this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2024
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That question is kind a rabbit hole and not one I feel confident in going down.
Free as in freedom, not as in free beer.
The real world implications of non-free software is that other's can't run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software.
I like having computing alternatives that are free from corporate control and believe that the hardliners like FSF helps us keep those alternatives alive. I realise that those alternatives are in many ways worse and that a lot of hardware today requires the vendor blobs to work. When/If corporations push their control even further I want those alternatives to be around.
And you really should pay for winrar. ;-)
@anamethatisnt Yea, so you think the authors are not entitled to specify how their software is used? This is where I have a major disconnect with Richard Stallman.
They are free to use whatever license they want, but I am similarly free to avoid using software under non-FOSS licenses.
@Ledivin and if your wifi doesn't work as a result, I'm totally ok with that too.
I believe that both proprietary non-free systems and fully free systems can exist and that having licensing alternatives like GPL, LGPL and MIT gives the developer options for specifying how their software is to be used.
The movement towards using MIT or LGPL instead of the full GPL for libraries thus allowing the developers using the libraries the freedom to choose what license their software should use is one I can stand behind.
If someone builds a FLOSS turbotax competitor and don't want anyone to use their hard work and fork it into a commercial and proprietary product then I believe there should be a license for that.
If they rather earn money from it and copyrights their code instead that is also their prerogative.
The middle-ground where they create a free turbotax competitor with a license that allows others to fork it into a proprietary software should also be possible - although I personally don't see the allure.