"When we speak of Free Software (FS), we are speaking about the freedom it gives users, as all supporters of the FS movement understand (or, at least, are expected to know). And freedom of software cannot exist in isolation. It depends on other freedoms, such as freedom of speech..."

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.

Hearing the terms "free software" or "open source," you might imagine that they referred to a single school of thought. Even "free and open source software" (FOSS) suggests only two different outlooks: Free software, which values political and philosophical freedom, and open source, whose main interest is enhanced software quality.

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

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.

Freedom Socks, free from the ground up!! A podcast about GNU/Linux and free software in general. In this sixth sockload of freedom, we decide last weeks episode never happened, turn into GNU/Freedom nutters, go over the news, unleash even more hate than usual.

"Why should we care to have a 100 per cent free operating system? Isn't being almost free enough? Not if you value freedom itself.

The Free Software Movement was founded to win freedom for software users. Its offshoot, Open Source, was founded to downplay freedom as a value. This difference, which may seem subtle, has big consequences and this is one example of them..."

"On December 15, 2006, the FSF launched its BadVista.org campaign to advocate for the freedom of computer users, opposing adoption of Microsoft Windows Vista and promoting free -- as in freedom -- software alternatives. Two years later, the campaign has nearly 7,000 registered supporters, the name Vista is synonymous in the public eye with failure, and we are declaring victory..."

"..RMS’s other mission here is to promote the Free Software Movement. The creator of the GPL...is at pains to correct misunderstandings of what the term free software means and to draw a distinction between it and the open source movement.