BBC News published an article by Richard Stallman about Bill Gates leaving MS, but the restricted digital empire of proprietary software and DRM still remains.
Although Stallman may be right towards some stuff he writes, I strongly disagree with him about the following piece:
Microsoft’s software is distributed under licenses that keep users divided and helpless. The users are divided because they are forbidden to share copies with anyone else. The users are helpless because they don’t have the source code that programmers can read and change.
If you’re a programmer and you want to change the software, for yourself or for someone else, you can’t.
If you’re a business and you want to pay a programmer to make the software suit your needs better, you can’t. If you copy it to share with your friend, which is simple good-neighbourliness, they call you a “pirate”.
Well, this is called commercial software. As long as their license is legal in the contry it is being sold, they can make the rules they want. And if everyone wanted to share with their friends, they would have no sells at all. If you buy that product, you agree to that license, so if you break it, you’re a pirate. It’s very simple, and I don’t see why can’t you understand that. No one is enforced to anything, you have the right not to buy it (as I presume you are using that right).
You’re just too narrowed to GNU/Linux that you can’t accept other software philosophies/practices. That’s why even many FOSS believers are not with you anymore. Why don’t you try to spread your “product” (GNU) or your philosophy without beating up on Microsoft? Just leave them alone, if what you believe is better, people will choose to adopt it.