[SWLUG] Free as in freedom

[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