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<title>FSF Europe - World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)</title>
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<a href="FreeSoftware.pdf">[ PDF; 92k ]</a>
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<h1>Free Software</h1>
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<h2>(a.k.a. "Libre Software" or "Open Source")</h2>
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<p class="indent"> During PrepCom3, a regular request was for a reference document on Free
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Software and its role in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).
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This document seeks to provide such reference.</p>
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<p class="indent">Free in Free Software is referring to freedom, not price. Having been used
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in this meaning since the 80s, the first documented complete definition
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appears to be the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull1.txt">GNU's Bulletin, vol. 1 no. 1</a>, published February 1986. In particular, four freedoms
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<a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html">define</a> Free Software:</p>
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<ul>
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<li class="indent"><B>The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.</B>
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<p class="indent"> <em>Placing restrictions on the use of Free Software, such
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as time ("30 days trial period", "license expires January 1st, 2004")
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purpose ("permission granted for research and non-commercial use") or
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geographic area ("must not be used in country X") makes a program
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non-free.</em></p>
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</li>
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<li class="indent"><B>The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to
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your needs.</B>
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<p class="indent"> <em>Placing legal or practical restrictions on the
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comprehension or modification of a program, such as mandatory purchase
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of special licenses, signing of a Non-Disclosure-Agreement (NDA) or -
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for programming languages that have multiple forms or representation
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- making the preferred human way of comprehending and editing a program
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("source code") inaccessible also makes it proprietary (non-free).
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Without the freedom to modify a program, people will remain at the mercy
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of a single vendor.</em></p>
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</li>
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<li class="indent"><B>The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your
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neighbor.</B>
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<p class="indent"> <em>Software can be copied/distributed at virtually no
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cost. If you are not allowed to give a program to a person in need,
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that makes a program non-free. This can be done for a charge, if you so
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choose.</em></p>
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</li>
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<li class="indent"><B>The freedom to improve the program, and release your
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improvements to the public, so that the whole community
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benefits.</B>
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<p class="indent"> <em>Not everyone is an equally good programmer in all
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fields. Some people don't know how to program at all. This freedom
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allows those who do not have the time or skills to solve a problem to
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indirectly access the freedom to modify. This can be done for a
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charge.</em></p>
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</li>
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</ul>
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<p class="indent">These freedoms are rights, not obligations, although respecting these
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freedoms for society may at times oblige the individual. Any person can
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choose to not make use of them, but may also choose to make use of all of
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them. In particular, it should be understood that Free Software does not
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exclude commercial use. If a program fails to allow commercial use and
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commercial distribution, it is not Free Software. Indeed a growing number of
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companies base their business model completely or at least partially on Free
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Software, including some of the largest proprietary software vendors. Free
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Software makes it legal to provide help and assistance, it does not make it
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mandatory.</p>
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<h3>Terminology</h3>
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<p class="indent">English seems to be the only language in which such a strong ambiguity
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exists between freedom and price. When translated into other languages, Free
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Software becomes "logiciels libre" in French, "software libre" in
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Spanish, "software libero" in Portugese, "Fri Software" in Danish or
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whatever is the equivalent term in the local language referring to
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freedom.</p>
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<b>Open Source</b>
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<p class="indent">On February 3rd 1998, in the wake of Netscapes announcement to release their
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browser as Free Software, a group of people met in Palo Alto in the Silicon
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Valley and proposed to start a marketing campaign for Free Software using the
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term ``Open Source.'' The goal was to seek fast commercialisation of Free
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Software and acceptance of Free Software by the companies and venture
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capitalists of the booming new economy. As a means to this end, they made a
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conscious decision to leave aside all long-term issues (such as philosophy,
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ethics and social effects) related to Free Software, feeling these posed
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obstacles in the way of rapid acceptance by economy. They proposed to focus
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on technical advantages only<a class="fn" href="#fn">1</a>.</p>
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<p class="indent">Often used in good faith by people who refer to what Free Software stands
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for, the term "Open Source" - originally defined to mean the same thing as
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Free Software in terms of licenses and implementation - has seen inflationary
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usage. Nowadays, it is regularly used for everything between Free Software
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and the highly proprietary "Governmental Security Program" (GSP) by
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Microsoft<a class="fn" href="#fn">2</a>.</p>
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<b>Libre Software</b>
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<p class="indent"> When the European Commission started dealing with Free Software on a
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regular basis, they sought to avoid the ambiguity of the English word "Free
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Software" and the misunderstandings of "Open Source" alike, which led to
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the adoption of a third term which has popped up occasionally since around
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1992: "Libre Software." This term has proven resistant to inflationary usage
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and is still used in an identical way to Free Software. So it may pose a
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solution for those who fear being misunderstood when speaking English.</p>
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<h3>Development</h3>
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<p class="indent">When thinking about Free Software, it should be seen as an encompassing
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concept for a reliable, sustainable and dependable information and knowledge
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society involving all stakeholders.</p>
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<p class="indent">The price we are paying for the predominance of the proprietary software
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approach is high. Because the proprietary software paradigm has a strong,
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system-inherent monopolising tendency <a class="fn" href="#fn">3</a> and software permeates all areas of
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economy, northern economies suffer and southern countries are given the
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choice between exclusion or co-suffering in total dependence. That is why
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breaking up Microsoft without a change in paradigm would not improve the
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situation significantly. Free Software, on the other hand, brings back
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competition while allowing cooperation among companies, people, and
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governments. All of these equally available and empowering to all the
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peoples.</p>
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<p class="indent">While minorities remain at the mercy of large multinational companies
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regarding support for their culture and language when using proprietary
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software, Free Software gives them freedom to modify all software according
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to their needs. Thus, Free Software also allows building a sustainable local
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hard- and software industry independent from monopolies and large
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multinationals. Of course cooperation with large companies is possible and
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may be useful, but while dependency is the price to pay for such cooperation
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in proprietary software, Free Software provides independence.</p>
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<h3>Equality</h3>
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<p class="indent">The design, development and use of software is increasing in all societies.
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Increasingly, access to software is largely determining our capabilities for
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education, communication, work and even social networking. This includes
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building social movements, promoting citizenship and transparent democracy as
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well as general governmental and health services.</p>
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<p class="indent">Software in general has grown into northern societies to a very large extent
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and if development policies are successful, this will also be true for
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southern societies at some point in time. Therefore software must be
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considered a cultural technique, sometimes even a cultural good.</p>
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<p class="indent">For all central cultural techniques, we have to ask who should be put in
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control of it. Proprietary software puts large northern multinationals in
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control<a class="fn" href="#fn">4</a>. Free Software
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makes this cultural technique equally available to all the peoples.</p>
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<h3>Human Rights</h3>
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<p class="indent">For those who are connected - and we surely hope this will mean all the
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peoples at some point - human rights of participation in culture, freedom of
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speech and opinion are influenced to a large extent by their control over the
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software they use, as are freedom of association and movement. Software forms
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the medium. Unlike the proprietary approach, Free Software gives each person
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full control about their personal information space. Although this alone is
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not sufficient to grant privacy and security, it is a necessary
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prerequisite.</p>
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<h3>Preventing Technocracy - upholding democracy</h3>
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<p class="indent">Legislation should be developed by democratically elected representatives in
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a transparent way. Even in situations where this is true, rights that cannot
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be exercised remain empty. Granting rights on paper does not mean people will
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have the means of exercising them.</p>
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<p class="indent">The complexity of modern systems alone makes it a difficult task to uphold
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democracy in the digital domain, but the overall intransparency of
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proprietary software makes it impossible. Unless you are using Free
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Software, the rights you can or cannot exercise are determined by the
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proprietary software vendor - it is the vendors decision alone, a decision
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that nowadays is often given precendence over the democratic legislative
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process.</p>
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<p class="indent">Good examples are the European Copyright Directive (EUCD) and Digital
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Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), both implementations of the "The World
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Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty" (December 1996).
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While the DMCA already gained notoriety for enabling censorship of
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Scientology-critical sites in the United States<a class="fn" href="#fn">5</a>, the German implementation of the EUCD is
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silently making the right to fair use inaccessible. Although laws clearly
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state that customers have the right to copy a CD for their car stereo or even
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a friend, those who exercise this right on so-called "copy protected" CDs
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or on any DVD now risk punishment. And if you think this is where it ends,
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feel free to read <a href="http://www.eff.org/files/20031001_tc.pdf">the EFF paper</a> on so-called "Trusted Computing" (TC).</p>
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<p class="indent">Proprietary software effectively puts an area that was previously governed
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by democratically elected representatives into the hand of corporations,
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therefore establishing technocracy<a class="fn" href="#fn">6</a>.</p>
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<h3>Summary</h3>
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<p class="indent">All of our hard work to defend and promote human rights, gender equality,
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rights of the disadvantaged, a free media, privacy and security, digital
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solidarity and other issues is in danger of having been for naught if the
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information age is based on proprietary software.</p>
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<p class="indent">Free Software alone is certainly not enough to overcome all problems - but
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it is a necessity to empower people to exercise the rights we are fighting
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for in the information societies.</p>
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<h2 id="fn">Footnotes</h2>
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<ol>
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<li>For reference, see <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20021217003716/http://www.opensource.org/advocacy/faq.html">http://web.archive.org/web/20021217003716/http://www.opensource.org/advocacy/faq.html</a>:
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<EM>How is "open source" related to "free software"? The Open Source
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Initiative is a marketing program for free software. It's a pitch for
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"free software" on solid pragmatic grounds rather than ideological
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tub-thumping. The winning substance has not changed, the losing attitude
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and symbolism have.</EM>
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</li>
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<li>In this program
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governments and intergovernmental organisations pay substantial fees for a
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superficial look at some parts of Windows sourcecode in special Microsoft
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facilities. This may increase "felt security" but is essentially useless -
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especially since they do not even know whether what they looked at is what
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they have on their computers. And of course it does not give them
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freedom.</li>
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<li>Explanation of these mechanisms will gladly be provided, if of interest.</li>
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<li>Side note: Which should
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not be understood as a good thing for people in the northern countries. It is
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not.</li>
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<li>For reference, see <a href="http://www-camlaw.rutgers.edu/publications/law-religion/scientology.htm">http://www-camlaw.rutgers.edu/publications/law-religion/scientology.htm</a> (not available any more).</li>
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<li>Technocracy: "Government by technicians or management of society by technical experts." (Merriam Webster Dictionary)</li>
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</ol>
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<DIV ALIGN="LEFT">
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<TT>
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<FONT SIZE="-1"> Date: 2004/10/19 15:34:59 Revision: 1.7 </FONT><br />
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<FONT SIZE="-1"> Author: <a href="http://fsfeurope.org/about/greve/">Georg Greve</a></FONT>
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</TT>
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</DIV>
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</body>
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<timestamp>$Date$ $Author$</timestamp>
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