In contrast, the debates and arguments over these issues have been known to polarize distro communities, lead to absurd forks, and generally fragment the user base of the distro. These concerns do not translate well to the interested outside observer (i.e., potential user), who has never been asked to consider the moral implications of their operating system or office software. While they may be curious about FOSS, individuals in this group are much more likely to wonder why its easier to get WMV support for Ubuntu than it is for Fedora, and, if they encounter Fedora first (and require WMV), might simply swear off altogether under the mistaken assumption that all distros are equal...because whoever heard of moral computing?
Having arrived at the end of this missive, I've realized that I probably could've just written "Mainstream users don't get moral computing" and conveyed what I meant. ;) I don't think the moral considerations that affect Linux development translate well at all into the Microsoft/closed-source world, and I think they may have actually helped slow FOSS adoption. My conclusion seems a bit weak for what I thought up at the beginning, but I think I'll stop here and see if you respond. ;P
Part II:
In contrast, the debates and arguments over these issues have been known to polarize distro communities, lead to absurd forks, and generally fragment the user base of the distro. These concerns do not translate well to the interested outside observer (i.e., potential user), who has never been asked to consider the moral implications of their operating system or office software. While they may be curious about FOSS, individuals in this group are much more likely to wonder why its easier to get WMV support for Ubuntu than it is for Fedora, and, if they encounter Fedora first (and require WMV), might simply swear off altogether under the mistaken assumption that all distros are equal...because whoever heard of moral computing?
Having arrived at the end of this missive, I've realized that I probably could've just written "Mainstream users don't get moral computing" and conveyed what I meant. ;) I don't think the moral considerations that affect Linux development translate well at all into the Microsoft/closed-source world, and I think they may have actually helped slow FOSS adoption. My conclusion seems a bit weak for what I thought up at the beginning, but I think I'll stop here and see if you respond. ;P