On Mon, 2005-11-14 at 17:45 -0600, Randomthots wrote: > Shawn K. Quinn wrote: > > "Free of charge" (price) is not the same thing as "free as a bird" or > > "free speech" (freedom). > > Understand that for the vast majority (including me) the difference is > almost moot. The fact that I couldn't hack the code if my life depended > on it renders open-source the functional equivalent of free-ware. The > only real difference is that if I had the money I could theoretically > hire someone to do it for me. I don't so I can't.
The difference is far from moot, especially when you consider a Microsoft EULA (end-user license agreement). Obviously, you're one of the people that just accepts it without actually reading what you are agreeing to. Next time you install non-free (as in freedom) software, read the EULA. All of it. Then realize by the nature of the LGPL, OOo has *none* of those encumbering conditions. Microsoft's EULAs are particularly obnoxious. Even if you cannot program, the availability of OOo as free software means a lot. For one, it means if you decide to change operating systems, you can still run a native version of OOo (assuming it's ported to that OS). Will Microsoft ever compile a version of its office suite for GNU/Linux? GNU/Hurd? FreeBSD? OpenBSD? NetBSD? Solaris? I sure wouldn't bet money on it... Free software means when you *can* afford to hire a programmer to make a feature enhancement to OOo, you can do so. Free software means security-critical bugs get fixed now, not when the vendor (like Microsoft) decides to finally say "yeah, this really is an issue, we'll have a patch out by Thursday" on Friday morning. (Anyone remember the teardrop vulnerability in the Linux kernel that also affected Windows?) And the list goes on... As an aside, I think use of the term "open source" has confused far too many people (and given the chance for some unscrupulous people and companies to call things "open source" where the user's freedoms were dubious at best). Say what negative things you want about Richard Stallman, but he was on to something when he started the free software movement and called it that (and, no, Stallman has *nothing* to do with the open source movement, which came along later and adopted only some of the free software movement's platform, arguably to the detriment of both movements). -- Shawn K. Quinn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
