/[http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=KDE+Community+World+Summit|aKademy] / [http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=Talks+@+aKademy|Talks] / Free Software Talk -=Social and Political Aspects of Free Software=- !!!Bernhard Reiter, FSF Europe Did you use a computer yesterday? Everybody did. What happens if it breaks or refuses to work? E.g. if a web browser refuses to load a KDE web page. Free Software is software where you can run the program for any purpose, study how the program works and change it, redistribute it and publish improvements. Historically all software was free but there was no conscious idea of Free Software until Richard Stallman started the idea in the 1980s after not being able to change a proprietary printer driver for Xerox's first ever laser printer. All software used to come with the computer until the 1960s when IBM was forced in an antitrust case to stop coupling the software with the hardware. RMS started GNU, a Free replacement for Unix in the 1980s. By 1990 most of the bits were in place and in 1991 a Free operating system was completed with Linux, a kernel. FSF Europe started in 2001 to explain what the FSF does to people in Europe. Free Software licences have 4 categories. Strong protection which ensures derived works are free, GPL. Weak protection where proprietary parts can be added, LGPL. No protection, BSD. There also also GPL incompatible and/or unbalanced licences such as Netscape Public Licence where you have to give them the right to make the code proprietary. The FSF recommends the licence that fits best for the situation, not necessarily GPL. For Ogg format they want the widest possible implementations including proprietary vendors to pick it up to compete with MP3 so use BSD licence. Free Software and Open Source are the same thing. Open Source (says OSI) is a marketing program for free software getting away from freedom which can be scary. Open Source has failed as a marketing term says FSF-E because they did not talk about freedom. "Free Software" has problems because it could be taken to mean free of cost. "Open Source" also has problems because open does not mean freedom. Sometimes called FOSS or FLOSS which sounds like dentist speak. These are the same terms in technical sense. As a political statement they are different because Free Software focuses on the freedom, Open Source focuses on the technology and development method. FLOSS is ambiguous and is used by politicians trying to please everyone. Social aspects are help with communication, education because you can learn about code by reading it, work. Software patents grant mini-monopolies to companies. They increase the viral effect of proprietary software. They inhibit innovation. Nobody has written a report saying that software patents help the economy. Point that if patents were handed out as they are today back when computing was starting we would have no innovation. That was a quote from Bill Gates. Now he has an established software company and they are for them. Internal MS memo in 1991. Digital Restrictions Management has been added to EU law by EU Copyright Directive. Evil. Go to fsfeurope.org webpage to learn more. What is the best way to get more developers for Free Software? Technical people are interested in the power and control. There are at least 4 or 5 categories for motivation of working on Free Software. Question about applications being run over a web server. This is a drawback of the current version of the GNU GPL, it was not thought a viable option when the GPL was created. GPL 3 may address that question but we're not sure how just now. Is there a timeline for GPL 3? No. FSF Europe is a sister organisation of FSF Merkins. They try to work together but those processes are very slow. Are there adaptions of the GNU GPL for local law? None that are taken seriously. Licences are very different to do properly.