>> It’s not really about Freedom at all, because >99% of computer users are non-programmers.<p>> Free Software gives us as a society the freedom to control our computers. And it gives us as individuals the freedom learn how to program them if we want to.<p>Most people are not car mechanics yet they benefit from the rules that require 3 party products and repair shops to be allowed to operate.<p>And the ability to rapidly build upon the work of others reduces the barriers for new, interesting products to be built, which benefits everyone, even non-programmers.
When I talk about free software I make sure to mention the word 'infrastructure' because that's what it is. Just like roads or electricity it is a predicate for building a business (life) on top of.<p>Look at the biggest companies in the world (google, apple, facebook , amazon, microsoft ..) they own platforms i.e. infrastructure! but since these platforms aren't free you hear constant complaints from those who try to build a life on top of them (app store ranking not fair? Search not fair? OS/messenger/web browser/social network is walled garden? Etc.)<p>But even breathe the suggestion that taxes should support building reliable infrastructure (i.e. already existing free software projects) and you'll get a "government shouldn't interfere with functioning business" response.. no matter what structural risk that business carries for society and even though the "interfering" is just offering a viable alternative.
I've been kicking around a business plan idea for about seven years: A software marketplace for items under a GNU license. The key: I neglect to put that fact in the marketing.<p>The full license is posted with the software download, via a pop up EULA-style window before the download proceeds complete with an "I Agree" nuisance button.<p>The market starts with a price discovery model where I suggest a price and allow the person pay whatever they want. After some data gathering, I simply obfuscate the "pick-your-price" mechanism.<p>Yes, this is a bit of cherry-picking, where I employ some dark patterns. My reason for this thought experiment is the crux of this article and discussion: How do you explain software in the English language for which the rights of the end user are enshrined while leaving a profit-path open for the creator? My reply is: You don't. You focus, instead, on making the process of obtaining the software as friendly and service-oriented as possible.<p>I wonder how spectacularly this idea will fail?
I'm personally not a fan of the term free software. It makes me think of trashy freemium software filled with ads and tricks to get you to install browser extensions. Using the term open source creates a nice distinction between ad funded software and truly free software.
At snowdrift.coop we believe both freedom and openness are important values, neither of which encompasses the other. So, we use the acronym FLO, for free/libre/open, which has the nice side effect of sounding like the English word "flow".<p><a href="https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/about/free-libre-open" rel="nofollow">https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/about/free-libre-open</a><p>---<p>The author misses the most important reason, in my opinion, why "free software" is <i>also</i> a bad term: people think they already know what it means, and thus don't really pay attention when you try to explain it. As such, I've stopped using it completely during my advocacy.<p>Instead, I use "FLO software", "software freedom", or "unrestricted software" - the latter being good for when I don't have time to explain fully but also don't want to give the wrong impression.
I realize that Stallman is a polarizing character, but I think the best rationale for Free Software (the concept, perhaps not the term) being better than Open Source is articulated by Stallman himself: <a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....</a><p>I liken democratic institutions such as free elections and due process to the differences between Open Source and Free Software. We don't do these things primarily because of their instrumental utility or because they necessarily yield the "best" results (e.g. Brexit, Trump, climate policy, etc.). We could imagine a political framework with a benevolent computer working as dictator that might do a better job, for some definition of better.<p>Instead, we have free elections and due process because we believe that they are, morally and ethically speaking, the right thing to do. If you believe as I do, that the human capacity for reasoning is greatly magnified by computers, then that's a recognition that human cognition and computers are in some way linked. Computers are the factors of production. De-democratizing those factors of production—even if Microsoft/Apple/Google/Facebook make a great product—is de-democratizing human thought to some degree.
I foresee that in about 10 years time when everything besides the Linux kernel has been replaced by business friendly licenses, we will be back to the days of shareware and public domain.<p>Personally I don't care, as I mostly use commercial software, but I bet those FOSS devs that helped change the landscape and won't be able to access whatever code comes in their devices might think otherwise.
What?<p>As <i>terms</i>, none is "better" than the other, those are <i>different</i> things. A simple google search will reveal the definitions.
> A month ago I wrote an article called "How I realised “Open Source” is a better term than “Free Software”". Now I change my mind completely and explain why everything I said was actually wrong.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pACePi441ds" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pACePi441ds</a>
This is a bit funny. His argument is that the "Free Software" explanation is longer and thus gives you more opportunity to explain it properly.<p>However originally the opposite is the case: The FSF explains free software with the four freedoms [1], the OSIs Open Source Definition has 10 points [2]. If you dig into them you'll realize that they more or less mean the same. Which is also usually the point I tend to make in these debates: How you call it isn't so important, important is what it means.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Free_Software_Definition</a><p>[2] <a href="https://opensource.org/osd-annotated" rel="nofollow">https://opensource.org/osd-annotated</a>
The main point seems to be that the term "free software" is misleading, so you get to describe its benefits when someone asks you what it is.
Think about a cell-phone which has a built-in battery you can't replace. Isn't that bit like software you can't modify?<p>Now should we require the cell-phone manufacturers to make their batteries replaceable on ideological basis? It probably makes it cheaper to produce the cell-phone if the battery is non-replaceable.<p>Similarly making your software open-source probably has costs associated with it.<p>Should we insist that every producer of software must make their product open-source? If it is unethical to produce closed-source software then clearly we should. No?
What Open Source achieved is that we can now build businesses and consimer products quickly by sharing innovation with few strings attached.<p>Free software has limited overlap with that particular benefit of Open Source.<p>At this point in time I think of the two things as widely different so the question does not even come up what's the better term.
I always wish they used the term "liberated" rather then "free". "Liberated software" detaches from prices, detaches from licensing, keeps the desired political associations, and translates fairly well internationally.
I found this Richard Stallman talk to be fantastic (found it here on HN) <a href="http://audio-video.gnu.org/audio/rms-speech-arsdigita2001.ogg" rel="nofollow">http://audio-video.gnu.org/audio/rms-speech-arsdigita2001.og...</a><p>In it he describes that he searched for better terms than "free" as in free speech not free beer and there were 60ish of them, but they all had problems of their own.<p>the Free software movement did more to help open source OS's happen because it was it's goal, than open source has done to create free OS's (because their focus was only the specific problem they were solving, and not the holistic many parts of an open source OS.)<p>Open source is less likely to pass the same licenses and freedom it was built on down to the next iteration, for it's not legally required to do so (which is why whether you got freedom with your X software or not was a function of where you got it from. X software was free, but became unfree if you got it compiled from certain vendors.<p>Open source documentation is also important, as software wit documentation is better/easier to improve software.<p>When you use non free software, you advertise that you're ok with not helping anyone else that might want you to, because you can't give them a copy of what you have.<p>When about half of linux is Gnu and Gnu preceded linux, it's pretty unfair to the Gnu community that they get about 0 credit from many publications, events, the general public.<p>Thus you can give free software to the world, and they'll never even understand what free as in speech and not beer is.<p>Free software is a political movement, open source software is more politics agnostic. I think credit should be given where it is due, for only accurate assignment of credit can reward the good and punish the bad.<p>P.S. Stallman is happy to see you make money on Free software. Free as in speech, not beer. Also the best numbers I could find on what percentage of linux is actually Gnu code is about 8% and linux code was about 9% with the amnt of Gnu going down quickly if you were working on an embedded system. I believe those numbers were from debian and 2014, but I'd be happy to hear a better analysis.
Free software is definitely better than Open Source, but only if you imply that free-as-in-freedom is granted. Otherwise you often get something free-as-in-beer only like a mobile phone OS, which you surely don't have to pay for, but restrict your use of it in many ways and doesn't respect your privacy, all aspects having nothing in common with the concept of freedom. GNU GPL grants this freedom, but the term "free" is often abused to imply free-as-in-beer without the end user noticing the difference.
>> So in fact we must use only 100% Free Software to live the message and spread the message.<p>For work & daily computing/tinkering, I don't mind ditching Windows completely and use FOSS system like Linux (I mean GNU/Linux).<p>But leaving those AAA games is... kinda hard. Really really hard...
[quoted as in article]
>>DRM is great because it stops people pirating movies.<p>>It's like saying police brutality is good because it deters bad dudes. If we have to do despicable things to force people to pay for things then our society is broken.<p>lmao