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Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

This is why I use free software; software that works in my interests, instead of actively against it. I don't really understand why people would use software that intentionally limits their rights, but it makes me sad.

Amarok is vastly better than iTunes, if you are into that kind of thing. (I personally use xmms2 and a variety of perl scripts to control it, but I can see how that's not exactly suitable for everyone.)

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The software itself doesn't work against you, but for people to have a good interface it has to go through a lot of use. (That's why bash, for instance, is so much better as a shell than GIMP is as a picture editor.)

I see the anti-free-software brigade is out in force tonight. Helpful hint, guys, I have lots of karma and nothing to spend it on.

And a hint for you, in kind. When you post about Amarok, you don't get a bunch of people posting about how iTunes is "vastly better than" your chosen tech without anything other than dumb subjective anecdotes to back it up. Nor do people whine about how your viral licenses make them "sad".

For you to do so is not just rude, it insults our intelligence (do you honestly think anyone here doesn't know what free software is? If we're not using it, it's because we've been there and found it lacking. Deal.)

For what it's worth, if you'd made the identical comment about Windows Media Player you'd probably be at +10 by now.

Yeah. I have learned what is and isn't popular here. On the popular list is being really cynical about everything; on the "not popular" list are free software, the GPL, and being liberal.

Fortunately, I have like 7000 karma points and only lose 8 for every unpopular post, so it doesn't really matter. Although, I am still trying to figure out why karma matters at all...

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