[Fsf-india] [OFFTOPIC] Gates: GPL will eat your economy...

[Pappu]

 > One question is: Do you need the source code of an operating system
 > as a user of that operating system? 
...... 
 > "For  customers  who  want   source  code  --  universities,  large
 > customers -- we  provide that.  But 90- some  percent of that time,
 > that's more  a -- okay,  it's nice, I  have it, you know,  should I
 > ever need  it. That's fair. So  source availability is  not the big
 > issue.   That's --  you have  got source  availability from  us and
 > others, and it's not much needed in any case." 

These quotes seems to give  the impression that source availability is
the  ultimate advantage given  by free  software.  In  reality, source
availability is just a precondition  for some of the freedoms provided
by free software.  

bye,
pappu.