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Free Software Day Around The World
depechemodem writes "In a follow-up to Microsoft Leaves U.N. Standards Group, it appears that it may have been in reaction to the UN's sponsorship of the 1st annual Software Freedom Day in which its International Open Source Network (IOSN) will educate Asian users on the benefits
of Free and Open source Software (FOSS). FOSS promotes several high-profile applications including OpenOffice, Mozilla, MySQL, and Apache." An anonymous reader says of the U.N. effort, "Events will be organised in Bangladesh, Brunei, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam on Saturday, August 28th." According to another anonymous reader, "Go Open Source, funded by the Shuttleworth Foundation and HP, expects up to 10,000 visitors at the various Linux install-fests around South Africa this Saturday, says the Mail & Guardian."
I instinctively cringe whenever I see something like this:
1st annual software Freedom Day
It might end up being a total flop, and not be bothered with again.
(I do of course hope its a success)
Next year I would be willing to consider it the 2nd Annual software freedom day, but lets get past the first one ummmmm first.
Its just one example of illogical phrases.
liqbase
there will be an Indonesia Goes Open Source Award (IGOS) 2004.
-- budi
One name is especially missing - Singapore, the country with the second fastest technological adaptation in the world, close seconds to the United States and Japan.
And that's the problem - everything in Singapore runs on Microsoft (our "world's first" automated train system [blue screen...!], traffic surveillance, etc etc). Nobody has a plausible explanation, but as a citizen I'm sorely disappointed.
First of all, developing countries need free software. Until they can use software to develop infrastructure and businesses, they can't afford to pay for software.
/. articles shows that. I said this in response to the moron that suggested Microsoft should start OSS software efforts: Microsft needs to change their business practices, not their software development!
Secondly, I think companies are fed up with more than just Microsoft's prices. A quick perusal of past
Thirdly, this whole issue about claiming victories over MS IS silly! I don't care about victories over Microsoft. I just want to use softwar that works. I just want to be able to work with software that I can use and, if it doesn't quite do what I want, change it so that I can use it better!
This isn't Marxism; this is ultra-capitalism at work. Unless and until Microsoft is willing to compete based on the quality and functionality of their products (and, no, they haven't up 'til now) they will continue to lose customers to OSS.
What I don't like is to be forced into giving my work away for free.
... and it is this fact which brings about the free software movement; the notion that expensive computer hardware is essentially useless without a second, easy-to-produce (and duplicate) commodity, namely software.
... and involves a degree of ignorance, nay naivete, on the part of the purchaser, like all capitalist systems ...
Nobody is forcing you to do anything. If there was force involved in "Free Software", then it wouldn't be "Free", it'd be "Enforced" software.
What you should be saying is, "I don't like being forced to pay out the nose for software that should be free", such as the operating system, without which your hardware is essentially useless. When you buy hardware, it does nothing until you've "bought" software to make it run.
Ideas are cheap to duplicate, but expensive to invent (cost of doing research vs. buying a book).
This is not an absolute. Some idea's are extremely cheap, some are very difficult (and thus costly) to realize. In the end, though, software idea's don't go anywhere without the hardware
Software is easy to produce. Compare what it takes to write software with what it takes to fabricate silicon. This comparison cannot be made without the conclusion that software is *always* going to be cheaper than hardware. It is simply a natural law, alongside the other 'obvious' natural law that states that software is useless without something to run it on.
Free software is an attempt to embrace that natural law. $oftware which co$ts is an attempt to refute it
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
How about a /. sponsored free software day, where we try to get all those /. readers still using *cough* windows *cough* to switch to something more open?
What would happen if other things in the world were free? What if budding designers and contractors demostrated their skills by building free pubic buildings?
Free as in beer would be kinda strange and other posters have addressed that weirdness. Free as in speech is common place in construction. You have to apply for planning permission which requires submitting the plans to local government. Anyone can request a plan at a small fee. I don't know about you but I think that's quite a free system!
Artists could behave more freely by releasing their work under a GNU style license. That's great but how do they get renumerated for their efforts you ask? Rather than releasing an album you simply release many singles. The artist might sell their single directly from their website at a dollar. Now once you buy that song you can distribute that freely and do all of the other things you can do in a GNU style license however the artist will not release the next single until they feel they've been adequately compensated for their efforts.
If they're crap they disappear pretty quickly. If they have a good fan base they make quite a bit of cash. Stephen King (search for his name in the document) did this successfully with an e-book he wrote. It does work!
Simon.
'A United Nations-funded organization has produced a Linux desktop manual for novice PC users as part of an effort to encourage developing countries to use open-source software.' - ZDNet (http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5322002.html)
--- Yx3 = Delilah ---
Ummm... Sofware and computers are not a case of guns and ammo, my friend, and I will tell you why.
/. after all), so maybe I should frame it a little more comfortably: When was the last time you used your gas stove to mine gas?
... as long as you've got an intrinsically finite machine (physically, I mean...) to run it on. That means a functioning power grid as much as it means silicon in a box.
... and there's a compiler available.
...
Yeah, okay, it'd be a 'fine argument' to compare computers+software with blade+razor (though it seems you're not even thinking about it, you're just arguing) were it not for the fact that, computers and software are -essential- to each other in a profoundly different way than razors, or gas and stoves, in that they represent an infinite-resource machine.
An essence exists in the relationship which factually promotes freedom.
The thing about computers+software, philosophically, is that one is a resource made of generally cheap materials, refined and processed into a machine of finite design which as a product must be 100% operational to be of any value whatsoever, and one is an entire realm of infinite possibilities which requires no additional earthly resources more than electricity (generally easy to produce) in order to accomplish magnanimous gain through the productive attention of a living human being... who is incidentally, while operating in the state which produces code to run on such machines, generally not killing anyone, while enhancing their environment with wonderous tasks of automation.
Maybe thats too deep a concept for you (this is
(I'd love to see that hack!)
Software 'should be free' because in fact, it is an expression of Infinity, as close to any that humans have ever made. As a resource, computers represent infinity.
There are an infinite number of things you can do with computer+software
We'll run out of gas eventually, and those stoves will be useless. But good computers will run for hundreds and hundreds of years, doing productively useful things presuming we are creating civilization capable of running them
Sure, Microsoft Windows runs on those PC's now. Think those PC's (which should, factually, still be around) will be running that same software in 200 years? In 300 years? In 400?
Free Software now means better software in the future. In Linux' case, that event horizon has been relatively short
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Someone has to write it, which takes time and effort, and that someone should be compensated for his time and effort, assuming that someone else finds his work valuable and is willing to pay for it.
Someone 'does have to' write software, it doesn't write itself. But you can write software for fun, for the love of it, and exclusively for the use you will get out of the hardware. It shouldn't be that the only thing you can do with computers, specific hardware, is dictated to you by an economically-ensconced technocracy.
Free Software is radical because its at one end of the scale. Have you ever considered what is at the other end? As long as those two ends are far and wide apart, and our society supports such a suspension, then there is still tons of room in the middle for a compromise which works for all who choose to use computers to do useful things in their life.
If, instead, software can only be licensed, and there is no choice, and there are no possibilities to further attend to that software and improve it, then the quality of software - and computer use in general - degrades. This has been proven, time and again, against many sound and resolute laws (Moore, et al.)
I'm not advocating a free-only approach to computer usage; sure, as long as we've got an economic system which feeds us, we should strengthen that system. But we ought to be very careful about having the controls of that system usurped from us.
Free Software is a front against that control. Compilers and run-time environments, specifically...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
You're saying that software should be free because software is useless without hardware and because hardware is useless without software.
Why yes I am.
I suggest you read the whole thread before you break out your insult toy.
Actually, I am intimately familiar with software development, having been a professional coder for 22 years. I know how easy it is to write good code that distributes well. Quite.
Once the boards have been designed and the fabs built, it is very "easy" to fabricate silicon.
So, you're saying you can FTP me a CPU upgrade? Cool, lemme at it!
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --