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7 years ago (10/01/05)
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4 years ago
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| Datamike |
 | FS Advocate |
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FS AdvocacyYeah, I'm an advocate. Been pretty much as long as I've been aware of the concept of Free Software. Remember that to have been my original inspiration to run a completely Linux and thus free desktop computer. Since I've explored several linux distributions and some of the qualities of FreeBSD and haven't regretted it not once.
The original push for me, to find out what free software was came in the form of a DVD, called Revolution OS, which is a comprehensive documentary on the birth of the Gnu Project, the Free Software Foundation, and the Open Source Movement. It also gives a very good account on the phases of how free software developed, spread, and what it actually means to call software Free (yeah, believe it or not, lots of people get it wrong).
The famous quote still makes the best case; "Free software is a matter of liberty not price. To understand the concept, you should think of 'free' as in 'free speech', not as in 'free beer'" by Richard Stallman.
I think a lot of people really miss the completely, when they think about free software and criticize it. To call FS advocates hippies and the concept itself communistic, is just plain dump. We don't walk around with flowers in our heads, singing songs about sunshine. Nor is anyone saying you MUST use free software. It's there for you, if you should want it, period. I think Bruce Perens said it best, "Carl Marx did not invent, 'helping your neighbor'". The thing is, proprietary software and free software can easily co-exists. And I think they should co-exist. But I think it's important that not ALL software is proprietary. It's actually more communistic to say, like lots of anti-FS companies (like Microsoft) do, that all software should be proprietary.
If you look at examples, you can find lots of situations where free software has actually accomblished its mandate; a) before if you wanted to look up a work in a dictionary, you had to either go to the library or by your dictionary for a quite high cost, as in now, you can just go to Wikipedia and find out what you needed. Or if you need a word processor, beyond notepad or workpad, and didn't want to/could not pay couple hundred dollars for MS Office or WP, you can just go and download Abi Word, Emacs, OpenOffice, or any number of similar programs. How about a program for image manipulation, an operating system, server software, music player, etc. There is still room for nonfree software, but now we also have a free alternative. And that is the important part, that "the people have the freedom of choice".
I think it's also wonderful to see that many have realized that the concept FS, does not only apply to software. A lot of people commonly view of issue as, "none of their concern", since they are not hackers and don't dabble with software. But they are wrong, you can easily expand the idea to almost anything. Wikipedia (free dictionary) is a great example of this. There are also news web sites that run with this idea, and I've also heard of a technology research lab in Australia that is releasing their research results as "free". It is the the good will and passion of people like that, just might, make the world a better place.
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Now I can completely understand and relate to the people who complain how much things cost today,since it's true,but how can you complain about things being free?That's just hypocrisy,but it's also how we are built,but get a grip for *peep* sake.
I personally like the idea of Free Software,since so much money already goes to all kinds if stuff.
The good will of people might truly be what will make this world a better place,but that is something that will take a long time,and things need to change,before anykind of "evolution" can happen
But really sure what you meant by that Tsingwa.
I do agree though that free software ignites fear in a lot of people, mainly within corporations though, who rely heavily on making money of software licenses. After all, that's how money is mainly done with proprietary software. What free software does, is it forces those who want to make money on software to make it with services. There was actually a wonderful article about this in the Tietokone magazine. Lots of people falsely claim that you can't money on free software, but they don't see the big picture; they are thinking on terms of licenses and not services. Isn't support service one the pillars of software business? Especially to bigger corporations it's absolutely essential, when they are looking for software vendors.
Lots of people also falsely claim that there aren't really companies who have gone open source or that there are very very few companies that make profit on services. Again, this is not true, but they are right about the fact that they are not very visible. I'm excluding companies like IBM, RedHat Inc., Novell, etc. from this conversation. They are large and known companies that have supported free software for ages. But what about corporation on a much smaller scale? Well, with the help of the article I can name a couple from Finland alone:
Nemein (in english)
"Nemein is a Finnish consultancy producing Open Source -based information management solutions. Nemein's solutions enable organizations to improve their web, sales, marketing, project and customer service operations."
Cubical Solutions (in english)
"Expertise: hardware sensitive programming and drivers, hardware sensitive programming and drivers, software-hardware integration, software architecture design, etc."
I think a lot of the fear stems unnecessarily from large corporations, who fear the change in the business models, proposed by free software. Corporations, the bigger they are, the more poorly they react to change. It's quite understandable that a lot of corporations don't want this change too; after all they are making tons and tons of money on software licenses. That's how Microsoft got to be so rich, they were able to create a license model most optimal to draw cash from their customers.
Do they know? I'm sure they do (unless they are retarred). Students are universally poor. Do they actually care? No. They just want their last cash, for their crappy software, after which they forget about you.