Re: Free Software vs. Librous Software

Dexter Filmore wrote:

>>For example, Richard Stallman urges people to support the
>>Free Software philosophy *instead* of supporting the Open
>>Source philosophy. Obviously he considers the difference
>>between "Free Software" and "Open Source" to be
>>
>yaddayaddayadda.
>
>Does it matter?
>
>Somebody tell me how an open src project could not be free as in free beer?
>
Oh, how can something be Free as in Speech (libre) without being
Free as in Beer (gratis)? (I had misread your sentence a few moments
ago.) Well, it's quite simple, really. I can charge you as much
money as you're willing to pay to sell you a CD of Linux, but since
it is "libre", you're free to turn around and make coppies of it,
selling it to *other* people for as much as *they* are willing to
pay.

On the other hand, if I right something with is *not* "libre"
but which *is* "gratis", that means that you can download it for
free or can pick a CD of it up for free at the bookstore, but
which comes with a license that prevents you from distributing
it to anyone else.

Linux is "libre" but I wouldn't call most distributions "gratis".
To get most major distributions, you have to either buy a copy
in a store, or pay a lot of money for the super-speed Internet
connection needed to download it.

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