about free software

[Rui Miguel Seabra]

On Mon, 2005-08-22 at 02:52 +0200, Markus wrote:
> 1. "Why does i need this freedoms? I have used software for many years and
> had never the need or idea to modify the software, the software just does
> the job and thats ok."

Maybe answer with:
 1. "Why do you need Free Speech? You have lived all your life without
    making public speeches, have you not?"

... or some variation of it, depending on the person.
Just because you don't need to consciously exercise your freedom all the
time, doesn't mean you're not exercising it, or even that you may
actually need to in the future.

> 2. "What is if there is no Free Software who does the job i have to do?
> Sould i don't do the job with my PC just because the licence of a program is
> non-free?" I think that's the typical argument of a pragmatist.

That's the typical argument of, IMHO, someone who's short-viewed, and
not of a pragmatist.

Is it pragmatic to use Windows, and all the troubles it brings with?
(security, stability, etc?)

Is it pragmatic to allow spyware?
Is it pragmatic to surrender the control of your computer to someone
else (DRM)?

If there's no Free Software to do the job you have to do, the easiest
path is not doing it all, but the really pragmatic one is to help
creating it (for instance, set up bounties).

> 3. This is the economy argument. That there is some kind of software who
> just no one write in the spare time. Either because there is not much
> personal need for it or because if you don't work in this special area you
> don't know what exactly is needed. The argument is that for this kind of
> software you need a company who write it and it's cheaper for the particular
> customer if the company uses a non-free license and distribute  the costs on
> all costumers than one customer have to order a "special-development" and
> have to pay the whole development costs.

Why, that's easy. Why not paying developers to create that Free Software
into existence?

Rui

-- 
+ No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown
+ Whatever you do will be insignificant,
| but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi
+ So let's do it...?

Please AVOID sending me WORD, EXCEL or POWERPOINT attachments.
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
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