Why using 100% Free Software is important
“Why should we have a 100% Free Operating System? Isn’t being almost all Free apart from some firmware and low level drivers enough?”
A GNU/Linux distribution that includes firmware is more closely aligned with Open Source than Free Software, because the Open Source philosophy values features and convenience above freedom - and will tolerate non-free software mixed with free software.
The Free Software Movement seeks to end the unethical and unsustainable practice of non-free software. Afterall, this determination to have a 100% Free Software system is why the GNU/Linux operating system exists in the first place.
History shows that if you do not value and defend freedom, you will lose it.
This is also why its important to call the whole system “GNU/Linux”, to remember the origins and purpose of the system in the GNU Project.
I discussed this recently on my local Dorset Linux User Group mailing list. I was told that I was thinking too deeply about the issue, and that non-free drivers and firmware was strategic because only a popular system can have the influence to be supported in our business-centered society.
But this sounds like “the ends justifies the means,” which just isn’t so. I hope to explain this in full in a later post.
This issue connects deeply with the GNU/Linux naming controversy, and the Free Software versus Open Source Software Debate because:
“[The Open Source Movement] would never have developed a free operating system like GNU/Linux, because they don’t particularly feel it is important to have one. The reason GNU/Linux exists as a free operating system is because of people who do care.”
The Why using 100% Free Software is important by David Crossland, except the quotations and unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
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