自由軟體 6

Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer.

— Richard Stallman

Free software does not have to be free. Free software does not even have to be cheap.

Free Software Foundation sold each Emacs floppy disk copy for 100 dollars.

— based on my memory of a Richard Stallman’s speech in Hong Kong

[The “$100” may be incorrect. But spirit of the whole paragraph is intact.]

— Me@2013.07.17

R: We should use free software instead of proprietary software. My rule is: I will not use any programs that I cannot share with you.

Q: But sometimes proprietary software is more convenient than free software.

R: What if I want both freedom and convenience?

What can I do?

Either turn convenient software free or turn free software convenient. But turning convenient software free is impossible, because we don’t have the source code and the copyright law does not allow us to do so.

So all we should do is to turn free software convenient.

— based on my memory of a Richard Stallman’s speech in Hong Kong

— Me@2014.04.29

2014.04.29 Tuesday (c) All rights reserved by ACHK