[SWLUG] Free as in freedom

[Rhys Jones]

I've been purely pragmatic in my distinction between open source and free
software so far (basically, to me, it's just been the difference between
clicking the box in Ubuntu that says 'allow MP3s to be played' or not). But
I'm looking for a new laptop at the moment (separate post, maybe) and I'm
very keen for all the hardware to have properly open-source drivers for the
Linux (or is it GNU/Linux?) side of things, mostly again for pragmatic
reasons - the day I never have to open a 'restricted drivers' dialog box,
or type sudo modprobe into a terminal window, will be a very happy one for
me.

And it's interesting, in any case, how the politics of free software is
bleeding over into the mainstream. You've all seen this photo of Stallman
and Assange, I assume? Very 1960s revolutionary:
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/355634896632414208

Rhys


2013/8/12 <steve at nexusuk.org>

> On 10/08/13 01:25, Hugh Mayfield wrote:
>
> > I wondered to what extent people in this group are interested in free
> > software as opposed to simply open source?  To what extent to people try
> to
> > run fully free systems?  Does the group see itself as supporting
> GNU+Linux
> > or simply Linux?  If there was a "free software user group" in South
> Wales
> > would people see that as something worth joining, or a needless
> duplication
> > of SWLUG, or somewhere in between?
>
> I'm interested in Free (as in freedom) software.  That doesn't
> necessarily mean it has to be free (as in beer), although most Free
> software is.  I also have no particular problem with using closed source
> (i.e. non-Free) software if it will do the job at hand significantly
> better than open software.
>
> As it stands though, the vast majority of software I use is both free
> and Free, because for many years I've found that Free software usually
> seems to do what I want either better than, or just as well as,
> proprietary software.  On the rare occasions where I use proprietary
> software, I invariably get frustrated by the artificial limits imposed
> by the vendors; or by bugs that the vendors refuse to fix and that I
> would be perfectly capable of fixing myself if I had the source.
>
> So I guess, when faced between a choice between closed and open
> software, I will always err towards the open unless there's a
> significant reason to go for the closed software, purely because I know
> the open software will generally be less limiting to me in the long run.
>
> (I say this as someone who has been using Linux since around 1996, and
> hasn't used Windows for anything serious since Windows 98.  In fact,
> using either Windows or OS X these days feels pretty painful because
> they just don't work the way I'm used to working - simple stuff like a
> lack of sloppy-focus, etc. makes them pretty horrible for me.  I've been
> a fairly happy user of Gnome 3 for quite a while now :)
>
> --
>
>   - Steve
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