Why does Humanity needs Free Software ?

[Kin Calvin]

I wish I could understand Greek language ... !

[apoikos]

Well, here goes a brief summary for you then:

The major questions posed so far by the participants are:

• The world has survived well enough without FLOSS, why do we need it then?
• Is GPL really a free software license? A member of this discussion states that in his opinion BSD licenses are the proper free licenses (i.e. permissive licenses), whereas the protective GPL License is really not free, as it imposes a good deal of restrictions on developers and distributors.
• Will FLOSS eventually kill innovation (!?)

Feel free to comment in English if you like

[Kin Calvin]

Thank you for the English summary, that's kind of you !
I am French, I do not know anything about Greek. But it is good to know we can share ideas in English :)

The world has survived well enough without FLOSS, why do we need it then ?

The "you" I will be using concerns all the readers, now back to history:

Each movement is due to a need. If you do NOT know what is the need, it means that you are missing something.
Here are examples :

1775-1783: American Revolutionary War.
-> If somebody asked you the need of it, the answer would be:
For American's citizen rights and independence (freedom) towards Great Britain.

1861-1865 : American Civil War
-> If somebody asked you the need of it, the answer would be:
For Black American citizen's freedom, no slavery, in the southern slave states.

Again,

The world has survived well enough without FLOSS, why do we need it then ?

Part I: Why does free software exist ?
Well, the world would have survive well after 1939 without a WWII if Hitler did not decide to threaten human life. But he did, so without a WWII, all Europe and America would probably be 100% Aryan people.

The same way, world could survive well if closed source did not threaten human freedom and rights. But it does, so free software has been created in order to stop closed source software of giving an end to your privacy, which is one of the most important right: freedom.

Part II: Why free software to save our rights?
Black Americans did have more rights after The Reconstruction. But without the African-American Civil Rights Movement, thanks to people like Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks, the first 10 amendments of the US constitution would not have been applied to all Americans.

The same way, in 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights goals to spread and protect humans' rights. But without the Free Software Movement thanks to people like RMS, creator of the GNU Project in 1983, since informatics are in our word, these humans rights may not be applied in your real and virtual life if free software do not manage to be spread.

Will FLOSS eventually kill innovation

How could FLOSS kill innovation ?
FLOSS creates concurrence, there is nothing better than that for technological innovation, thought.

We must not forget that we are using the word "Free" as user's "Freedom" :
A free software can have a cost.

A member of this discussion states that in his opinion BSD licenses are the proper free licenses (i.e. permissive licenses), whereas the protective GPL License is really not free, as it imposes a good deal of restrictions on developers and distributors.

That can be an interesting prospective, I must admit that the BSD Licence might be more restrictive towards developers. But for sure, there is no free social values in the BSD Licence. And technically, the fact that a BSD program can be distributed without it's source code, and can be used in proprietary commercial use, is not a good deal for user's freedom.

[DIMITRISG]

Αρχικά καταχωρημένο από Kin Calvin Thank you for the English summary, that's kind of you ! I am French, I do not know anything about Greek. But it is good to know we can share ideas in English :)

Bienvenue Kin Calvin !
vous vivez en France ?

[Kin Calvin]

Salut !

Yeap je vie en France ! M'enfin, juste pour qu'elles années encore ...
Je ne m'attendais pas à trouver des Francophones !

[astrofos]

@Kin Calvin

Nice to have you here! Regarding to your, well thought, post I was the one arguing against "free-software" but only in the way GNU defines it. I don't think the viral nature of the GPL licence truly represents freedom.

For example, in a hypothetical world dominated by "free-software" a programmer would practically be compelled to use the GPL for his own work - except if he wanted to rewrite the entire underlying platform.

[apoikos]

@astrofos:
However, we should clarify that GNU does not necessarily mean GPL: there is the LGPL as well, that was created to resolve exactly these issues (especially for libraries) and does not "infect" packages that merely link to LGPL'd software.

As to your point, yes, you can view the GPL as a "restrictive" license (the official term is "protective" actually). On the other hand, protective licenses are the only kind of license that can actually ensure the software's source code will remain freely available to the public. The BSD license has no means of ensuring this, since the software can be redistributed without the respective source code. Thus, in the end BSD-licensed code can slowly disappear or (more likely) become obsolete in the same time that modified versions of it will be running in proprietary, closed systems.

I will, again, cite this source: http://www.dwheeler.com/blog/2006/09/01#gpl-bsd. I think it a worthy reading, as it points out some practical implications when choosing one license over another.

To conclude, I'm not claiming that the GPL is the universally best license. From a practical point of view, it makes sense to release some pieces of software (especially libraries) under a more "permissive" license, like LGPL, CC, BSD or MIT. But still, the big asset of (L)GPL is that it actually ensures that the code and all derivative work will always remain free.

[DIMITRISG]

Αρχικά καταχωρημένο από Kin Calvin Salut ! Yeap je vie en France ! M'enfin, juste pour qu'elles années encore ... Je ne m'attendais pas à trouver des Francophones !

mais ouiii

i ve sent you a pm, we continue in english car is the most speaking here with the other insomniaks,
we 'll turn insomnia to international intelingual forum !

[Kin Calvin]

Sorry for the delay and thank you guys for expressing yourself in english.

Okay astrofos, I understand what you mean and I agree on what you have said. As apoikos said : GPL is not a universally best license.

I believe in diversity, the more there are licences and the more the developers will be free to choose the best licence for them. But I think in the name of democracy, no developers should chose to amputate users/humans freedom. All proprietary softwares represent a potential threat towards our privacy.

GPL has to be protective, otherwise all programs could potentially become proprietary.


Dimitrisg> I cannot locate you private message, tu peux me contacter par mails sans soucis, mon adresse se trouve dans la rubrique “About” de mon blog.
EDIT: I finally found the msg, but I am not sure the reply has been sent, please give me your mail by sending me one :)

[DIMITRISG]

Ici il y a un video sous titrè anglais, Stallman explique que certains ordinateurs vendu en France empêchent toute installation des systèmes dʼexploitation libres comme linux.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xd0...-linux-pc_news