Discussion of all things related to Public Domain

["tompoe AT renonevada.net" <tompoe AT renonevada.net>]

Hi, Richard:  I like that!  Especially the phrase, "The value of free 
software is free speech."  As the Business Software Alliance makes their 
moves to shut the doors for technological creativity and innovation, and 
scientific journals scramble to silence researchers, and universities 
quietly remove taxpayers' dollars in order to profit from academic 
discovery, the value of free speech is eroding rapidly.

Or, in the spirit of the Free Software movement, the value of free 
speech is increasing in its importance, for those who value Democracy. 
Ram Samudrala offers some excellent thoughts about the role of free 
music in our society at: http://www.ram.org/ramblings/philosophy/fmp/

If you lose the url, just click on his icon at the bottom of our 
homepage: http://www.studioforrecording.org/homepage.html

Thanks,
Tom Poe
Open Studios
Reno, NV

Richard Stallman wrote:
>     Hi, Richard:  Maybe you can help me clear up my thinking, as I use the 
>     term Open Source to mean software that isn't proprietary, doesn't have 
>     royalties attached, or the threat of royalties at some future time, 
>     because it is patent-encumbered.
>
> That is more or less what we call "free software".  ("Free" refers to
> the users' freedom.)  The free software movement was started in 1983,
> and we've been working for these freedoms ever since.
>
> In 1998, people who liked free software but rejected our ideals coined
> the term "open source" so they could talk about free software without
> alluding to our idealism.  So now there are two different movements,
> doing similar work but citing very different philosophies that are
> as different as night and day.
>
> If you'd like to read about the difference between the two movements,
> see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html.
> After that, if you have more questions, please ask me.


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