greedy scumbag corporations. Please either jump out the nearest window, throw your PC out of the nearest window, or reformat your hard drive with a OS made for your own evil kind. The system is now formatting all your drives and erasing your firmware now..."

Okay, I don't feel that way, nor do most here, and we'd never add such an offensive error message to the software. Nor would we act spitefully.

As for impractical, could you imagine keeping up a database of software not allowed to install? And worse, what if their names or files are similar enough to open source software and won't run some of that?

Plus, we care about closed source programs not running because open source programs might use similar code or strategies, meaning that if closed source things won't run, there is likely open source code that won't run either. So if you fix the most popular and most used of the closed source stuff, you are ensuring that you will fix at least some obscure open source programs too.

Now, one thing that so many are confused about is RAPPS. They mistake inclusion in the installer list as some sort of support or endorsement. It is not. It is just a convenience. It makes sense to provide what most people will soon install anyway, provided it isn't illegal, dangerous, or offensive to many people. Now, I guess to appease the open source purists, such installers/downloaders could default to only showing open source apps, with a box you can check to show closed source solutions. And platform drivers, video drivers, etc., should likely have their own section, as they are not open source, but are fundamentally necessary for proper operation of the equipment. That is usually seen as an acceptable level of "evil" to the open source only types.

OT, but thinking of the above where I mentioned drivers, it would be nice to have a network driver that acts a bit like UniATA in that it will get the majority of network cards to working just well enough to download the correct drivers. Even bloated, clunky, and slow would be better than nothing if it can be used to get the correct drivers.