With free libre software, where freedom and liberty are about what the end user is empowered with actually, the software is mostly metonymic. Free software, free society, because there are free people in the middle of course.
Right, as I said elsewhere, maybe let's just let "open-source" have it.
"Open-source" can be "anything you can go out and grab a copy of and use" but doesn't give you much legal certainty about any of it, and reserve "free software" for the other, better thing.
But, free software lost it's way around GPLv3. From the end user's perspective, GPLv3 says that you can only use the software if it's either a cloud service, on hypothetical open firmware devices, or if you install it yourself.
AGPLv3 partially solves the issue by blocking people like Google from using it to build proprietary cloud services that take away their users' freedom. (It still doesn't solve the problem where providers use network effects to achieve the same end game.)
I don't understand this either. The GPL doesn't address end users and their use of software at all, to be technical. It only addresses what terms of copyright redistributors of GPLed software are allowed to apply in-turn to subsequent end users.
The point of the Free in free software was always to protect the users of the software, not the vendors or the redistributors. (This is why the license focuses on the redistributors -- the mechanisms of the license limit their rights in order to protect others' rights.)
The first sentence of the GNU manifesto says this, and a few sections later in the document elaborate on the point:
Note, in particular, footnote [1] which explains that its OK for distributors to ask for payment, but that it's never OK for users to have to ask for permission to use the software, and the section "Why I Must Write GNU".
Since then, software service monopolies became common, and all of the most end-user-hostile systems on earth rely heavily on the GNU system. At this point, we're paying for permission to use those services with our money, our data, our democracy, etc.
I certainly cannot give you permission to use any of the GPLed services that I have used, or that I've been paid to extend. Therefore, I say the free software movement has lost its way.
> From the end user's perspective, GPLv3 says that you can only use the software if it's either a cloud service, on hypothetical open firmware devices, or if you install it yourself.
The anti-tivo clause bans things like Apple pre-installing GPLv3 software on macs, but allows them to let you use exactly the same software as long as they do not give users access to the binary. AGPLv3 blocks both use cases, GPLv2 blocks neither.
On the spectrum of "things that take away user freedom", withholding the source code is bad. Withholding the source code, the binaries and physical access to the computer is obviously much worse! This latter business model is heavily subsidized by GPLv3.