Re:Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software
by karmakaze on Tuesday January 11, 2022 @10:18AM
(#29892435)
This is where people get lost:
> When we call software “free,” we mean that it respects the users' essential freedoms: the freedom to run it, to study and change it, and to redistribute copies with or without changes. This is a matter of freedom, not price, so think of “free speech,” not “free beer.”
Some people will interpret 'user freedom' to mean do what they want with it, and their conclusion is a very permissive license, not what the FSF meant.
It would be better to describe this freedom to the software itself rather than the user of the software, it that it cannot be contained. This is what gives long-term utility to people as a whole.
> When we call software “free,” we mean that it respects the users' essential freedoms: the freedom to run it, to study and change it, and to redistribute copies with or without changes. This is a matter of freedom, not price, so think of “free speech,” not “free beer.”
Some people will interpret 'user freedom' to mean do what they want with it, and their conclusion is a very permissive license, not what the FSF meant.
It would be better to describe this freedom to the software itself rather than the user of the software, it that it cannot be contained. This is what gives long-term utility to people as a whole.