LinuxPlanet: .comment: Freedom’s Just Another Word for Do It My Way

“To Microsoft, “free” is Microsoft’s freedom to do whatever it
damn well pleases, with the power of monopoly behind it. This is
great for Microsoft, but not so hot for anyone else unless
Microsoft chooses to exercise its freedom benevolently, which it so
far hasn’t. The fact that Microsoft has a web site in which it
hopes to drum up support for its position, and that it employs the
word “freedom” as part of the pitch, should surprise no one. Nor
should the fact that there are people dimwitted enough to sign on,
including developers whose ability to produce and sell their
products depends on Microsoft’s permission and who therefore must
pay homage to their feudal master.”

“The “Free” Software — capital letters — notion of things is
that software “wants to be free.” Well, software doesn’t want
anything. Software is a series of 0s and 1s. It does not care if
it’s under lock and key, being used as a coaster, fdisked into
oblivion, or running the systems that launch a nuclear attack.
Software is dead. It does not have the emotions of a goldfish. And
even if it did have dreams and desires — so what? There’s no moral
value in a mere want, and some desires are simply ridiculous, as
anyone who has been around a two-year-old can tell you. A goldfish
might want to depart its bowl and move to the stream outside, but
the wisdom of the relocation will fall short at its first encounter
with a bass. I want one of the nifty little Sony Vaio Picturebooks,
and moreover I want Sony to put a real modem in the thing. Does
that mean I’m entitled to it? Should I set up websites and form
foundations to create an angry crowd to bring this about?”

“Now. It’s sure as hell not free speech if my speech can be
modified by someone else to change its meaning entirely. It’s not
free speech if it’s not even recognized as my speech, “my” in this
case being ownership and rights to it, rather than who came up with
it before somebody else twisted it to have a different meaning, to
do something I had not intended.”

“Alas, the Free Software Foundation’s definition of “free” is as
corrupt as is Microsoft’s.”

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