[pp.int.general] Why Free Software misses the point

[Alexandre Leray]

Dear Boris,

in my opinion you miss something important here: Free Software 
challenges the separation of production vs consumption by encouraging 
its users to be involved in the process of making. In your paper you say 
"[...] a program is acquired to be used, not to be modified or 
distributed." or it is exactly the contrary that makes me interested in 
FS. While each user might not be able to read or modify the code, there 
are many ways he/she can be implied: getting involved in a mailing list 
discussion and in the elaboration of the tools, bug reporting, writing 
tutorials, etc..

There shouldn't be any "end-users", this is why it is a question of 
philosophy and not only a question of method. The software industry is 
turning its "targets" into pure computation through marketing 
strategies, Free Software is about empowering people by giving them 
access to the sources (of code, of knowledge...), and more generally by 
helping defining their own needs and constructing their own tools.

Best,

Alexandre Leray

On 05/12/2010 11:08 PM, Boris Turovskiy wrote:
> Ahoi,
> I've finally finished my critical article on Mr.Stallman's and the 
> FSF's viewpoint. It may be of interest for Pirate Parties which have 
> difficulties with accepting FSF's philosophical reasoning while not 
> knowing what their answer should be.
>
> http://wiki.piratenpartei.de/Benutzer:TurBor/Stellungsnahmen/Why_Free_Software_misses_the_point 
>
>
> Best regards,
> Boris
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