hydrarchist writes: "

Freedom or Power?


by Bradley M. Kuhn and Richard M. Stallman

"The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves." -- William Hazlitt

In the Free Software Movement, we stand for freedom for the users of software. We formulated our views by looking at what freedoms are necessary for a good
way of life, and permit useful programs to foster a community of goodwill, cooperation, and collaboration. Our criteria for Free Software specify the freedoms that a
program's users need so that they can cooperate in a community.

We stand for freedom for programmers as well as for other users. Most of us are programmers, and we want freedom for ourselves as well as for you. But each of
us uses software written by others, and we want freedom when using that software, not just when using our own code. We stand for freedom for all users, whether
they program often, occasionally, or not at all.

However, one so-called freedom that we do not advocate is the "freedom to choose any license you want for software you write". We reject this because it is really
a form of power, not a freedom.

Read the rest of this story at openflows.org."