Information about the Free Software Foundation Europe

[Luca Andreucci]

On 30 Nov 2000, Jonas Oberg wrote:

>     I think we need to come up with a simple, concise (one or two sentence)
>     explanation of Free Software that a layperson can understand.
> I'm not convinced that you can actually do this.  If you're talking about
> the actual software and what constitutes free software, that's a simple thing
> to answer, but the concept of free software is usually much harder.

Yet I have to agree that some sort of simple and clear (and still as short
as possible) document has to be produced

> I usually like to compare free software with the free sharing of food recipies
> between people, and the closed source model to having the car of your hood
> welded shut to prevent you from fixing it.

I heard of these before, too, but I think we must come up with something
that puts a major accent on freedom for Joe Average. I mean, I know that
opening the hood of my car gives me freedom to fix it, but why the hell
should I? While I may be interested in having my privacy guaranteed, just
as protecting my investiments, or just be given the freedom to speak.

I don't think it will be an easy task, though. The Free Software
philosophy doesn't seem to be such an easy concept IMHO. If it was, there
probably would be no need for a FSF at all.

andrew