On Thu, 10 Feb 2022 20:51:42 -0500 Bijan Soleymani <bi...@psq.com> wrote:
> On 2022-02-10 20:05, Celejar wrote: > > I'm genuinely curious about this: time and money are both scarce and > > precious resources. Why is there an assumption that people will gladly > > donate of their time to help others, but not their money? Is it because > > the assumption is that the person asking for help should just spend > > his own money, but may not be able to solve his problem by spending his > > own time? > > I think this is the distinction between free speech and free beer (two > different meanings of the word free in English). > > That is the difference between freedom (no restrictions), and something > being gratis (no cost). > > Debian is committed to free software, as in users are free to modify the > software, and they have access to the source code. > > Debian is not a charity that provides free hardware to people who need > computers. > > Since there is not much cost to distributing software online Debian does > so for free (on their servers and through mirrors), but the important > goal is that the users who get the software have the freedom to modify it. > See: > https://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines > > and > > https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html > > (the related point in the Debian Free Software Guidelines that there > cannot be a fee required to distribute the software, doesn't mean that > one can't charge a fee (for either a CD or download), but rather that > one can't put requirements on further redistribution after that) I do understand and agree with this, but my point was that we (at least the more helpful of us) on this list are perfectly willing to freely give of our time to help others, so why would we (at least those of us fortunate enough to have disposable income to spare) not be willing to give of our money as well to help others who need it? Celejar
