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by Symbiote 2200 days ago
The second of the "four freedoms" of free software is

> The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish.

That is particularly important for students of computer science -- what better way to see how all kinds of software works than by reading and modifying its source code?

I'm surprised if a "standard course" doesn't mostly use free software. Mine certainly did, I remember only a single module where we used a commercial software package (something for hardware simulation). I've never felt that this has limited me in any way. One module had us modifying the Linux kernel.
1 comments
barking 2200 days ago
Who wrote the Four freedoms and how does he put food on the table?
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fsflover 2200 days ago
https://fsf.org
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barking 2200 days ago
If you're just some guy who writes and updates a piece of software for a living, what do you do then?
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vertex-four 2200 days ago
You find people willing to pay for your work, not for a license. If your ongoing work is not worth anything, why should you be paid extra for work you did in the past?
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barking 2199 days ago
>If your ongoing work is not worth anything, why should you be paid extra for work you did in the past?

If you write a piece of software that took you a year to write but buyers are only willing to pay $500 for then do (A) live on $500 or (b) try to sell to many buyers including some in the future? You seem to be saying (b) is out of the question but if it is who will write the software these people wish to buy?

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vertex-four 2199 days ago
You can find multiple buyers before you write the software, you know - you don't have to have just one person paying you. If it's consumer software, things like Kickstarter or Patreon are how this is often done - if it's b2b, this is how a lot of software development is done anyway. Examples of software successfully funded via crowdfunding include Spine, Magit, and Diaspora - although Spine appears to be closed-source anyway. You can write an MVP, pitch it to potential clients, and write software that provides value to them. That's what I'm doing.
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fsflover 2200 days ago
This is not a trivial question, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_models_for_open-sourc...
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