Letters to the editor

Benefits of software freedom

 
Dear LWN,
 
I've been reading with interest the GNOME Foundation board election article and
the statements from the candidates for the positions. However, I felt I
couldn't disagree more on the views of one of them: Joachim Noreiko. You quote
him as saying:
 
"What freedoms exactly? The computer users I know can't code. What are they
going to with the source code they have the freedom to modify?"
 
That is absolutely wrong. It's like stating that if you're not a journalist, you
don't benefit from freedom of press. I'm not a coder, but I benefit greatly from
free software. In the same way that I benefit from high-quality articles in the
newspapers I read because the journalists can do their job freely. The
developers who work on free software are free to develop as they wish and
benefit from each other's openness and the end-product is good, thus benefiting
everyone.
 
And there's also the added benefit that because the development process is open,
I can learn from it and all the best practices that can be applied to software
development. So I can get involved at my own level.
 
Regards,
 
Alexandre

Comments (6 posted)