Linux 16 Feb 2008 11:54 am
Remaining Closed Source Applications
I was looking at my laptop today and realized that there are only four remaining applications/components on my system that are closed source or have restrictive licenses:
Lotus Notes
Adobe Flash
Video Driver (Nvidia)
Intel wireless firmware.
Lotus Notes is what we use at work so it is not going away very soon (at all).
I should be able to replace Flash with either Gnash or Swfdec. I tested Gnash today and it still did not work at http://www.barney.com and I will test swfdec later. Other than the Barney site for my daughter my use of Flash is so infrequent that Gnash or swfdec should cover me.
The NV driver is just too slow but I am watching Nouveau closely and when it gets more stable I will switch. I don’t use Compiz and I don’t play games so maybe I should take another look at this.
I don’t think there are any wireless cards that don’t have some sort of closed firmware blob so I don’t think I will be able to do anything about the wireless drivers.
Some closed applications I have replaced over the past year:
1) VMWARE: Replaced with KVM or Innotek’s virtualbox OSE
2) Skype: I rarely used it but I replaced it with Ekiga
3) Sun Java 1.5/1.6: Replaced with IcedTea
Since I work in the technology field I am not the typical user but my day to day usage is pretty typical and if I can be this close to a completely open system then almost anyone else can be as well.
on 24 Jul 2008 at 10:42 am 1.Harley said …
For notes, depending on your usage and how it was deployed, you may be able to use iNotes / Domino Web Access, and for Mail you may be able to use pop/imap.
on 24 Jul 2008 at 11:43 am 2.Darren said …
Harley, those are good suggestions but unfortunately we don’t use POP/IMAP in our Notes Infrastructure. I can use DWA however I have a large number of Notes databases that have to work in that are not web enabled.
The memory usage of Notes is really bad right now, but 8.5 is supposedly a lot better. I plan on trying it sometime in the next month.
Thanks!