"...The feeling of not being able to fix buggy software is very depressing. Manufacturers of washing machines should ship source code with every device.
(Come to think of it, I would also like to edit my microwave's program. I don't want it to beep when I press a button, but I do want it to beep at the end of the cycle. This is not an option, but would be easy to add. If I had the source code.)"
Full story »
bogdanbiv
14 years 44 weeks 4 days 1 hour ago
Hate
I haven't come on an occasion when hate was appreciated. I dislike proprietary applications none the less, but speaking negatively on a subject also means you speak negatively about yourself and what you support. Readers answer this with "Ahh, my , it's that pushy activist again, lets' get out of here...".
Usually people who start talking about hate never get to speak about what they love because potential readers are already long gone. It's just a nuance for most writers, but readers may respond to this unconsciously by voting with their feet giving no feedback... Writers never notice this.
Just my opinion...
aboutblank
14 years 44 weeks 3 days 8 hours ago
When I first learned of
When I first learned of RMS's stance on proprietary software, I immediately understood why free software is good. I was also slightly disturbed as I didn't understand why RMS felt that proprietary software was evil. Now I have come to value my freedom after coming to understand RMS's essays about free software.
What I've learned is that proprietary software is anti-social and is anti-ethical to freedom; free software is the ethical solution to this problem. When you come to understand what this means, then the conclusion for citizens that value their freedom is this: proprietary software is evil and should be avoided if one values their freedom. The problem is that people don't reach this level of understanding because they don't bother to understand why. I just guess they aren't ready to learn.
libervisco
14 years 42 weeks 6 days 11 min ago
Copyright, not just proprietary software
Trouble is, something not even RMS appears to understand fully, the real war should be between the concept of intellectual property and supporting laws (copyright, patents) and the concept of software as unownable "things". Unfortunately, all Free Software supporters today do is flip the same copyright to their advantage and STILL enforce their supposed ownership of it (claiming the right to control how you use your software even if the restrictions are as supposedly light as "must share under same terms".
Free Software movement as it currently stands is largely hypocritical. Completely abandoning and hacking around copyright as a whole would be the principled thing to do. Then use the market campaigning strategies to demand vendors to release source code. Licensing would be moot because software ownership doesn't exist.
Free Software supporters ought to understand that without copyright proprietary software wouldn't be as empowered as it is.