A salesperson walks into your office today and tells you that you have to buy a new, pre-built, expensive desk for every one of your employees. You have to buy a new desk today and replace it every three to five years. You see, you don't really own the desk; you're simply purchasing a license to use the desk.
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15 years 22 weeks 6 days 9 hours ago
I think this is a fair
I think this is a fair attempt as an analogy to the nature of subjugation as practised by certain masters over the citizens of society.
My gripe about this one is the implication that free software is characterised as being gratis. This is a concern because the analogy characterises the non-free chairs as being commercial, expensive, and inflexible. It also characterises the free chairs as being gratis and easily modified.
Free, Open Source Software (FOSS) is about the individual's and community's freedom to help themselves and cooperate with each other about computer software. The term free in FOSS is a reference to liberty, it isn't a reference to gratis. The term open source is intended to emphasise the "open" nature of the software that will allow enthusiasts and professionals to cooperate with each other to improve the sofware.