:Enterprise Networking Planet: Free Software: Who's Looking Out for You?
Enterprise Networking Planet: Free Software: Who's Looking Out for You? Jun 29, 2006, 23 :30 UTC (2 Talkback[s]) (7213 reads) (Other stories by Carla Schroder)
"Sometimes I hear my hardworking network and system administrator chums dismissing Free and Open Source Software with 'Spare me the philosophy junk. I just want good software, not a sermon.' I quite sympathize with the desire to avoid rants and preaches. But I think it's important to understand that the philosophy behind Free Software is why the FOSS ecosystem is so strong and vibrant, and produces such good-quality software, and is so beneficial to end-users and developers.
"Protecting user freedoms and the hard work of software developers are the core principles of Free Software. In a world where a typical commercial EULA springs from a rather customer-unfriendly perspective, because it disavows the vendor of all responsibility, carries no warranty, and dictates how you can use the software, it seems that the friendlier GNU philosophy would be more appealing than the values behind the typical EULAs we find ourselves 'agreeing' to..."
