Bitcoin is Freedom Software --> Support Freedom Software

[titular]

There is a rather common misconception that all open-source software is considered freedom software.

When people speak of "open-source" software, they are referring to a computer program's source code being "open" to the public. This means that anyone is able to review the code that the program is executing on the machine.

While it is important that our software is open-source, it is important to know the difference between "open-source" and "freedom software". The open-source movement aim's to achieve one thing, while the freedom software movement aims to achieve another.

One very important distinction: All freedom software is completely open-source, but not all open-source software is completely free.

When we speak of "freedom software", we mean free as in 'freedom', not free as in 'free food'.

In order for a piece of software to be considered free (as in freedom) it needs to give users the 4 essential freedoms:

• Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose.
• Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. (Access to the source code is a precondition for this.)
• Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others.
• Freedom 3: The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others. By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. (Access to the source code is a precondition for this.)

If just one of these freedoms is not met, the piece of software in question is not truly free. Instead, it is considered to be restricted, non-free, proprietary software.

Quote from Richard Stallman:

"In practice, open source stands for criteria a little looser than those of free software. As far as we know, all existing released free software source code would qualify as open source. Nearly all open source software is free software, but there are exceptions.

First, some open-source licenses are too restrictive, so they do not qualify as free licenses. For example, Open Watcom is nonfree because its license does not allow making a modified version and using it privately. Fortunately, few programs use such licenses.

Second, the criteria for open source are concerned solely with the licensing of the source code. However, people often describe an executable as “open source,” because its source code is available that way. That causes confusion in paradoxical situations where the source code is open source (and free) but the executable itself is nonfree."

As many of you have probably gathered, our decentralized protocol is made entirely of free (as in freedom) software. Every line of bitcoin's code is completely and totally free. All users are allotted the four freedoms mentioned above. Everyone is free to run the program as they wish (freedom 0), everyone is free to study how the code works and change it so that it operates as you wish (freedom 1), everyone has the freedom to redistribute copies of the code (freedom 2), and everyone has the freedom to distribute their modified copies of the bitcoin core software (freedom 3).

Proprietary software severely limits users and what they are able to do with any given program. This is why we need to advocate free (as in freedom) software beyond our use/advocation of bitcoin.

Instead of just freeing our money, let's aim to free our digital lives as well.


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For more information on the goals of freedom software, visit fsf dot org.

[1715251248]

1715251248

[seoincorporation]

...
One very important distinction: All freedom software is completely open-source, but not all open-source software is completely free.
...

For me Freedom Software and Open Source Software are the same things, if you can access the code, understand it, and modify it then you can call that 'freedom'.

And if you want to learn about more Freedom Software then you should take a look at Linux and I'm sure that if you understand how that works then the word freedom will get a new meaning for you.

[coupable]

...
One very important distinction: All freedom software is completely open-source, but not all open-source software is completely free.
...

For me Freedom Software and Open Source Software are the same things, if you can access the code, understand it, and modify it then you can call that 'freedom'.

And if you want to learn about more Freedom Software then you should take a look at Linux and I'm sure that if you understand how that works then the word freedom will get a new meaning for you.

Freedom is what make bitcoin protocol diffuclt to update for commun use. The full meaning of decentralization.
From another point, our great intention that all good software to be open source. However, this enforce users to be responsible on how to chose those free software (among thousands created by volunteers for free) and how to use them. We can't deny that centralized apps are the safest way for ordinary users who can't handle over their online activities (financial in particular) .

[titular]

...
One very important distinction: All freedom software is completely open-source, but not all open-source software is completely free.
...

For me Freedom Software and Open Source Software are the same things, if you can access the code, understand it, and modify it then you can call that 'freedom'.

And if you want to learn about more Freedom Software then you should take a look at Linux and I'm sure that if you understand how that works then the word freedom will get a new meaning for you.

Depends on the GNU/Linux distro that you have chosen. Many mainstream distros contain proprietary software that the user has limited control over. I, myself, use a free distro of GNU/Linux that only contains free software. If you do a little more digging on the site I provided, you'll see why the open-source movement is ideologically different from the free software movement.

The freedom software movement focuses on the freedom of the user. The open-source movement only advocates for better software. These are two different goals that aim to achieve two different things. One is user freedom, while the other is improved software. The former, benefits from both goals. While the latter, benefits from just one.

[hatshepsut93]

Proprietary software severely limits users and what they are able to do with any given program. This is why we need to advocate free (as in freedom) software beyond our use/advocation of bitcoin.

Software is a tool. You can't expect volunteers to develop all the tools in the world for free. Especially not the highly specialized ones. There's a reason why all the pros in the world use Photoshop and not Gimp.

Proprietary software is not inherently evil. It will always exist, and likely will always be dominant in most spheres. Or at least for a very-very long time.

[tranthidung]

One very important distinction: All freedom software is completely open-source, but not all open-source software is completely free.

All good software should be open-source but an open-source software might not be a good one. Open-source is only one of components in a software and it does not decide all about quality of one software.

Open-source and good wallet or not, to get freedom, people must use it in appropriate ways. Just like how they use Coin Join transactions and change addresses. They must have comprehensive understanding on pros and cons of address reuse, combination of outputs after CoinJoin transactions, mixing, etc.

[pooya87]

Interesting definition but I'm afraid things are a little more complicated than that. The definition here is focusing on license that open source software use not the software itself. Here is an alternative scenario: an open source software that is under a license like MIT and it satisfies criteria 0 to 3. But here is the twist, to use it you have to rely on their centralized servers like wasabi wallet coordinators. Or blockstream green released with GPL-3.0 License where the default multi-sig uses a 2of2 scheme that makes it impossible for the user to spend their funds alone.
So they is not really free despite their licenses.