"Why should we care to have a 100 per cent free operating system? Isn't being almost free enough? Not if you value freedom itself.
The Free Software Movement was founded to win freedom for software users. Its offshoot, Open Source, was founded to downplay freedom as a value. This difference, which may seem subtle, has big consequences and this is one example of them..."
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Penguin Pete gets into the fairytales... welocome to the computing republics of Windows, Apple, and Unix; all ruled in remarkably different ways.
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RMS: «The EFF is fighting an attempt to twist copyright law to give the software developer total power over execution of the program. Victory in this case will not eliminate the practice of restricting how users run proprietary programs. It will only limit the developers to using contracts as the means. This will not make users free.
Read more »"...Science, technology and social and economic interests are profoundly intertwined today, interacting and mutually influencing one another. Many movements that are struggling for changes now recognize that, unless these issues are taken up by many and various groups of citizens, it will not be possible to deal with the challenges of our times.
Read more »"The primary mission of GNU is freedom and social solidarity. We seek to help computer users by giving them software that respects their freedom and their community, so as to put an end to the practice of using proprietary software, which tramples both..."
Read more »"In 1984, Richard Stallman founded a social movement known as the free software movement. The free software movement fights for the ability to control our computers as a cooperative community (as opposed to being under the rule of software proprietors where users have only as much control over their computers as the proprietor allows).
Read more »"...We, therefore, the computer users of the world solemnly publish and declare that all computer users ought to be free and independent of proprietary software; that they are absolved from all allegiances to, and all political and social connection to, proprietary software, and claim all rights digital freedom provides.
Read more »Ask average computer users what FOSS is about, and, if they've even heard of it, they'll probably say something about the source code being publicly available.
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RMS: «Spending time to support a non-free system is not, in general, a virtue, and is not a particularly effective way to become a better
person.»
The newly formed Manchester Free software Group hosted Richard Stallman in Manchester or the first of May.
Talking on the subject of Free Software in ethics and practice", RMS drew a crowd of more than 300 people to the event, run in association with the BCS and IET.
"The new freedom movement , in software, knowledge, publishing and commerce, will change the way we think, do things and interact..."
Read more »"...free software will prove strongly resistant to state interference. Because virtually everyone associated with a free software project is a volunteer, the state cannot easily compel them to participate in tax and regulatory schemes. [...] But even better, free software is likely to prove extremely resistant to state efforts to build privacy-violating features into software systems..."
Read more »"People are ignorant, but we already know that. As usual, I’ve read something really stupid on Twitter this morning. It said: I hope Apple will develop for everyone [every OS]. I think it would be one of the worst things to ever happen. Why do people want to install non-free software on free systems?
Read more »"Tthorough discussion of enclosure must consider the international institutions that impose it. The International Monetary Fund is a well-known example; its "rescue" agreements attack the intellectual commons through "user fees" for public school, which prevent millions of poor children from attending.
Read more »The latest strip is available at Free Software Magazine.
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