[ILUG-BOM] Free Software & Open Source Software

[sandeep]

Free Software:

Here's part o' my paper that I will publish soon that might help clear up the "issue" some people have with the "freedom" that GPL provides :


start--------------------------------------------
excerpt from "Copyleft Sucks" by Sandeep
Copyright (C) 2001 Sandeep,
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided the copyright notice and this notice are preserved.

--snip--
Freedom to me is the ability to make choices and to carry them out, but in a social environment, freedom requires a legal and institutional framework.

Here is the paradox, on the one hand for a person to have complete freedom, he must be able to make choices and carry them out without being controlled by anyone else, but on the other hand, in a social setting, one persons choices affect another and hence, in a free society, we need laws to distribute the condition of freedom equally among all the people.
Therefore, from a legal point of view, people are free if society imposes no unjust limits on them and also protects their rights. That is, the law both limits and protects the freedom of an individual. For example, it forbids people to steal from others, but it also guarantees that people will be free from being robbed.
--snip--

end---------------------------------------------

This is exaclty how the GNU GPL functions. It is not totally free of constraints but these restrictions r very nessecary -they limit but only to protect.


Sandeep
---
"The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good, in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it."
---John Stuart Mill

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