[clug] Choices and Linux

[Craig Small]

On Sun, Apr 01, 2007 at 11:14:04PM +1000, Paul Wayper wrote:
> The answer to the question 'why should we care' is the GNU philosophy.  It
> comes down to the freedoms that Stallman talks about - the freedom to continue
> to use your own data, to improve the software, to be able to know that the
> software isn't going to lie to you and cheat on you behind your back.  This is
> presented as the 'ideal', and your 'who cares' is the 'reality' that some
> people see, and everyone lives somewhere on the scale between those two points.
To me you have described what separates Open Source from Free Software.
It might not be a big thing for some, which is fine. Personally, it is
a big deal.

> The comparison is a good one.  But I think there's an added dimension.  What
> if merely buy buying wine from overseas you had somehow prevented yourself
> from being able to drink wine made locally - that the manufacturers put some
> secret ingredient in that physically made you incapable of drinking other
Not to mention through awful things like the DMCA that you cannot
attempt to find a way to be able to drink it.

Enough rant from me!

  - Craig
-- 
Craig Small      GnuPG:1C1B D893 1418 2AF4 45EE  95CB C76C E5AC 12CA DFA5
http://www.enc.com.au/                             csmall at : enc.com.au
http://www.debian.org/          Debian GNU/Linux, software should be Free