Free Software: Ideal and Reality

Source: Internet
Author: User
Free Software: Ideal and Reality-general Linux technology-Linux technology and application information. For more information, see the following. Author: Yuan Meng

Recently, Richard Stallman, the godfather of Free Software, visited Taipei and Shanghai and plans to give lectures at Tsinghua University in Beijing tomorrow. Read carefully about his recent lectures (and related text Reports.

Mr. Stallman is 54 years old this year. It is said that he was just married and brought his wife this time. According to his recent speech (in English at Shanghai Fudan University), we can see that he is persistent in his academic philosophy (or stubborn ). For him over the past 20 years, the meaning of "FreeSoftware" has hardly changed. However, when he came to China this time, he learned the Chinese pronunciation of "Free Software", which is an improvement. Historically, "Free Software" is indeed his invention. Although the vast majority of people do not understand the precise definition of "Free Software", in reality, "pirated software" is often regarded as "Free Software", so it is not ashamed to play around happily. In fact, in the current situation, the task of popularizing "Private software" is more practical than preaching "Free Software. Free Software and private software complement each other, no matter who is good or who is bad, the two are indispensable. At this stage, "Free Software" has actually been turned into God. In real life, reciting "mathematical definitions" does not help. It is no wonder that fans of Stallman only listen to Stallman's speech. Stallman's opposition to the concept of "open source software" is a bit extreme and impractical. From this we can see that Mr. Richard Stallman is an "ideal character", pursuing the ideal without asking the reality. Under the current circumstances, free software should continue to develop and evolve and should not stop. In short, free software should come to our real life.

Today, the world's largest free software community is the Ubuntu community ". According to official figures of the Ubuntu Forum, more than 0.58 million people are registered in the Ubuntu community, with over 80 thousand so-called "activists. This is a huge elite force that promotes free software. Ubuntu fans are neither superstitious nor infatuated with the classical definition of "Free Software. They do not think that there is any essential difference between "Free Software" and "Open Source Software". The Ubuntu community is crowded with fans of free software, and there are also open source software enthusiasts. In the Ubuntu community, people do not care about the nuances between free software and open-source software. Therefore, for Ubuntu, objective reality is far from the ideal world of Stallman. As a result, Mr. Stallman is quite lonely among thousands of Ubuntu fans, just like an antique treasure. Ubuntu software package, as a typical representative of modern free software, is the result of many free software achievements. Ubuntu's licensing policy is quite loose. From the Ubuntu perspective, there is only one principle: free software and service charges. I am confident that such a business model will be profitable if we stick to it.
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