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6 HN mentions · mentioned in 6 months, 2014–2022
2:03 · 692K views · Dec 11, 2006
A short clip of Richard Stallman singing the free software song, recorded during a visit to Ecuador.
HN posts it as a lighthearted joke link in free software and licensing threads.
6 comments from Hacker News
It's all about software licenses. 1) free as in "gratis" (freeware software) - you can download it for free, install it and use it. And that's all. Usually it's already compiled so you don't have an access to the source code. Sometimes you are forbidden to copy it and give it to a friend (because you both should e.g. download it from author's web page). 2) free as in "freedom" (free software) - you can do literally anything with this kind of software because it's licensed in a way that doesn't restrict the user in any manner (i.e. license preserves user freedom). Run it, fork it, modify it, sell it, give it away to your friends (or to anyone), you can do anything. There are several free licenses which handle these cases in a different way (e.g. GPL, LGPL, Apache License, MIT License, Boost License, Vim License and so on). They're sometimes called copyleft licenses (as opposite to copyright term). If you're interested, here's the wiki page comparing most of free licenses: [LINK] Please note that it doesn't mean that the software is being given away "for free (gratis)" (but usually it is) - it only means that once you obtain it, you can do anything you want with it. Oh, and a mandatory link when we're talking about Free Software: this video
The most horrifying thing about the "Computer-generated image of Project CyberSyn operations room" on the Project Cybersyn Wikipedia page is that they're displaying the lyrics of RMS's Free Software Song (which he wrote in 1991) on the fake monitors in the "Close Up of the Data Feed": [LINK] SHARE THE SOFTWARE ## YOU'LL BE FREE JOIN US NOW AND SHARE THE SOFTWARE ## HACKER YOU'LL BE FREE HACKER YOU'LL BE FREE JOIN US NOW ## JOIN US NOW } } #### } #### YOU'LL BE FREE } JOIN US NOW AND SHARE THE SOFTWARE #### HACKER } #### } } ## YOU'LL BE FREE JOIN US NOW ## HACKER ## YOU'LL BE FREE ## HACKER ## JOIN US NOW ## YOU'LL BE FREE ## HACKER this video [LINK] [LINK] [LINK] The CyberSyn multimedia "reconstruction": [LINK]
This should be a rallying cry to the developer community to stop using software with restrictive licenses. this video “Join us now and share the software!” In all seriousness anybody using CUDA should immediately start checking out and contributing to ROCm, AMD’s Open Source Compute Platform: [LINK]
Love him or hate him, Stallman's contributions have been instrumental in shaping the landscape of technology as we know it today. I have nothing but respect for him and the Free Software Foundation. And now for a song, this video
Yeah, but as a brand, it sucks. There aren't so many Epic Rock & Roll Anthems about "Collaborative Software". But there is one about "Free Software", though: this video