4 ms·
It's ironic that the biggest obstacle to Stallman's idea of free software is his own stupid use of the word "free", so I feel I have to ask but do you mean free
by bayareaguy 18y ago
It's ironic that the biggest obstacle to Stallman's idea of free software is his own stupid use of the word "free", so I feel I have to ask but do you mean free as in "without charge" or free as in "unencumbered"? Given that this is Hacker News, it's perhaps important to keep in mind that Stallman has nothing against commercial software. The whole "free" issue for him has to do with restrictions on the right of people to hack and redistribute their hacks.
- krschultz 18y agoNo, the issue for Stallman is for the software to be open and stay open. There are many places where the GPL put limitations on what YOU CAN DO with the software. His whole "rights for the people" is a side effect of "rights for the software". By free he means the SOFTWARE is free, not the people using it are free to do what they want. There is a reason the BSD people complain like hell about GNU and the GPL. In my view, the BSD is 'free' software i.e. you can do what you want with it, and the GPL is 'shared' or 'collective' software i.e. you can change it, but you have to share all your changes.