07 September 2024
Article published by: wxie
Date of publication: 07 September 2024
title: Free Software for you and for me description: On 2024-09-07 I gave this speech as sharing in Nanhui Toastmasters club. —
Good morning.
Some of you ask me: what do you do for a living?
Normally I answer I am doing software related work.
Software? The reaction seems that I am talking something mysterious or far away from our daily life.
Dear Fellow members, Distinguished guests,
In all aspects, Software is one thing that has been changing the world for the last few decades. Each and every one’s life is connected to software more than the Covid-19. Whether you are using a computer, a smart phone, or driving a car, you are using software.
Do you agree?
Today I want to talk to about
what is software?
what is free software?
Why do you need free software?
some examples of free software for our daily use
You can raise your questions at the end of my talk.
As we see, we use software every day, wechat is a software, for example.
For me, software is a program, and it is product. It has different appearances.
Sometimes it is like this (an icon) - how do you run this program?
In general, a software is program, and it is a file in your device.
Sometimes it is like this (binary form) - could you read it? Could you understand what the program is doing? I think this is why people think software is mysterious.
Sometimes it is like this (source code form) - could you read it? Is it still mysterious?
From the source code to binary you need a compiler, like this. In the past, if you can make a good compiler, you would make a good fortune, as least a millionaire.
Binary is for the computer, and source code is for human beings.
One question to you all, what do you get for your program? Is is in binary form, or in source code form?
If human beings could not understand binary, why wouldn’t we get the source code?
This is not ethical, not justice. Our computing freedom should not be controlled by other people.
Here comes free software.
Who can tell us what is the Chinese for Free Software?
Free as an English word has 2 basic meaning:
free of charge, like free lunch; we can use gratis instead of free for this meaning.
free as in freedom, like free speech; this is the meaning for free software; sometimes we also use libre software to refer to the same thing.
The official definition of Free Software is
In short, Free software means user can run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software.
The software which is not free software we call it nonfree software, or proprietary software. Nonfree software will not give 4 freedoms above.
First, Freedom means having control over your own life. If you use a program to carry out activities in your life, your freedom depends on your having control over the program. You deserve to have control over the programs you use, and all the more so when you use them for something important in your life.
Second, Schools (and this includes all educational activities) influence the future of society through what they teach. They should teach exclusively free software, so as to use their influence for the good. To teach a proprietary program is to implant dependence, which goes against the mission of education. By training in use of free software, schools will direct society’s future towards freedom, and help talented programmers master the craft.
As more and more users realize that code is law, and come to feel that they too deserve freedom, they will see the importance of the freedoms free software stands for, just as more and more users have come to appreciate the practical value of the free software.
You deserve free software, but you are not used to having free software.
Let’s check if you can tell if the following programs are free software.
Microsoft Powerpoint
Here I have some free software for you to use
Firefox - a web browser
Jitsi meeting - a group meeting application
LibreOffice - a suit to replace the nonfree MS Office.
As a software user, the only way to have control over our computing is to use Free Software.
After this sharing, if I want you to take something with you, I would say
use Gratis instead of free when you mean costless
use free software instead of proprietary software when possible
A thousand-mile journey starts with a single step, each step towards your software freedom is a good step.
Thank you.
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