Re: referencing non-free software

[Ilya Shlyakhter]

"the alternative that you found technically superior to another is the
nonfree one, and you expect that a user would most likely decide to
choose it rather than free one, when presented with all arguments, am
I right?" -- I expect that _some_ users will, yes.  Which, in my
understanding, will be an exercise of freedom.  Freedom means making
fully informed choices.  A "choice" to use a free program made simply
because you were unaware of a non-free one can hardly be described as
freely made.   Plus, users' awareness of the (technically better)
non-free program will incentivize the free program's authors to
improve it, an incentive currently lacking (and it shows -- the free
program has long languished at mediocre quality).

On Tue, Jan 9, 2018 at 4:11 AM, Dmitry Alexandrov <321942@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> It's one thing to promote free software by creating a free program
>>>> superior to a non-free one, pointing users to both, explaining the
>>>> advantages of the free program (including the freedom part), and
>>>> then letting the users decide.  It's quite another thing to simply
>>>> hide the non-free program from users. ... Is the assumption here
>>>> that users are unable to see their own best interests, even when
>>>> presented with all the arguments?  ... If no, why not point users
>>>> to both free and non-free alternatives and trust them to decide?
>>>
>>> ...
>>
>> My question grows out of the discussion here:
>> http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-orgmode/2018-01/msg00036.html
>
> Just to be clear, as (I suppose) few of subscribers there are able to judge 
> about programs that run on iOS from their own experience.
>
> In this case, the alternative that you found technically superior to another 
> is the nonfree one, and you expect that a user would most likely decide to 
> choose it rather than free one, when presented with all arguments, am I right?