A salesperson walks into your office today and tells you that you have to buy a new, pre-built, expensive desk for every one of your employees. You have to buy a new desk today and replace it every three to five years. You see, you don't really own the desk; you're simply purchasing a license to use the desk.
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Anybody up to writing good directory software?
Tue, 2007-02-20 11:17 — David JonathanSince the very beginning, directories (of any kind) have had a very central role in the internet. (I have recently grown fond of Free Web Directory. Even Slashdot can be considered a directory: a collection of great news and invaluable user-generated comments. As far as software is concerned, doing a quick search on Google about software directories will return the free (as in freedom) software directories like Savannah, SourceForge, Freshmeat and so on, followed by shareware and freeware sites such as FileBuzz, PCWin Download Center and All Freeware (great if you're looking for shareware and freeware, but definitely less comprehensive than their free-as-in-freedom counterparts).
Is better education the key to finding better software?
Sat, 2007-03-03 03:25 — Edward RusselI read David Jonathon's article Anybody Up To Writing Good Directory Software? the other day, which got me thinking about software directories in general. As David mentioned, many of the software directories one finds when doing a quick google search are free as in beer, not as in freedom. But what interests me is the software directories that already exist, providing a combination of both free as in beer software, and open source software. Sites such as Freeware Downloads and Shareware Download don't advertise themselves as providing free as in liberty software, but each of them have a good selection of open source software available... if you know where to look.
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I think this is a fair
I think this is a fair attempt as an analogy to the nature of subjugation as practised by certain masters over the citizens of society.
My gripe about this one is the implication that free software is characterised as being gratis. This is a concern because the analogy characterises the non-free chairs as being commercial, expensive, and inflexible. It also characterises the free chairs as being gratis and easily modified.
Free, Open Source Software (FOSS) is about the individual's and community's freedom to help themselves and cooperate with each other about computer software. The term free in FOSS is a reference to liberty, it isn't a reference to gratis. The term open source is intended to emphasise the "open" nature of the software that will allow enthusiasts and professionals to cooperate with each other to improve the sofware.