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

[Ole Husgaard]

Boris Turovskiy skrev:
> On 14.05.2010 11:08, Radosław Nadstawny wrote:
>> It seems to me that it's not the philosophy what makes you feel bad
>> about FSF, but rather their way of presenting this philosophy, which
>> can make it seem unattractive for most people. Isn't it the case?    
> Maybe. I wouldn't care that much if not for constant wailings by some
> people that as a true Pirate I mustn't use Skype, Windows and the pdf
> format:)

Yes, it can be really annoying when sometimes almost religious people
put forward the statement: "This is proprietary software; it is bad, and
you should not use it". It is particularly annoying because it is not
even an argument, but simply a statement.

I am not religious. (I was blessed by Saint IGNUcius, but I still prefer
vi over Emacs.) While about 99,5% of all the software I use is free or
open source, I do not mind using proprietary software, if it fits my
needs. But I prefer to use free or open source software because of the
freedoms I get here.

For example: I do not use Skype because of security. Being closed-source
we simply do not know what it does behind the scene. It could be
scanning your system for torrent files and uploading the results to
anti-pirate groups, without the user knowing. I do not use MS-Windows
for the same reasons, but also because I do not like everything being
different than on all other operating systems, for no good reason.

So people whining about that proprietary software is bad should IMHO
stop doing that, and instead warn people about the freedoms they loose
when using proprietary software. Then people can make an informed choice.

An analogy: We do not simply say that fighting terrorism at any price is
bad. Instead we warn that if we want to fight terrorism at any price we
will loose our civil rights.

Best Regards,

Ole Husgaard.