Free as in 'freedom' and not as in beer

[Sir Radfordin]

Out of interest has anyone read the argument of Richard Stallman (RMS) click here as to why Software should be free?

Anyone have any views on the matter?

click here

How many of the people who use Linux have made any kind of payment for it? Those who bought a boxed version was that because you want to make a contribution to the 'project' or because you didn't/couldn't download off the Internet?

[Sir Radfordin]

My View

Agreement will only be found with RMS where you share his goals and views. It is only because there is proprietary software being developed that his view seems to idealistic. If software development were funded in the same way that other scienfitic research has been then his argument would be a perfectly valid one.

Why do you spend 3+ year developing a programme? In the past it would have been to meet a specific need, and once that need had been met it didn't matter what happened to the code as the creater had maximised the value. However since the Sony Walkman there has been a culture of invoation that 'creates need' rather than 'meets need' - who needed to listen to music whilst walking the streets prior to the Walkman? If you create something for which 'you' don't have a personal need then you will have to find the return some other way - that is done though charging other people to use it.

Whilst I don't fully agree with Stallman's view there can be no denying that if you share his moral view there is nothing wrong with his argument.

[fragged one]

i defenitely think that people should be able to charge for their hard work and effort put into creating a piece of software. i'm not going to give much effort into debating something i find pretty ludicrous.

as to the second part...

i've used linux for a few years now, starting with red hat 7.3, and now i'm using fedora core 2. i love linux, and would absolutely be willing to pay for it once i settle on a single distrobution, and i think i found it in fedora. i'll give it a little while on core 2 to see how it plays out (it was just released last week), but i love it.

thing is, i don't think you CAN buy fedora, except from independent sellers that just charge for the disk. it's a completely free opensource development.

[Guest northamuk]

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/index.cfm?go=di...46788&forumid=2

[moon]

My view's a bit odd. I have an absolute admiration for the philanthropists, the people giving their software, music, graphics etc. to the world for free. I don't know what their motives are but I like to think I do.

[catgate]

It's a very debatable matter. In the "olden days" of DOS and basic one could write ones own programmes to do a specific task, and do it in the best way to suit ones own way of operating. With the advent of Big Bill hijacking Gates (yes, he even hijacked MSDOS) and his bloatware, the aim of being all things to all people has ensured that DOS has almost vanished, and even that which remains in W98 is much reduced. Granted in many areas we have gained what used to be called "portability", but had we all been using DOS and basic (even compiled) we would still have portability, and as a bonus maybe we would have needed less RAM, Swap file space and HDD space? But then, I suppose I am nothing but a Luddite at heart!