On Friday 10 August 2012 10:32:20 Ivan Shmakov wrote:
Well, this e-mail points to some links, but fails to substantiate
this sentence pointing to such a link.
There was a discussion in planning-ru@, started with [3] (“… software cannot be neither free nor enslaved — simply because software lacks freedom of will and possibility of a choice…”; translation's mine.) The concerns were also raised in the comments to [4] (“… Personally, I'm against the freedom for tools, be it an axe, a hammer, or a program…”; translation's mine.)
[3] http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.foss.sfd.planning.ru/65 [4] http://linux.org.ru/news/conference/7969998
Well, once again this might be a linguistic problem (and take into account that even my english is far from perfect, so take my interpretations with a grain of salt). But this seems to me the same argument we've seen about "free information". When you speak about "free information" you aren't implying that "information wants to be free", and, in fact, "information doesn't want to be free, people do". The same applies to free software: software doesn't want to be free, people do. Free software is software that enables *people* to be free, and here you can actually use free vs. enslaved - if you use non-free software, you're getting enslaved. In free software, it isn't the software that is free, it's its users. Pointing once again to http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html : "“Free software” means software that respects users' freedom and community. Roughly, the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. With these freedoms, the users (both individually and collectively) control the program and what it does for them." There's actually a Russian translation of that text - http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.ru.html - I'm not sure about its translation quality, but maybe you could take a look and possibly reply to those arguments by pointing to that text. Best regards, -- Marcos Marado ANSOL.org