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08 Oct 2009
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is to write to the leaders of 500 of the most influential non-governmental organisations (NGOs) worldwide to urge them to refuse Windows 7.
The letters will outline seven issues that the FSF has with Microsoft and the commercial software market. These are invading privacy, poisoning education, locking users in, abusing standards, leveraging monopolistic behaviour, enforcing gigital rights management and threatening user security.
"The dependency of organisations working for social change and improvement on software owned and exclusively controlled by Microsoft is leading society into an era of digital restrictions, threatening and limiting our freedoms," said FSF executive director Peter Brown.
"Free software on the other hand, is about freedom, not price, and it is designed to give you the ability to study and improve the software for your own needs. Today, we're asking leaders in the non-profit sector to switch to the free software GNU/Linux operating system for all their desktop and computer infrastructure needs."
The move is the next step in the FSF's campaign timed to coincide with the launch of Windows 7 and follows an earlier letter sent to 499 chief executives of Fortune 500 companies. The FSF did not send one to Microsoft.
"Charities, NGOs and other non-profit organisations that choose proprietary software are undertaking bad public policy, often through misinformation or a failure to see their technology choices as connected to their social missions," said FSF campaigns manager Matt Lee.
"We hope to alert these decision makers to the positive contribution they can make to society by switching their organisations to free software. I hope these groups will make a public policy commitment to freedom and join a growing list of organisations who understand that sinking money and time into proprietary software is inconsistent with the core values of freedom and progress."
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Do you agree?
Ugh
"Since when is intellectual property without a value worth paying for?" Intellectual property is misleading people regarding what Stallman says about patents and copyright. He endorses copyright, but avoids patents because of reasons he explains here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2005/jun/23/onlinesupplement.insideit Patents are the withholding of a monopoly on a certain technology, not the guarantee that if someone uses your idea they will pay (copyright). In the short, medium and long run, they do not protect their withholders, they shift the R & D budgets to "piracy" and in the end produce no real incentive for inventors, since the true owner of their inventions becomes the company for which they work on, not they themselves as in copyright. Shifting the value of the software to the additional costs in supporting it? As if other software needed no additional costs in supporting it. All the OS's have Updates, Service plans, etc. GNU/Linux undercuts the major alternatives in all of these, and if they come on a better offer, GNU/Linux will undercut it easy. So speaking about costs is actually promoting GNU/Linux. And for goodness sake, stop whining about "GNU/Linux charging a price". If you are going to talk about FSF you are talking about FREEDOM, as in "I can actually choose the format I save my documents on" not as in free beer. Special pleading about "free" software that charges money says nothing when compared to a true logical argument: how about making money by standardizing English as the only language in the world, then justifying it with -insert market force-? And that's without even scratching the surface of the implications of a multinational corporation being able to exert international standardization -far more power than most governments have- due to "intellectual property" designed to help inventors, not investors. "Without windows, most people wouldn't be on a PC"? That's about how much you know about computing, right? Windows was simply a successful cost-reduction model at a time when most major corporations made their own OS's. With a market penetration of 90%, it quickly became the standard. It was not needed, or even looked at, when the computing industry began. It took advantage of a pricing strategy to place itself, that's all. "Security Breaches and lack of accountability in the Free software industry"? Yeah, I suppose showing the source code to anybody who wants to see how the program works, and letting them modify it if it doesn't is a TERRIBLE example of accountability. Sure, it can get technical (hello, does the word "technology" ring a bell?), but IT'S THERE. That an incompetent user with no knowledge of the technology he/she is implementing can't work with it is irrelevant. And guess what? Companies like Red Hat and Novell actually make a living from support services, so the idea that people are on their own is pathetic and dumbfounded. You pay for Microsoft support, and then you complain about paying much less for Linux support? "What about the costs of training and maintaining Linux?" as if the costs of training and maintaining other operating systems did not exist. Linux undercuts them. "How about the hours of lost time when employees can't open the most basic productivity applications because some chucklehead decided that developers shouldn't be paid for code they write?" This is perhaps the stupidest and most irrelevant comment ever written on the face of the earth; it's so greasy it gives Crisco managers a heart attack. FSF is about Software, not a policy regarding what developers should or shouldn't earn. That the pricing strategy used in Free Software changes is true, and it must not be based off royalties from the software (though I am working on a model that CAN and WILL show otherwise). But were it for this, then I suppose companies like Google and Youtube shouldn't exist, since the developers aren't paid for the software they write, but for the ads that that software sells. Google will love to hear you call their CEO a "chucklehead". "Some convoluted religious conviction that software should be free". Ok... this is the absolute rock bottom in intellectuality. Demonizing a software does not prove anything, and you know what? It might be all that and even more, but unless it is shown that a cooperative model -the GNU approach to software- is somehow incompetent at producing ANYTHING (other than PROFITS to STOCKHOLDER BASTARDS), then it remains a fact. "Let the market decide..."? Really, what kind of idiocy is this? First, well, let's let the market decide what terrorism means; it's just the equilibrium between radicals and conservatives right? Second, Microsoft is a MONOPOLY on almost ALL of the computing services of today; letting the market decide is impossible since the only one with a choice is Microsoft, and its choice is clear: MAXIMUM PROFITS. Finally, consumers have never had a say regarding the OS on their computers. Corporations do, and they don't, because Microsoft has strangleholded all possible alternatives (and no, the Mac is not an alternative, it is a substitute in economic terms; alternatives vie for the same market, whereas substitutes are different markets vying for the same preferences). "If Linux is so good, why do they need to evangelize as though it were a political campaign?" If knowledge is so good, why do they need to educate as though it were a political campaign?
Posted by: FSF-ranter 31 Mar 2010
FSF is RADICAL!
Yeah.... FSF is RADICAL. You can do anything but Microsoft will not listen to us... Please visit this anti-microsoft blog: http://losedows.blogspot.com
Posted by: farizluqman 24 Jan 2010
Then why should only software be free?
Since when is intellectual property without a value worth paying for? Linux merely shifts the value from the software to the additional cost of services required to support it. This is just irrational anti-Microsoft bigotry and NGO's are nothing if not pragmatic and rational.
Posted by: Pea Ninety 13 Oct 2009
The problem with the FSF...
is that they haven't been able to give away their software. Do they think this gives them more credibility?
Posted by: Dave 11 Oct 2009
Smoking something?
FSF is truly tilting at windmills. If Linux is so good, why do they need to evangelize as though it were a political campaign? These kind of campaigns don't speak to value or benefit, but some convoluted religious conviction that software should be free. Let the market decide - this just makes FSF look like the idiots they seem to be.
Posted by: Brett Steele 09 Oct 2009
Freedom isn't free.
Nuf said.
Posted by: KT 09 Oct 2009
What a joke - why stop at software? let's make everything free!
Make the "free" software TRULY free and there won't be any software worth using. What about the costs of training and maintaining Linux? How about the hours of lost time when employees can't open the most basic productivity applications because some chucklehead decided that developers shouldn't be paid for code they write? How about security breaches and lack of accountability in the free software community? Where are these Fortune 500 IT managers going to turn when their network is compromised and none of the free software jockey's can or will fix the issue quickly. I cannot believe this even warrants the time of a journalist to report on it. Without Windows, most people still wouldn't be on a PC much less on the Internet. How quickly we forget all of the good that has come from Windows over the years.
Posted by: Harry 09 Oct 2009