Why free software is bad

[Satoshi]

Software should be free for non-commercial use and paid for commercial use like Visual Studio.

example:
I want to use Cubase for guitar recording and mastering some my songs. But I don't have $ 400 for software what can be replaced with freeware alternative software. I don't need whole features of the software. I just want to use "pro" software because when I start working on commercial projects I will be able to control the software and don't need to spend too much time to learn the software.

Free software for non-commercial use = big advertisement.

People who can't pay for software just download it illegally or use an alternative freeware software. And companies just pay the licence because some hundreds or thousands $ for software isn't as much as pay when they be sued for using illegally software.


next example:
I'm using visual studio (community) at home. When I start work for the company they asked me what kind of software i need. I said visual studio and they bought it.
If I didn't have chance to use VS for free at home I should choose an another free software like Netbeans and use it at work for free.

[glauxosdever]

Hi,


Free software isn't a matter of price, it's a matter of freedom.

This misconception is persisted because of the inability of the English language to really express the difference. Something that doesn't cost is marked as free. Something that isn't restricted is also marked as free. In all other languages I know, these concepts are called with different names.

We should also blame the society that pushes everyone to think primarily about money, this is probably the reason free is usually associated with the "doesn't cost" concept, and not the "isn't restricted" concept.


Regards,
glauxosdever

[Rusky]

That's a distinction free software people love to make, but in the end it's mostly irrelevant because one of those freedoms is the freedom to redistribute the software. If a corporation isn't allowed to use the software for zero cost, it's no longer considered "free software."

[jojo]

Hahahaha, an April fools joke -- that gets repeatedly explicitly explained by the author as an April fools joke -- that still devolves into heated arguments at the author literally weeks after its initial posting.

Please, never change OSdev.

[Kevin]

That's a distinction free software people love to make, but in the end it's mostly irrelevant because one of those freedoms is the freedom to redistribute the software. If a corporation isn't allowed to use the software for zero cost, it's no longer considered "free software."

Well, with one important exception: Some money might need to be spent for the software to even be developed. I probably would have written much less code as free software if I hadn't been paid for it (not the least because I wouldn't have the time if I had to do something else for a living).

And it does maks some sense, too: The real work is in writing the software, not in copying it.

[onlyonemac]

This misconception is persisted because of the inability of the English language to really express the difference. Something that doesn't cost is marked as free. Something that isn't restricted is also marked as free. In all other languages I know, these concepts are called with different names.

I think the term "libre" is taking over to refer to the latter sense.

That's a distinction free software people love to make, but in the end it's mostly irrelevant because one of those freedoms is the freedom to redistribute the software. If a corporation isn't allowed to use the software for zero cost, it's no longer considered "free software."

While "freedom to redistribute" is almost always a freedom given by free software, there are many more that tend to matter only to the people that care about them. Usually when people ignore or criticise the distinction between cost and freedom, it's because they either don't understand or don't care about the difference. That's not a criticism by the way; you're perfectly entitled to pay as much or as little attention as you want to the freedom given to you regarding the software that you use, but people who care about software freedom consequently care about the distinction between price and freedom. Also, there are open source licensing models that do allow software to be free software while still being sold to commercial users - while these might not meet the FSF's requirements for "free software" they are perfectly acceptable to most proponents of open source software.

[Kevin]

Also, there are open source licensing models that do allow software to be free software while still being sold to commercial users - while these might not meet the FSF's requirements for "free software" they are perfectly acceptable to most proponents of open source software.

I think the FSF does accept the GPL for free software...

[Solar]

I wonder who made the FSF the authority to define terms on this subject in the first place...

For me, one of the essential freedoms in "free" software is the ability to use (parts of) that source code in a different project without being forced to bow to some wild requirements regarding how I may or may not licence my larger work.

This makes the BSD / MIT license borderline acceptable, and the GPL a very poor joke in my book.

It's also the reason why I placed PDCLib, JAWS and all my contributions to StackOverflow under CC0: Because you should be "free" to use such contributions every which way you like / need.

This is still an April Fool's thread, though.

[embryo2]

In all other languages I know, these concepts are called with different names.

And how many languages do you know?

[onlyonemac]

Also, there are open source licensing models that do allow software to be free software while still being sold to commercial users - while these might not meet the FSF's requirements for "free software" they are perfectly acceptable to most proponents of open source software.

I think the FSF does accept the GPL for free software...

...but I don't think the GPL is one such licensing model.

[embryo2]

Free (open source) software is a fertile ground for individual's freedom. One can take a distribution, use it, extend id or embed some parts of it in his own code. It's the pro part.

And the con part is - who should pay for the free lunch?

In the end it's the freedom lovers, who pay the price.

But sometime it's commercially viable to open source some code. However, the commercially supported open source code is often just a bunch of trash, like Android's code, for example. Or it's an unmanageable blob with a lot of dependencies. It's not viable to support an open source library that is extensible and properly split into a manageable set of components. Because everybody can take it and offer some support for third parties that use the code. The cost of support of the code is all that matters when companies decide to support something "open source". If it requires a lot of human-months to change something - it's the best possible open source project for the commercial support. Nobody wants to deal with Android source code because it's a huge blob of trash, so, only Google can profit from it (can sell new versions of it).

And it means the only real open source code is produced by the free developers. However, the biggest part of the free developers work is just another piece of trash, but it often is small enough to be useful despite of it's design issues. In this way we create a world for ourself and do not allow the "they can steal it" thought to stop us (in helping us).

[glauxosdever]

Hi,

In all other languages I know, these concepts are called with different names.

And how many languages do you know?

Well, I know Greek (obviously, because I'm from Greece), and French (we learn it at school). Both of these languages, especially Greek, are by far superior to English.


Regards,
glauxosdever

[iansjack]

Well, I know Greek (obviously, because I'm from Greece), and French (we learn it at school). Both of these languages, especially Greek, are by far superior to English.

The fact that you are posting in English, not Greek and not French, may make you wonder about the validity of that assertion.

[Kazinsal]

That "free software" has come to mean "Stallman-patterned idealistic naïvety" is the only failure of language I see here.

I'm firmly in the same camp as Solar here. If the GPL makes software free at the cost of discouraging innovation, yet the ISC license, which minimizes legal boilerplate made unnecessary by several international treaties and encourages open use, reuse, and continuous development of software is considered non-free, then I don't think the people whose lawyers decided that was a fair proclamation should be allowed to define "free" for other people.

[glauxosdever]

Hi,

Well, I know Greek (obviously, because I'm from Greece), and French (we learn it at school). Both of these languages, especially Greek, are by far superior to English.

The fact that you are posting in English, not Greek and not French, may make you wonder about the validity of that assertion.

Yes, I'm posting in English, but that's because English became the international language, and that's because in the last century technological innovation is most visible in English-speaking countries. It's not because English is any better than Greek (or French)...

Most concepts can be expressed in Greek more easily than in English, anyway.

But this went too much off-topic...


Regards,
glauxosdever