Free as in Freedom: The Free Software Foundation

03:34 | Ryanne Hodson | Sep 7th, 2007 11:48am |

Every since we interviewed John Sullivan, Campaigns Manager for The Free Software Foundation in Boston, our heads have been spinning with the possibilities that ‘Free as in Freedom’ Software holds. If you’re looking at this on the Web, you’ll see that our site is a pimped out Wordpress blog - a free and open blogging platform. There are lots of crazy thumbnails and video playing plug-ins that we’ve helped to build through our collaborative Show-In-A-Box project.

All of this is possible because of Free and Open Software. Free is the idea (and the reality) that people should have the right to use their software in any way they see fit. Modifications, hacks, customizations and copies-lots of copies- should be allowed. If you’re using any operating system besides GNU-Linux (this would be Mac and Windows and a huge percentage of the population) and proprietary software made by these companies and many others, you literally don’t have the right to change, copy or distribute any of it. That CD you made your friend of that cheesy FTP program? Nope, that’s totally illegal. Unless of course it’s Free Software (like my favorite FTP app, Cyberduck), then ...