Source code for the masses news.com
This story is the lead in for a series on the topic at news.com. We start with a properly attributed, er, source for the beer thing.
The notion of freeware or free software doesn't mean free in the financial sense, but instead applies to distribution, exchanging code, and innovation. "To understand the concept, you should think of free speech, not free beer," Richard Stallman, one of the pioneers of the movement, writes on his software group's Web site.
Right from the top of that movement. I get an IE hangover just thinking about this.
What the projects all have in common is openness. Their respective source codes are published not only for all to see, but also to use, manipulate, change, and redistribute--sometimes free of charge, sometimes for a fee--but always with the knowledge that there are few, if any, secrets.
That's one definition of openness. Microsoft has a different one, of course- Windows. But I try to avoid that little semantic embroglio these days.
Cheers, Dan. |
