Re: How can software that is free be high quality?

[Jean Louis]

* Akira Urushibata <afu@wta.att.ne.jp> [2025-01-06 19:41]:
> How can software that is free be high quality?
> Wisdom from ancient China sheds light
> 
> Proponents of free software stress that "free" is "freedom." 

I am not a native Enlish speaker, so I have researched the subject. I
also speak German and Italian, and other languages. The word "free" in
many English dictionaries in the first definition is related to
freedom, not money.

Here is it from Wordnet dictionary:

* Overview of adj free

The adj free has 9 senses (first 5 from tagged texts)
1. (38) free -- (able to act at will; not hampered; not under compulsion or 
restraint; "free enterprise"; "a free port"; "a free country"; "I have an hour 
free"; "free will"; "free of racism"; "feel free to stay as long as you wish"; 
"a free choice")
2. (4) free -- (unconstrained or not chemically bound in a molecule or not 
fixed and capable of relatively unrestricted motion; "free expansion"; "free 
oxygen"; "a free electron")
3. (3) complimentary, costless, free, gratis, gratuitous -- (costing nothing; 
"complimentary tickets"; "free admission")
4. (3) free -- (not occupied or in use; "a free locker"; "a free lane")
5. (1) detached, free -- (not fixed in position; "the detached shutter fell on 
him"; "he pulled his arm free and ran")
6. free -- (not held in servitude; "after the Civil War he was a free man")
7. spare, free -- (not taken up by scheduled activities; "a free hour between 
classes"; "spare time on my hands")
8. barren, destitute, devoid, free, innocent -- (completely wanting or lacking; 
"writing barren of insight"; "young recruits destitute of experience"; 
"innocent of literary merit"; "the sentence was devoid of meaning")
9. free, loose, liberal -- (not literal; "a loose interpretation of what she 
had been told"; "a free translation of the poem")

Check out Wiktionary:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/free

Since I found out about Free Software, I had no doubts it is related
to freedom, those doubts I found out later, actually more on the
www.gnu.org website then on other websites, as others I didn't
research much.

Free Software translates to German as Freie Software, in which the
word "Freie" means "Free" and has unmistakable meaning related to
freedom, not cost. In German we would say "kostenlos" if it would be
"cost-free". In Italian it translates as "software libero" which is
also not mistaken.

Me, as non-English speaker, who rather used unmistakable terms related
to freedom, did not understand the English words "free software" as
related to cost.

Thus it is not good to generalize that people would mistake it easily
for cost-free instead of being free as in liberty.

> Open source proponents say that "open source" is a better term than
> "free software" because it avoids the ambiguity of the word "free."

That is more deeper subject to tackle. I understand your opinion,
though it is not just semantic question, not at all.

> (The Free Software Foundation has a statement on this issue.  It is
> unfair that the open source enthusiasts seldom, if ever, encourage
> people to visit the Free Software Foundation's website to find out
> what they have to say, but this is not the subject here.)

I don't think thos eenthusiasts are different group of free software
enthusiasts, in fact they blend together. In fact when you speak of
statistics, I am always picky to find out where did you get such
statistics. That is because I tend to believe facts, not
generalizations. Then I can also generalize and say that I think that
those saying "open source" mostly mean "free software" and only lean
to mainstream terminology, and thus you cannot even distinguish
those who are truly and only "open source" without talking free
software. I have never seen someone complaining when I wrote "free
software" or arguing with me.

And I do write it many many times.

If the organization like META publishes LLAMA like "open source", then
I often correct many websites and first point out to GNU:

What is Free Software? - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

but also to Open Source definition:

The Open Source Definition – Open Source Initiative
https://opensource.org/osd

whereby both website pages, those particular pages, basically go along
with each other.

And there was always understanding, and not misunderstanding.

I have got encouragement by people using "open source" term to propose
software and datasets to become free software.

Thus my personal experience is my statistics, and I cannot lean on
your opinion.

Additionally, I never write "open source", but "free software" and I
have been asking Large Language Models (LLM) many times questions
related to free software, like maybe 148 times, and each time each
Large Language Model (LLM) that I was using understands the words
"free software" as synonym to "open source" and vice versa. This
implies that many people used the term "open source" just in the same
context as "free software" as each Large Language Model (LLM) learns
or is trained from vast amount of data that people have created
worldwide. 

> In reality, whether you call it "free software" or "open source," the
> software is obtained, in nearly all instances, for free.

Don't know your age, but I remember that free software was always
costly to buy in Germany, and cheapest way to obtain it sometimes was
to purchase some of the Linux magazines which provided free CD-ROM
along with the magazine, though even the magazine was pretty expensive
like US $10 or US $20 at the time back in 1998-1999. Those magazines
were published for years.

The first time I acquired a free GNU/Linux distribution was when I
spent 99 Deutschmarks at the bookstore in Stuttgarter Bahnhof train
station. I recall that the GNU system was too pricey in Wittwer
bookstore, even though I was prepared to buy it, I was in a hurry and
ended up purchasing Red Hat Linux instead.

Numerous other distributions of GNU/Linux were available at bookstores
and software retailers in Stuttgart, Germany – that was my accustomed
way of obtaining software.

I am explaining this to you so that you understand that not all people
are from the same place. I can assure you that where I am currently,
it is common for people to sell software along with the computer. If
you want to buy it on a DVD, you will need to pay a small fee at the
very least.

> Whatever the free software people preach, free of cost is the main
> reason people are attracted.

Is not "preaching".

I disagree with that viewpoint. Firstly, advocating for free software
is equivalent to standing up for human rights in the present and
future. It's not a matter of religious belief, but a reasonable and
factual reflection of our society, where programmers and companies
often try to control the user and their computing, rather than the
user controlling their own computing.

I disagree that "free of cost" is the primary draw for free
software. I have never seen it that way, but perhaps statistics could
provide insight. To me, the appeal of free software is the wide
variety of options that aren't available on other systems, and the
ideal development environment that can't be found on
Windows/OS. However, I haven't used Windoze in 25 years, so I can't
speak to its current state.

> Once Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, was
> asked after one of his lectures: "If free software is free, does that
> not mean that it is inferior to proprietary software, which is more
> expensive?"  This is natural reasoning: people associate high price
> with high quality and low price with low quality.

Let me just remind you again, first time I have ever seen GNU software
was in Wittwer Bookstore in Stutgart, Germany. It wasn't free of
charge!!! It was perceived as highly valuable software not just by me,
but by bystanders there on the same software department.

GNU software in beginning was always sold by GNU project and it was
one of funding sources! It was expensive!

Please see here:

GNU's Bulletin, vol. 1 no. 15 - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation
https://www.gnu.org/bulletins/bull15.html

Search for words:

"The Deluxe Distribution costs $5000. This package is for people who
want to get everything compiled for them or who want to make a
purchase that helps the FSF in a large way."

And that was June, 1993, back in time.

And you could buy other versions: "The CD costs $400 if you are buying
it for a business or other organization, or $100 if you are buying it
for yourself. "

So from the perspective how you have placed your question, the
questioning alone doesn't represent global opinion.

Many companies have been selling GNU Software and they are still doing
so. 

The emergence of numerous methods to make money using free software is
the realization of Richard Stallman's prophecy.

> It is important to understand that the term "free" can lead to
> prejudice.

Only with illiterate people.

> When one is told that something is free, he may decline to invest
> his time and effort to examine it, out of prejudice that it cannot
> be valuable.

Illiterate individuals have an abundance of prejudices, which is
exactly why it is crucial to encourage education, rather than
eliminating prejudices that result from misunderstandings.

> We have traditions to avoid this pitfall.  When we want to get
> something nice for free, we say "please."  When we do get something
> nice for free, we say "thanks."

In Japanese culture, similar to numerous other cultures, the term
"please" is used in two contexts: when things are obtained for free
and when things are purchased with money.

When ordering at a restaurant, they might say "X o onegaishimasu" (Xを
お願いします), meaning "X, please."

When paying at a store, they might say "Okaikei onegaishimasu" (お会計
お願いします), meaning "The bill, please."

You may tell me more about the tradition for getting free things,
though I believe "please" is used when buying things.

We do same in German language, but also in Italian and other
languages. We use "please" for free or non-free to obtain things.

> We may consider original li as a ceremony in which people celebrated
> the annual transition between links of the chain by which agriculture
> is sustained.  Li was applied broadly to industry and the arts.  Li
> established itself particularly well in education where seeds of
> wisdom are distributed through sharing.

The "Li" from Chinese is thus akin to sharing of free software:

Imagine you develop a piece of software and decide to share it as free
software. Applying the principles of Li, you would:

1. Respect Users' Freedoms: Release the software under a free license
   (e.g., GPL) that guarantees users' rights to use, modify, and share
   it.

2. Foster Community Harmony: Encourage collaboration by hosting the
   project on an ethical platforms and welcoming contributions.

3. Show Gratitude: Acknowledge contributors and users, and consider
   donating to other free software projects that inspired your work.

4. Uphold Ethical Responsibility: Advocate for free software
   principles and educate others about the importance of software
   freedom.

Jean Louis