Why Human Rights Requires Free Software

andyo writes "Why Human Rights Requires Free Software: Report on a practitioner's view of the critical role free software plays in the work of human rights activists around the globe."

Comments

Yes, Offtopic

[evilviper]

I'm sure this is quite offtopic, but what the hell.

Is it just me, or does anyone else think it's overkill to give a spot on the front page to every article that expresses an opinion on how good/bad free software is?

Sure, the first few discussions that reach the mainstream public... that makes sense. Now, /. is wasting a lot of space posting the transcripts of what some microsoft employee says, then the 20 rebuttles from the free softwar community. I think I could do without it. Any chance we can make "Free Software-Good/Bad" it into a category so it can be filtered out by everyone? Or maybe just throw it in with the "Jon Katz" category...

Re:[-1 Offtopic] Something I have been thinking ab

[j-pimp]

Heres how I react to conversations like this:

1. The company was able to cut costs. The company wins.
   
2. Free software writers get paid for supporting and customizing there code. Free software in general wins. The software writers win.
   
3. IT workers that are not able to deliver as well as college students get fired. IT workers lose. Capatialism works as Adam Smith described it.
   
   1. 
      
      In this case the College students were able to deliver better than the IT workers. This is in part due to reuse of old labor (code)as well as presumebly cheaper pay.
      
      As far as cheaper pay there are already systems of natural and artifical checks and balances to keep an equilibrium of pay for services releative to the cost of living.
      
      As far as free labor (code), the laborers have to feed themselves and therefore will have to dedicate resources to paid labor. Also, the "free" labor could have been part of an assignment for a class that would be bartered for college credits that would eventually be bartered for a degree.
      
      So in conclusion, yes free software is causing companies to fire experienced professionals and replace them with part time college students. However, this is not neccessarally a bad thing. If the professionals are really that damn good they will be able to get another job. If they can't then society probally has little need for their labor and they will learn new other skills or work for what the college students are working for. The obvisious conclusion of this is there will be less college students taking up computer science/CIS and less free software written. This will cause a greater demand for programmers and greater rates of pay. Hence capatialism will keep the market in check.
      

Re:I think we're stretching things a bit...

[gargle]

The argument made in the article is illogical and plain silly.

Statistical software doesn't need to be open source for people to know whether it works right - the algorithms used are well-established and documented. e.g. Matlab has extensive documentation which describes the algorithms used for each function. Furthermore it's easy to check whether the software is works correctly by running it through test cases.

The fact that a piece of software (e.g. matlab, excel,etc.) is used by scientists, financial engineers, etc. is a better assurance of reliability than its open sourceness.

News to Me. . .

[PhxBlue]

Why, whatever did the framers of the Magna Charta, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution ever do before the concept of Free Software?

What a bunch of tripe. Human rights requires vigilance and dedication. Software systems are a non-sequitur--they can express freedom, but they cannot create it.