Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the pontificating dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Richard Stallman has written a piece on the state of free software and where it needs to go now, in celebration of GNU turning 20 today. It's available both on NewsForge and Linux.com."
Apparently you didn't fully RTFA. Stallman doesn't believe the goal of getting people to use free software is popularity but because they want the freedom that comes with it. As copyright enforcement through copy protection or other means becomes progressively harsher for the end user, it'll become more clear that the reason that can motivate people to use free software isn't that everyone else uses it but because they don't want to live in an entrapped world of software. To that end, Stallman admits that people will end up using free software that's inferior to non-free software, but given enough users some might begin to help with the project. Maybe it'll be only words of support or a little money to add a feature they want, but the free software can be made superior to the non-free one and people can choose to use the free software as encouragement until it gets to that point. If anything, Stallman is encouraging the communitizing of the people in free software, not the simple leeching of something that's free. In the long term, the former will help everyone. And if end users realize that, they can accept inferior software until it becomes superior.
-- Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Slashdot Mirror
Apparently you didn't fully RTFA. Stallman doesn't believe the goal of getting people to use free software is popularity but because they want the freedom that comes with it. As copyright enforcement through copy protection or other means becomes progressively harsher for the end user, it'll become more clear that the reason that can motivate people to use free software isn't that everyone else uses it but because they don't want to live in an entrapped world of software. To that end, Stallman admits that people will end up using free software that's inferior to non-free software, but given enough users some might begin to help with the project. Maybe it'll be only words of support or a little money to add a feature they want, but the free software can be made superior to the non-free one and people can choose to use the free software as encouragement until it gets to that point. If anything, Stallman is encouraging the communitizing of the people in free software, not the simple leeching of something that's free. In the long term, the former will help everyone. And if end users realize that, they can accept inferior software until it becomes superior.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h