abstract:The free-software movement is a social movementRichard Stallman on the nature of the Free software movement in 2008 on emacs-devel mailing list. with the goal of obtaining and guaranteeing certain freedoms for software users, namely the freedom to run the software, to study and change the software, and to redistribute copies with or without changes.
It faces daunting challenges from China Inc. and the freesoftwaremovement, and its high-margin boxes may yet fall under the same relentless cost pressure that has long strained most hardware businesses.
With the same fervor that rallied the open-source freesoftwaremovement, members of such groups as Seattle Wireless, in Seattle, Washington, SFLan in San Francisco and Consume.net in London are bolting radio antennas to their roofs and broadcasting a shared invisible connection to their friends down the block.