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Why non-programmers should use Free Software
If you don't program, you may end up wondering why you should use free-software. Why not just buy Mac OSX and Microsoft word? Well, let us look at the potential negative consequences for choosing proprietary software. If you have used proprietary software at all, you have probably run into one or more of these problems that free software eliminates for you. When you use a computer, you want to do a specific job. Maybe you want to type up a document, send an email, or look up information on the web. Maybe you want to play a game. You wonder why you should use free software instead of the proprietary alternatives, especially when proprietary software is the way you are used to doing things. |
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Comments (3)
All you zealots are alike! You constantly want to steal away the users' freedom to choose to have their data eaten, to choose to not keep old software going, to choose a single throat to choke in the event of software failure. Who you gonna sue when that so-called free software causes the collapse of the entire world economy? Are you really going to let that conniving RMS and FSF take over your computer just so you can recompile a bunch of old tarballs? Don't you know he's out to end all users' freedom to choose innovation?
[Oops! Sorry, wrong frequency. Back in this world, and hopefully somewhat related to what you said...]
A point I didn't see in the article is that "abandonware" doesn't apply to free software. If a vendor of a closed source product fades away, all users of that product are left swinging in the wind. Any piece of free software can remain viable so long as anyone has an interest in maintaining it. The source, and therefore the user's data, does not get locked away when the originator abandons it.
"A point I didn't see in the article is that "abandonware" doesn't apply to free software. If a vendor of a closed source product fades away, all users of that product are left swinging in the wind. Any piece of free software can remain viable so long as anyone has an interest in maintaining it. The source, and therefore the user's data, does not get locked away when the originator abandons it."
That's a big one. I wonder how many antique servers that should have been retired years ago are still running for this very reason?
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"What if your old hardware dies, but you want to continue running your favorite programs? What if the parts to recreate the hardware no longer exist? The binaries are complied to only run on certain kinds of hardware, so if you had the source code, you could recompile the program to run on your new system. You could hire a programmer to make whatever modifications are needed to have it run on your new system. With free software, having the source code means freedom to continue running whatever program it is that you like regardless of the availability of the old hardware. "
etc. Good stuff.