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http://www.h-online.com

ABBYY now have a version of its proprietary FineReader OCR for the Linux command line to simplify

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animal's picture
Created by animal 14 years 30 weeks ago
Category: High End   Tags:
aboutblank's picture

aboutblank

14 years 30 weeks 23 hours 49 min ago

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Not Free Software

ABBYY FineReader OCR is non-free software. What this means is that ABBYY FineReader OCR fails to respect the users' essential freedoms. This fsdaily.com website is all about the promotion of free software. I voted this down because I can't find anything either promotes free software nor promotes society to consider and value their freedom.

Freedom respecting alternatives to this would include OCRopus and GORC.

knowing-card's picture

knowing-card

14 years 30 weeks 7 hours 45 min ago

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I think it belongs here but I won't vote it up

You are right about the license. This is an example of PoF software (Proprietary software on a Free OS).

FoF (Free on Free) is better than PoF (Proprietary on Free) which is better than FoP (Free on Proprietary) which is better than PoP (Proprietary on Proprietary).

Articles about FoF obviously belong here on FSDaily. But, IMHO, articles about PoF and FoP belong here too as they help users transition from PoP to FoF. My blog about FoF, PoF, FoP and PoP covers this in more detail.

aboutblank's picture

aboutblank

14 years 29 weeks 4 days 12 hours ago

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re: I think

Sorry, I still can't find this acceptable. The fact that this program targets GNU/Linux (which happens to be free) doesn't change the fact that Finereader is non-free. The fact is, any user that accepts this will remain subject to helplessness and division.

While it is true that something like this PoF could be used as a means of promoting freedom and not as a goal in itself, the fact remains that there is nothing here that explicitly teaches the reader to consider and value freedom. The only thing the reader explicitly learns from this is the fact that one can now interact with the Finereader OCR system through a command line interface. In the end, readers are being encouraged to adopt one form of subjugation (in the form of proprietary software) and nothing is being done about encouraging people to value their freedom. I want to contribute by promoting a freedom respecting alternative.

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