The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a charity that helps and promote the usage of free software program. Their newest income and expense report for 2017, exhibits that a lot of their efforts deal with, past fundamental infrastructure prices, public consciousness, legal work, and coverage work.
Every 12 months, they have fun free software program on February 14 around the world online and offline.
Galia Mancheva, a undertaking supervisor for FSFE, tells me: “FSFE activists throughout totally different elements of Europe are taking the streets of their hometowns and spreading the phrase by celebrating with our cards, balloons, and stickers. Those actions can be streamed on Twitter, Mastodon, Facebook, and Instagram. To share on-line use #ilovefs to tag your favourite free software program communities, applied sciences, and other people.”
Here’s what people from our contributor neighborhood needed to share.
I really like free software program as a result of…
“It helps underprivileged people to gain access to things which usually they cannot afford if it was not free, which would allow everyone to gain knowledge and learn.” —Kedar Vijay Kulkarni, a software program high quality engineer at Red Hat
“It allows me to review the source code and make changes. I have written or contributed to dozens of free software programs since the 1990s, and being able to make changes has been important to compile tools for whatever system I’m on. Early in my career, I ported a C compiler to my (very old) HP-UX platform at work because I had access to the source code and could tweak it to compile it on my system.” —Jim Hall, FreeDOS creator
“It allows us to test the waters and learn something new. It helps us keep our budget too because there are similar apps out there you usually have to pay for.” —Jessica Repka, a Network Automation Engineer for Duke Universities Office of Information Technology
“Software began largely as a collaborative effort, where people and institutions freely shared their work so that the capabilities of what computers could do would advance the most rapidly. Then along came the scheme to fence in work, and then monetize the output. The dirty secret of the process was that much of the basis and groundwork of this process was based on the freely available knowledge of that time, but became locked in by the fence and hidden from inspection (closed source). Even later, closed sources felt free to incorporate freely released code into the dark recesses of the closed source cave. Along with this came the assertion that “our builders are smarter, which is why our code is healthier”. Thus started the race to create huge wealth for small numbers of individuals.
Eventually, the charade was uncovered, by those that declared that software program needs to be free, in all its senses, that firms had no proper to hog-tie private computer systems and to cover the supply. Thus got here GNU and later Linux. The relaxation is the story of individuals everywhere in the world having the ability to not solely use however contribute to and invent new open supply initiatives which have modified the face of non-public computing.
We have to like free software program: Where would we be with out it?” —Greg Pittman, a Linux fanatic and member of the Scribus workforce
“Without free software program, you do not have open software program, and with out open software program, you do not have safety.
Let me clarify. You can promote me one thing which you inform me will shield my knowledge from different folks seeing it, or altering it, or stopping me from accessing it, however until I can see what that software program is definitely doing, there is no approach that I can ensure that it’s going to do these issues. In truth, even when you assume it is doing these issues, you possibly can be improper, as a result of there’s solely a finite variety of folks in your organization (the one promoting me the software program), and perhaps your auditors, who’ve checked out it. If it is free and open, then I can examine, and my pals can examine, and their pals, and their pals and so forth. We have a a lot, a lot greater pool of individuals to examine what you have written, and the protocols and algorithms that it is based mostly on, than you do together with your closed software program.” —Mike Bursell, Chief Security Architect for Red Hat
“Open supply software program permits creators to essentially personal their work, as a substitute of merely leasing their creations from the distributors of proprietary software program. In addition to that, open supply software program invitations a cooperative and collaborative world the place data is definitely accessible for the mutual good thing about all human beings.” —Don Watkins, a Linux and open supply fanatic
“A major goal and ongoing concern within the scientific community is the reproducibility of research. For research to be meaningful, it must be reproducible. Both technically and philosophically, through transparency and collaboration, free software promotes reproducible research.” —Matt Calverley, PhD in Immunology and Infectious Disease
“I can use it anywhere. Even in the instances where it’s more difficult to learn or use than a proprietary alternative, it’s worth the investment of my personal time, because I know I’ll be able to deploy, use, and train other people in the use of that free software in any environment.” —Jim Salter, a sysadmin and technical writer
“It allows me to help more students and families than I ever could using proprietary software. I do not have to be encumbered by software fees and restrictive user agreements.” —Stu Keroff, expertise coordinator on the Community School of Excellence
