Someone on the Ubuntu forums started an interesting thread today asking, “Can you manage to use only free software on your pc?“ It got me thinking about my dependency on proprietary software, and whether I’d ever really be able to get it out of my life entirely.
I use three computers (in the narrow sense of the word, which excludes my cell phone) on a semi-daily basis: a desktop at home, an old Dell laptop that I use for taking notes in the library and a workstation in my employer’s office. All of these machines run Ubuntu, but there are bits and pieces of closed-source code tacked on. Here’s a breakdown of the proprietary components.
Operating systems
The most obvious piece of proprietary software sitting on my machines is Windows. My desktop still has an XP partition, which hasn’t seen action in six months. It also contains a Windows system installed in VirtualBox on which I used to play old games, but I haven’t touched those in a while, either.
Because I use them so rarely, I’m pretty sure I could get rid of both Windows systems without any serious repercussions. I might miss being able to play Age of Kings from time to time inside VirtualBox, but it runs in wine now anyway (although not very well, the last time I tried). I can fairly conclude that I could be entirely Windows-free with no real problems.
Hardware drivers
Most of my hardware has full-featured open-source drivers, thanks to Intel. The only notable exceptions are an Atheros wireless card in my desktop powered by the madwifi modules, which depend on a proprietary HAL, and a Broadcom chip in the laptop that requires closed-source firmware.
Although I use madwifi at the moment because it’s the default in Ubuntu 8.10, my Atheros card would work with the ath5k driver if I installed it. An open HAL is available for ath5k, so I could go proprietary-free with no problems here.
My Broadcom device is more troubling. There’s currently no way to make it work without proprietary firmware. That should change in the near future, as open firmware for Broadcom chips is in rapid development. But for the time being, I guess I’m dependent on closed code if I want wireless on my laptop.
All my BIOS programs are also closed, as far as I know. It’s possible that I could replace them with OpenBIOS, but I’ve never tried.
Software
Beyond rarely used instances of Windows and hardware drivers, I was able to think of only three additional closed-source components of my sytems. These are Adobe’s flash plugin, media decoders for formats like mp3 and Microsoft’s fonts.
I have no need for the proprietary fonts. They’re only installed because they were part of the ubuntu-restricted-extras package. I’d be happy to get them off the system if I knew how to do that easily.
In principle, I could also live without proprietary codecs, but it might not be easy. It would mean not being able to play a lot of media files, and while I don’t need to listen to mp3s, it’s nice. I’m not sure I’d be able to give up closed-source software on the media front without being quite unhappy about it.
Adobe’s flash plugin would be similarly difficult to lose. There are open-source alternatives like gnash, but I’ve never had satisfactory experiences with them in the past. gnash is rapidly improving and will hopefully become a viable alternative very soon, but for the time being, abandoning Adobe’s plugin is not possible, since it would mean no longer being able to view flash-based content on the Internet, which I used on a daily basis.
Conclusion
I could get rid of most of the proprietary software that’s still stuck on my machines, but I couldn’t give up the Broadcom firmware, flash plugin or codecs without losing important functionality. As open-source answers to these problems are developed, I hope this situation will change soon. But for the time being, I’m afraid that proprietary software still fills a hole that nothing else can effectively replace.
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Very interesting post. Thanks for writing it.
Jason
Life Without Proprietary Software: Is It Possible?
- Yes .
It is, but for me, it would be a severely downgraded experience: nVidia proprietary drivers are, spin it any way you want, the best on Linux. They can actually render 2 opengl surfaces on top of each other just fine (laymans terms: you can have compiz + games / movies together just fine).
Plus they have a completely working suspend/hibernate for, oh, several years on my card.
On the software side I can’t think of anything proprietary that I’m using besides for games. But that’s not an issue for me.
@Christopher Tozzi: you wrote about open source and i feel you missed the point > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
@Christopher Tozzi: you wrote * open source and i feel you missed the point > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
* sorry for the word “about” that i used earlier, i know you were referring at free software or FOSS ….
Life Without Proprietary Software: Is It Possible? No. Not now and tomorrow. ‘Tis life. Is anybody need a proof? The real world isn’t the world of ISO stds and open solutions everywhere. So all we need first is the permanent pression on proprietary solutions owners not to make indefensible barriers.
It is interesting that you voluntarily exclude Age of Kings and the other old games from your proprietary software profile. It is worth a thought because usually we don’t directly use some proprietary software – just some other proprietary software (that we use) depends on it.
I use openSUSE 11 and have used Linux for about 10 years and as my only OS for at least 4-5 years. While I will not have any Windows OS on my computer, I cannot do the work I need to do without some proprietary software. This may exist as binaries, Java files, etc. I use Crossover Office in order to use some of it, but I am sufficiently pragmatic to realise that at least two of the programs I use have absolutely NO equivalent in the FOSS world. One is a piece of mapping software for biological dispersion which luckily runs in Crossover Office perfectly, while the other is a Java based biological key generator called Lucid. I can state without any fear of contradiction that nothing like it exists in the world of FOSS…….I think that the future will be a composite: some FOSS, some proprietary, but my hopes will always be that eventually FOSS will be the dominant and finally the ONLY software used on this planet.
>> media decoders for formats like mp3
Your wrong, the mp3 decoder and encoder is called liblame, and is fully free and open source. Licensed under the LGPL.
Same goes for most of the support for codecs in ubuntu, did you think we were commiting copyright infringements for the codecs?
No, the codec problem is complex and so badly misunderstood.
I think the only proprietary things I have on my machine are adobe acroread and Skype… stuff like that.
Hi Guys. Most of the issues about codecs would be gone of it weren’t for the DMCA and other such idiotic and one sided laws. Such laws have made it illegal to use perfectly good free and open substitutes for propriatory codecs. I won’t go into all the other damage that such insane laws do.
While it may be difficult to live without propriatory software, it is possible, and becomes moreso as more and better alternatives are developed.
By and large you can get away without proprietary software. If there was an up-to-date hardware compatibility list for hardware that works with each distribution of Linux and what is required to make it work then you can decide what to buy, and if you are inclined to steer away from proprietary software what to avoid.
The reality is that there are still a great number of people do not have Linux or open globally accepted standards in their design whether hardware or software. In my case a company I work for is required by a franchiser to use web based software that will not work with anything but IE7 (not even IE8). Well, that immediately excludes several national brands from Linux which, in this economy, would have be a great win for us.
Apart from that I have tried to introduce other F/OSS software with absolutely not problems. Surprisingly the software needs at this client are very simple: Browser with java, OOO.org(calc,writer), PDF viewer, occasional media player. There is basically no need for Windows whatsoever. I have tried linux on their machines and everything works just fine. without proprietary.
Besides the same reasons listed above (flash, codecs, Broadcom), there is one other piece of software that I MUST HAVE: Autocad. There really is no alternative for me, and even though it semi-runs under wine, it’s not as functional, therefore it’s used in XP with Virtualbox.
It’s possible. But many folks in the Linux world couldn’t live without their eye candy.
Proprietary software is as much incorporated into our daily lives as peanut butter and jelly. There are always going to be instances where it will be the only choice. It’s not such a bad thing as most make it out to be. Like kb0hae above stated:
“Most of the issues about codecs would be gone of it weren’t for the DMCA and other such idiotic and one sided laws.”
This is the main culprit we all are up against, especially here in the US. Freedom of Choice is fast becoming a faded state of mind due in large part to corporations with nothing but greed powering them.