What do you mean when you say the word, “Free?” In software, we have two meanings, one is expressed as “free as in beer” and the other is “free as in speech.” This applies to music as well. There is music you can download for free, there’s also music you have to pay to download. Often you can pay for music and get far less than you expect, even if the song is exactly what you want.
Archive for the ‘Free and Open Source Software’ Category
Music: Free as a Bird
Monday, December 17th, 2007Free and Open Source Software (Why Pay for Less?)
Tuesday, December 19th, 2006Anyone who has spent much time with me knows that I am passionate about open source software. Sometimes it’s called FOSS, F/OSS, FLOSS, OSS, or other terms. FLOSS is “Free/Libre Open Source Software.” From that, it’s pretty easy to figure out the shorter versions, just drop a term as needed. Note that the word “free” is an important part of this, but in software, there are two meanings to the word free. Programmers and other computer people often indicate this by referring to both meanings as free as in beer, or free as in speech.
The first meaning, free as in beer is important and makes a big difference in what people can use on their computers. What if I told you there was a program that could read and write almost all the files in Microsoft Office and it could work like Office, except less likely to crash and with fewer bugs, and it is free? Yep. Free as in beer. Totally free. I can give you a link, you can go to that web page, download the program, use it instead of Office, and never pay one single red cent for it. Oh, yes, and it is completely legal. I’m not pulling your leg. But a large part of why such a program is free (as in beer) is because it is also free (as in speech). (more…)