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Re: [Fsfe-uk] Why FS is a Good Thing
From: |
Ramin Nakisa |
Subject: |
Re: [Fsfe-uk] Why FS is a Good Thing |
Date: |
Mon, 11 Mar 2002 22:06:18 +0000 |
Here's the latest draft incorporating almost all of the very helpful
suggestions you made. It fits on one sheet of A4 but I had to use \small
environment 8-/.
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\title{Free Software}
\begin{small}
Science owes its explosive growth over the past century to the free
and open exchange of ideas. As Isaac Newton said in a letter to his
colleague Robert Hooke dated 5 February 1676, ``If I have seen
further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.'' Free
Software is in the process of recreating this explosion of ideas in
the world of Information Technology. Free Software such as that
distributed under the GNU General Public License ensures that people
are free to make improvements and redistribute software, but must
always make the source code available. Any software released under
the GNU General Public License ensures four freedoms: (i) the
freedom to run the program, for any purpose, (ii) the freedom to
study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs, (iii) the
freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others and (iv) the
freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the
public, so that the whole community benefits.
\begin{itemize}
\item Most software is written in-house and never sold, and in this
case software patents are a hindrance. Free Software is not a
commodity, rather it is more like infrastructure - freely available
to all businesses and an enabler of progress and innovation.
\item Free Software is often distributed for no cost. This can save
around 20\% of the cost of every computer in an organisation,
because although hardware has become consistently cheaper personal
computer operating systems have increased in price.
\item Free Software is bankruptcy-proof. It is usually stored on
globally available software repositories and will outlive any
company or organisation that created it. While the community of
people that use and maintain the project continue to exist, the
software will persist and develop.
\item Support for Free Software is often much better than support for
proprietary software. Newsgroups exist where users post questions
and receive prompt and helpful replies. People are encouraged to
report bugs and these are often fixed within a few weeks.
\item Most people use computers to write documents and presentations,
read email and browse the Web. Free Software exists to perform all
of these tasks.
\item Many thousands of Free Software projects exist (see the Free
Software directory at http://www.gnu.org/directory/). Some of the
most successful include:
\begin{description}
\item [GNU/Linux] an operating system (like Microsoft Windows).
\item [KDE, Gnome, GNUstep and XFCE] desktop environments (attractive
and easy to use interfaces for GNU/Linux).
\item [OpenOffice] a word-processing, spreadsheet and presentation
package that is compatible with Microsoft Office.
\item [Mozilla] an Internet browser that shares code with Netscape.
\item [Apache] is industry standard software used to run web sites
(used by Amazon.com, the German government, Walmart, the US
Whitehouse and Federal Bureau of Investigation).
\item [Beowulf] for parallel computing (used for climate change
simulations, particle physics computations and medical drug
discovery applications).
\end{description}
\item Many companies have invested heavily in Free Software. IBM has
invested over \$2 billion in GNU/Linux, and now sells many of its
computers from laptops to million-pound mainframes with GNU/Linux
pre-installed.
\end{itemize}
\end{small}
\end{document}
Re: [Fsfe-uk] Why FS is a Good Thing, ralph, 2002/03/10
Re: [Fsfe-uk] Why FS is a Good Thing,
Ramin Nakisa <=
- Re: [Fsfe-uk] Why FS is a Good Thing, Imran Ghory, 2002/03/11
- Re: [Fsfe-uk] Why FS is a Good Thing, MJ Ray, 2002/03/11
- Re: [Fsfe-uk] Why FS is a Good Thing, Imran Ghory, 2002/03/12
- Re: [Fsfe-uk] Why FS is a Good Thing, Martyn Ranyard, 2002/03/12
- Re: [Fsfe-uk] Why FS is a Good Thing, ralph, 2002/03/12
- Re: [Fsfe-uk] Why FS is a Good Thing, MJ Ray, 2002/03/12
- Re: [Fsfe-uk] Why FS is a Good Thing, hobbit, 2002/03/12
- Re: [Fsfe-uk] Why FS is a Good Thing, MJ Ray, 2002/03/12
- Re: [Fsfe-uk] Why FS is a Good Thing, Alex Hudson, 2002/03/12
- Re: [Fsfe-uk] Why FS is a Good Thing, Imran Ghory, 2002/03/12