There was that recent discussion sparked partly by my asking a GIMP
question that turned into "why would anybody choose to run Linux"
and some apparent misunderstandings about the nature of and motivations
for 'free software'.
I wrote a long message about some of those misconceptions which
appears never to have made it to the list, which may be just as well
... especially since someone else has now stated one of the important
bits better than I had done.
I don't really want to re-open that thread here (though I'm certainly
willing to discuss it more off-list), but I do want to put the
following quote from a free-software author where folks who aren't
familiar with the relevant memes can see it:
<http://marnanel.livejournal.com/1146710.html>
Anyway, we talk a lot about Free Software. Some people
suppose it means software you don't have to pay for.
It doesn't mean that: it means software which grants
you certain freedoms. One of those is the right to
change the way it works and make that into a whole new
program, which is called "forking"; this right is often
called "the right to fork". Last week someone announced
he had forked Gnusto into a new system called Parchment,
which will let you play any of these hundreds of games
on the web with almost any modern browser. People took
what Eric and I had done and mashed it up and made
something beautiful with it. That is the power of
freedom. That is why I'm happy.
I don't think this is a controversial statement; it is simply one of
the various aspects motivating some people to seek out free software.
I present it solely for the edification of those who hadn't had reason
to know/understand this before but who had expressed curiosity as to
why some of us do choose it. I'm not saying (though some would) that
this makes all free software automatically better than any proprietary
software, just pointing out one of the factors to weigh when deciding
on a case by case basis which to use.
-- Glenn
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