Re: [Fsfe-uk] Why FS is a Good Thing

[Simon Waters]

Imran Ghory wrote:
> 
> GNU may have been the most significant, but most people who know what
> utilities like gcc, bash, readline, etc. are, are people who already know
> about free software.

I disagree. I probably know more than most about Linux, and have
been aware of the GNU project since 1987, so I was aware that
much of the software was "Free Software", and under the GPL, but
I was only vaguely aware of the political aspects, the
subtleties of licences, and the like.

Most people find the politics a turn off, and will only relate
to it when specifics are drawn to their attention. Such as "if
you contribute to project xyz, commercial company zyx will be
able to claim your contribution for it's own private
distributions, without crediting you" or "Product qwerty may be
'free' today but without source code or the right to distribute
modifications, it may not always be the case".

Indeed I think the some "nearly free" licences are far more
dangerous that Microsoft products, as they draw developer effort
away from free products. Just look at the KDE/GNOME split, okay
the wounds are healing and Troll Tech have done the decent
thing, but we'd be a year or two closer to GNU/Linux as the
desktop of choice for everyone if only...

Not sure this belongs in an introduction though.