Open source extremism lives

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RE: Open source extremism lives

We who firmly defend the freedom to change and redistribute software are just as offended that our position is mislabeled as "open source" supporter as we are that it is called "extreme".

The free software movement, at its heart wants to encourage freedom and cooperation. The software we encourage the creation and spread of is software that allows individuals to run it for any reason they wish, examine and modify it for their own purposes, share it with their neighbors, and to share modifications with their community. We believe that sharing software and encouraging freedom and cooperation is civil and ethical, but certainly not extreme.

Furthermore, although it is true that nearly all open source software is free software, free software and open source stand for views based on fundamentally different values. Whereas open source is a development methodology, free software can be considered a social movement. For the free software movement, free software is an ethical imperative, because only free software respects the users' freedom. On the other hand, the philosophy of open source considers issues in terms of how to, in a practical sense, make software ???better.??? The open source philosophy states that non-free software is a suboptimal solution. For the free software movement, non-free software is a social problem, and moving to free software is the solution.

For further reading, I encourage you to read the following essays:
* http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
* http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/pragmatic.html

Joshua Gay, campaigns manager
Free Software Foundation

Posted by: joshuagay   Posted on: 09/09/08 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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