We speak about freedom when we talk about free software.We people understand how essential freedom in computing is,but we need to think a bit deep about freedom around us.More than technical strength , every free software user should be socially strong.

When explaining why Free Software is important, one question that often comes up is: “do I really need the software freedom?”

«...Much of the communication on the Internet happens between computers according to standards that define common languages. If we are going to live in a free world using free software, our software must be allowed to speak these languages.

"Much of the communication on the Internet happens between computers according to standards that define common languages.

Prominent legal counsel the Software Freedom Law Center said that the legal terms covering Microsoft's Open XML document formats pose a patent risk to free and open-source software developers.

Recently, Gene over at ERACC WEblog Makes an effort to define the 'free' in "Free & Open Source Software". This don't go quite far enough.

"...The announcement confirmed that Microsoft was planning to use its software patent portfolio against interoperating products by requiring a patent license for all commercial activity [...] Microsoft's patent licences are incompatible with Free Software [...] Free Software's freedoms to use, study, share and improve software without additional restrictions are key to the success and utility of Free Software in both commercial and non-commercial ICT infrastructure. They are also the basis for many of today's working examples of interoperability and competition..."

There has been so much talk in the last two weeks that Microsoft has changed with regard to its patent policy toward Free Software. We fool ourselves if we trust any of the window-dressing that Microsoft has put forward to convince us that we can trust them in this regard.

The free software community understands that free software gives the user more freedom than proprietary software. Proprietary software confines its users, prohibits them from making changes that would allow everyone to benefit, etc. Free software advocates (myself included) have a habit of claiming that using free (libre) software means the same thing as having freedom.