Wednesday, November 05, 2014
Open-Free-Share-Source-Ware
I recently watched Revolution OS, a documentary about the origin story of open source software and things like GNU, unix, and linux. One of the themes of the documentary was the difference between Open Source and Free Software. Richard Stallman, the creator of the GNU project, and the originator of the free software movement explains that free here is like "free speech", not "free beer". Anyone has the freedom to study, maintain, change, distribute as they please. I found this idea extremely interesting compared to people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs who were on the absolute other side of the spectrum, monetizing software as quickly and effectively as possible. I don't personally think there is a "good" and a "bad" model, but that both are necessary for their different purposes. That being said, I'll normally go through the occasional headache of open source/free software than pay for something that I don't have much money for.
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I think it's funny that the "free" in "free software" is like "free speech" and not "free beer" even though most consumers of free software use it as the latter moreso than the former. I feel like participants in free software enjoy the "free speech" aspect, while those of us who use it as an alternative to paid software utilize the "free beer" aspect of it.
There's an XKCD reference in here somewhere.
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