Re: [Fsfe-uk] Why FS is a Good Thing: Draft 3

[ralph]

Hi Ramin,

My devil's advocate hat time again...

>   Science owes its explosive growth over the past century to the free
>   and open exchange of ideas.  As Isaac Newton said in a letter to his
>   colleague Robert Hooke dated 5 February 1676, ``If I have seen
>   further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.''  Free
>   Software is in the process of recreating this explosion of ideas in
>   the world of Information Technology.  The Free Software Foundation,
>   founded by Richard Stallman in 1984, exists to write and support
>   Free Software through it's spearhead project known as GNU (GNU's Not
>   Unix) which is a collection of programs for a Unix-like operating

s/it's/its/

I really don't think a recursive acronym will warm others to Free
Software  :-)  `Complexity for complexity's sake.'  `A load of geeks
that find it amusing.'  Etc.

>   Free Software such as that distributed under the GPL ensures four
>   freedoms: (i) the freedom to run the program, for any purpose, (ii)
>   the freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your
>   needs, (iii) the freedom to redistribute copies so you can help
>   others and (iv) the freedom to improve the program, and release your
>   improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.

Too many commas?

> The Association for Free Software supports the use of Free Software
> because:
> 
> \begin{itemize}
>   
> \item Most software is written in-house and never sold, and in this
>   case software patents are a hindrance.  Free Software is not a
>   commodity, it is more like infrastructure -- freely available to all
>   businesses and an enabler of progress and innovation.

Software patents seem to appear out of the blue here.  `Who was talking
about software patents?'  They're not mentioned again either.

> \item Support for Free Software is often much better than support for
> proprietary software.  Mailing lists, bulletin boards and newsgroups
> exist where users post questions and receive prompt and helpful
> replies.  People are encouraged to report bugs and these are quickly
> fixed.

Is `web forum' a more familiar term than `bulletin board' these days?

I thought it was very good overall.

Cheers,


Ralph.