> I do dare to ask a dumb question, after reading several post about FSF. > > Can anyone explain what is FSF, i'm just a simple tech guy!
One thing they also do - perhaps the most important in my opinion - is that they keep companies who make use of free software honest. They will commence legal action against companies that take advantage of open source software by using it without complying with the licence. There are companies out there that think because the source code is available for free, they can do what they want with it. So they release a product, one of us buys it, then we want to use the source code to make changes to the device so that it works better for our needs. Oh no, they say, you can't do that. We got the code for free and we made changes to it, but you dear customer, aren't allowed to touch it. That's when the FSF can get involved and ensure the company plays by the rules. They've had some high profile cases over the years, and this is in part why aftermarket router firmware is so widely available. Since most manufacturers use Linux, they are required to release all the code which allows projects like OpenWRT to work on those devices too. This wasn't always the case, and there are still some manufacturers who make it very difficult, but it is due to the work of the FSF that the non-compliant companies are becoming fewer and fewer. Cheers, Adam. _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
