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Wonderful comment. This is one reason I always laughed at the argument "yea, but... we have all the source code!". Great, so the solution is we pay to maintai
by danssig 15y ago
Wonderful comment. This is one reason I always laughed at the argument "yea, but... we have all the source code!". Great, so the solution is we pay to maintain it? How is this free again?
- seabee 15y agoThe unsaid thing about freedoms is you cannot exercise them unless you have the means to do so. If you don't have that, the only value freedoms afford you is aspirational. Given that the potential to do something is worth a whole lot less than the activity itself, it's easy to see why FOSS is in is current state and will remain that way for a long time.
- gbog 15y agoThen you would drop freedom of speech just because it is useless unless you own CNN?
- seabee 15y agoNobody is suggesting that. In any case it's a false comparison, since anybody has the ability to fully exercise their freedom of speech. To exercise your open-source freedoms fully require skills, time, and/or money (to pay others to do it for you).
- gbog 15y agoIf the overall noise level is too high and you don't own a microphone, your freedom of speech can't be used effectively, you talk any nobody hears you. It is not a reason to drop freedom of speech, right? It's just the same with free software, the mere fact that you are allowed to read, change and distribute source code IS the key. Doing so is hard but not a reason to dismiss this freedom as irrelevant.
- LiveTheDream 15y agoThis is an example of the difference between "free as in beer" and "free as in speech".