[Sussex] Distros

[Geoffrey J. Teale]

"Chris Jones" <cmsj at tenshu.net> writes:
> Hi
>
> To play the Devil's Advocate card (especially since you have a fsf.org
> address ;) I would suggest this may well be because the FSF's definition
> of Free Software, though admirable, is not that useful in the real world
> where people need software more than they need moral purity ;)

Well, to be clear, there really isn't much that you use in an average
Linux distro that is non-Free.  My point really was to promote a
consciousness of what "freedom" is and how the naming the Debian Free
Software Guidelines is confusing.

However, whilst we're on the subject, the argument that "for practical
reason we need non-free software" is getting less and less valid as
time goes along.  The only real area in which non-free software is
still a practical requirement is in driving a few pieces of hardware.
I deliberately exclude games from this equation, the home
entertainment market, while interesting and glamourous is not really
of any social value.

Which leads me nicely to the cornerstone of my concern.  While we sit
around and think of F/OSS software as a nice way to do things and a
way of incurring less cost the development of this software has
massive social and economic benefit to less developed nations than
this.  My reasons for being strict in my definition of freedom have a
lot more to do with the impact non-free software has of people.

See here for the evidence of how import Free software is to the
developing world in just UNESCO's limited scope of operations:

http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=12034&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

By continuing to support non-free software, or at least not-actively
opposing it, we in the west can create situations which exclude people
in other nations from being able to enjoy the freedoms our greater
economic strength allows us.  It's not just an economic argument
(Remember free as in freedom not free as in beer) but a question of
people being required to use software and hardware from 1st world
vendors with no scope for local support, no scope for local people to
learn how it really works and thus no ability to obtain the skills
required to set up supporting and/or competing businesses.  Worse
still non-free software establishes and reinforces continuous streams
of revenue out of countries whose economies are frail at best.

Admittedly the FSF's definition of "free" is very strict, and
most "Open Source" software fulfils that definition, but those that
don't fulfil that requirement (and lets be clear, we're not talking
about GPL compatibility we're talking about being "Free") fail to do
so for important reasons that disadvantage people using them instead
of Free Software.

The value of a truly free distro is great (as Ututo is showing in
Argentina) in it's own right, but as a reminder of the roots of the
movement in which we are all involved it's worth a lot.  Neither RMS
or anyone else in the Free Software Foundation is a crackpot or
rabidly anti-capitalist or any of the other name I've seen us called.
We're simply a group of people who believe passionately that software
is a tool to benefit humanity, not another bludgeon with which to
oppress people.  We simply want people who are benefitting from those
freedoms to be more aware of it and try as hard as possible not to
undermine it.

-- 
Geoff Teale
CMed Technology            -   gteale at cmedresearch.com
Free Software Foundation   -   tealeg at member.fsf.org

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