
How I realised “Open Source” is a better term than “Free Software” - xylon
http://www.naughtycomputer.uk/open_source_better_than_free_software.html
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informatimago
"because >99% of computer users are non-programmers, making the freedoms to
study, modify & redistribute not directly relevant."

This is wrong. It is very relevant to users that their software be free, when
they want to have it modified to fit their changing needs and when the
corporation who sold it to them cannot and will not do it. (They will never do
it, because either the corporation has folded since long, or it's too big to
deal with small users and their petty specific needs). How many years are bugs
lingering in widely used software: as long as they don't matter to a majority
of users, they won't be dealt with.

So, the situation where a would-be paying customer approaches a programmer to
perform some correction or maintainance on some software, is not theorical at
all, and in this situation the relevance of having freedom software is
directly perceived by the customer and the programmer, since the later cannot
work (at any acceptable cost, technically) on proprietary software, while it
would be trivial on freedom software.

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DarkKomunalec
"It’s not really about Freedom at all, because >99% of computer users are non-
programmers, making the freedoms to study, modify & redistribute not directly
relevant."

It's like saying >99% of people don't own news agencies, so requiring
government approval to publish a story is not directly relevant. It _is_
relevant - to everyone who might want to read the story, or in this case, use
the software.

This is also the same logic that was used to advocate (unsuccessfully, for
now) for mandatory DRM in TVs: "This protects the rights of artists, while
only limiting the rights of a very small number of people who make TVs." What
it ignores is that it also deprives everyone of the right to _buy_ a DRM-free
TV, thus restricting everyone, not just the few TV manufacturers.

