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Comment by avhception | Hacker News Reader

I think the term "free software" is a marketing failure because you'd always have to add "as in free speech, not free beer".

In German you can differentiate that, "frei" vs. "gratis".

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I'd go as far as saying that the term "free software" is a complete an utter fail. In my mind "free speech" is speech that is entirely unrestricted. Almost all FOSS licenses come with "restrictions", such as you must leave the copyright notice in place, you must add the "PROVIDED AS IS" spiel somewhere the end user can read it, you must release your derivative work's source code under the same license etc., so it is by definition no longer "free".

WTFPL is probably the only real "free" license.

the freedom part is not for the software developer, it is for the end user running the software.

I've obviously missed something here, what are the freedoms the end user is afforded?

0. The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose.

1. The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

2. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others.

3. The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others. By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

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