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

[Philip Hunt]

On 13 May 2010 14:38, Boris Turovskiy <tourovski at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> What you write about is a _practical_ advantage of OpenSource/Free software.
> I don't argue that there are practical advantages, I really enjoy them.
> What I'm rallying against is the FSF's view that it's not the practical
> advantages but the philosophical ones that matter - and that is simple
> bullshit.

It's the philosophical advantages (or as I would put it the
freedom-enhancing ones) that CAUSE the practical advantages.

The philosophical advantage of free software is that you can change it
and share your changes with others.

In practice, the advantasge to me of using FS is not that I can change
it, but that *everyone else can too*, so for most of the changes I'd
like, someone has already made them.

A good example is the FS language Python, which comes which a lot of
functionality in its standard libraries, and even more in FS 3rd party
libraries.

-- 
Philip Hunt, <cabalamat at gmail.com>