5 ms·

Free software isn’t really free, it requires a team of software developers to maintain the self hosted servers that it’s running on. School budgets are pretty s

by vxNsr 6y ago

Free software isn’t really free, it requires a team of software developers to maintain the self hosted servers that it’s running on. School budgets are pretty stretched, if they can get away with free OneDrive or gDrive, and the associated cloud suite of software, that doesn’t mean they can drop in libre-office and whatever cloud software is free.

gr2zr4 6y ago
Free as in freedom and not as in free beer
- lovelyviking 6y ago
  Any idea why not to use 'freedom' term instead of 'free' and explaining it again and again. Freedom Software Foundation Freedom software etc ... What prevents renaming?
  - freedomben 6y ago
    Just speaking for myself, the bad grammar of "freedom software" kills it right away for me :-)
  - bregma 6y ago
    The word 'freedom' is itself highly politically charged in a certain very influential country. It has various context-dependent nuances best left undisturbed outside of targeted party-political discourse.
    - Qwertious 6y ago
      When we talk about free software, we're already explicitly invoking "free as in freedom" though. If you want to avoid the " freedom" rhetoric then you should talk about open-source instead.
  - Qwertious 6y ago
    I prefer "freedom-respecting software" myself. It parses better.
- Edman274 6y ago
  Have you heard the expression "Freedom isn't free"? People aren't saying "Liberty isn't liberty", they're saying "Liberty isn't free of charge." Similarly, this person is saying "Libre software isn't free of charge." You're not informing them of something they didn't know.
cycloptic 6y ago
I don't think that was ever the claim that it will never cost the school money to run their computers. The money instead will go to consultants, or some company like Collabora that maintains the LibreOffice installation. (Note: Microsoft or Google could easily bid on this consulting work if they wanted)
MonadIsPronad 6y ago
The 'free' I believe is like the Spanish 'libre', not like 'gratis'. Put another way, it's free as in 'freedom', not free as in 'beer'.
- badwolf 6y ago
  "Free as in speech, not free as in beer"
TallGuyShort 6y ago
>> Free software isn’t really free, it requires a team of software developers to maintain the self hosted servers that it’s running on Free (libre) software isn't necessarily free (gratis) either. Stallman isn't against people being compensated for providing a service, he's against licenses and business models that restrict what you're allowed to do with stuff, especially after you've paid for it. And paid software doesn't really eliminate the need for trained (non-gratis) administration personnel and additional management infrastructure either. As usual I think the absolute of what Stallman's saying here isn't very pragmatic, but the way many schools depend entirely on massive Microsoft contracts isn't really pragmatic either. My school paid a huge amount of money for these huge accounts with Microsoft. And I saw a lot of students leave school with a heavy dependence on Microsoft. I on the other hand, also completed virtually all of my assignments on a tiny Linux netbook using OpenOffice / LibreOffice that cost me a fraction of what everyone else was using. And even as someone who loves the idea of running `git clone` for software I use to make little tweaks? I never once in 4 years found a reason to do that for OpenOffice or LibreOffice. Are those Microsoft contracts really worth it for places that have limited funding and a charter to provide education for the broadest good? I'd absolutely agree there's cases where it's better for the school to simply purchase something quick that solves their problem. I wouldn't have a problem with that. But most of the arguments I hear against even considering the alternatives just sound like resistance to change for the sake of it.
- rimliu 6y ago
  There is another point hidden there. You can use free software in schools just fine. What happens when kids leave the schools? They will face MS Office or Google Docs. Maybe the idea there is that those kids then push to replace those with Libre Office, but that's a pipe dream. So they will have to learn those non-free products. And given that only minority learn the concepts not what exactly which button to push, there will be a lot of unhappy people in the offices.
  - TallGuyShort 6y ago
    >> So they will have to learn those non-free products. And given that only minority learn the concepts not what exactly which button to push, there will be a lot of unhappy people in the offices. If your standard for educational institutions is to learn how to push specific buttons and be unable to learn new software, then they will be failing miserably. And not just because, as you point out in your comment, not every company uses the same office suite. By your standard, using MS Office is already a pragmatic failure for students who go somewhere where they use Google Docs.
sjg007 6y ago
Yes but free software lives on and a new team can drive product updates if the original team abadons it.

by vxNsr 6y ago

gr2zr4 6y ago

Free as in freedom and not as in free beer

lovelyviking 6y ago
Any idea why not to use 'freedom' term instead of 'free' and explaining it again and again. Freedom Software Foundation Freedom software etc ... What prevents renaming?
- freedomben 6y ago
  Just speaking for myself, the bad grammar of "freedom software" kills it right away for me :-)
- bregma 6y ago
  The word 'freedom' is itself highly politically charged in a certain very influential country. It has various context-dependent nuances best left undisturbed outside of targeted party-political discourse.
  - Qwertious 6y ago
    When we talk about free software, we're already explicitly invoking "free as in freedom" though. If you want to avoid the " freedom" rhetoric then you should talk about open-source instead.
- Qwertious 6y ago
  I prefer "freedom-respecting software" myself. It parses better.
Edman274 6y ago
Have you heard the expression "Freedom isn't free"? People aren't saying "Liberty isn't liberty", they're saying "Liberty isn't free of charge." Similarly, this person is saying "Libre software isn't free of charge." You're not informing them of something they didn't know.

cycloptic 6y ago

I don't think that was ever the claim that it will never cost the school money to run their computers. The money instead will go to consultants, or some company like Collabora that maintains the LibreOffice installation. (Note: Microsoft or Google could easily bid on this consulting work if they wanted)

MonadIsPronad 6y ago

The 'free' I believe is like the Spanish 'libre', not like 'gratis'. Put another way, it's free as in 'freedom', not free as in 'beer'.

badwolf 6y ago
"Free as in speech, not free as in beer"

TallGuyShort 6y ago

>> Free software isn’t really free, it requires a team of software developers to maintain the self hosted servers that it’s running on Free (libre) software isn't necessarily free (gratis) either. Stallman isn't against people being compensated for providing a service, he's against licenses and business models that restrict what you're allowed to do with stuff, especially after you've paid for it. And paid software doesn't really eliminate the need for trained (non-gratis) administration personnel and additional management infrastructure either. As usual I think the absolute of what Stallman's saying here isn't very pragmatic, but the way many schools depend entirely on massive Microsoft contracts isn't really pragmatic either. My school paid a huge amount of money for these huge accounts with Microsoft. And I saw a lot of students leave school with a heavy dependence on Microsoft. I on the other hand, also completed virtually all of my assignments on a tiny Linux netbook using OpenOffice / LibreOffice that cost me a fraction of what everyone else was using. And even as someone who loves the idea of running `git clone` for software I use to make little tweaks? I never once in 4 years found a reason to do that for OpenOffice or LibreOffice. Are those Microsoft contracts really worth it for places that have limited funding and a charter to provide education for the broadest good? I'd absolutely agree there's cases where it's better for the school to simply purchase something quick that solves their problem. I wouldn't have a problem with that. But most of the arguments I hear against even considering the alternatives just sound like resistance to change for the sake of it.

rimliu 6y ago
There is another point hidden there. You can use free software in schools just fine. What happens when kids leave the schools? They will face MS Office or Google Docs. Maybe the idea there is that those kids then push to replace those with Libre Office, but that's a pipe dream. So they will have to learn those non-free products. And given that only minority learn the concepts not what exactly which button to push, there will be a lot of unhappy people in the offices.
- TallGuyShort 6y ago
  >> So they will have to learn those non-free products. And given that only minority learn the concepts not what exactly which button to push, there will be a lot of unhappy people in the offices. If your standard for educational institutions is to learn how to push specific buttons and be unable to learn new software, then they will be failing miserably. And not just because, as you point out in your comment, not every company uses the same office suite. By your standard, using MS Office is already a pragmatic failure for students who go somewhere where they use Google Docs.

sjg007 6y ago

Yes but free software lives on and a new team can drive product updates if the original team abadons it.