I think that the reality is that for 99 percent of the people who buy and use products, it doesn’t. If you can’t read code, why would you care if you can? There is this central message of “freedom,” but it doesn’t really apply to a freedom that the average person identifies with. For instance, you are free to flap your arms and fly to the moon too, but if you can’t do it, so what?
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kiba
17 years 10 weeks 5 days 8 hours ago
Free softwares is giving me control,
Free softwares is giving me control, even if I can't code.( I can code)
That what matter the most. I can hire a developer to fix it for me. I can modify it to fit my need. They are there,
No company is going to BS to me that softwares is their property. As far as I can tell, I brought their softwares one way or another, I should be able to adapt it to my need, do whatever I want with it. It is my copy. I owned it.
Making softwares Free softwares only increase its usefulness and give the people who owned the copy more control over their softwares. It is an act of courtesy.
pogson
17 years 10 weeks 4 days 22 hours ago
FLOSS means less lock-in. If the
FLOSS means less lock-in. If the "proprietary"/closed stuff reaches end-of-life, your usage stops or is frozen in time with all the bugs it had at the end. With FLOSS you can hire someone to fix it forever and keep going. We do not scrap cars because the tires wear. Neither should we scrap systems as long as we can keep them working. FLOSS is not the answer to all IT problems but this is a biggy. If FLOSS had been a going concern when the PC took off, there would be no monopoly, just good, healthy competition.
spikeb
17 years 10 weeks 4 days 20 hours ago
I think the biggest reasons FLOSS
I think the biggest reasons FLOSS should matter to end users is being able/encouraged to share the software with their friends, and the various communities out there that will help you if you run into people.