User talk:Tim Starling/Free Software
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tim, I mostly liked the way you expressed your thoughs, although I rarely agreed with them. Please, take the following comments as a respectful disagreement.
[edit] Free Software / Free User
A software is said to be Free Software when it's users are Free. Indeed, it's not the software that enjoys the freedom, but the point is not that hard to get.
In this context, your bike is a FreeBike because you are free to dismantle and reassemble it at will. (The bike design is not free, though. You'll probably get in trouble if you try distribute modifications of it). A better exemple would be a non-free car. You buy it fom Ford, but you're no allowed to look inside the engine. You can't even change you CD Player. If you car stops working, you're only allowed to send it to Ford to fix. You're a criminal if you take it to your local specialist. Mind, in such scenario, why would Ford care to support more than 2 year out-of-line models? You would need to "upgrade" (throw away your car, buy a new model) just to get and MP3-capable player!
Is that any different of what we get when we deal with non-free software? Not at all. The only differece is that for historic reasons most of us are used to free cars, free bikes... and non-free software.
[edit] GPL
The GPL does indeed takes away part of the user's freedom to redistribute the software. He/She won't be allowed to redistribute non-free variations of the original work. This is the evolutionary stable strategy adopted to make sure free software does not go into extinction. And IMHO, it does not hurts the ideals behind Free Software.
--Abu Badali 17:47, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Whose freedom?
This essay spends many words explaining that you have trouble with, or aren't willing to engage in, thinking "software that provides freedom" when you read "free software". Why is it so hard? Of course we're talking about the user's freedom; the Free Software Definition couldn't be much clearer:
"Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:"
Cjbprime (talk) 15:46, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
