On Wed, Jan 24, 2007 at 05:49:56PM +0000, London School of Puppetry wrote: > Hi there, I was talking to friends about Linux (Ubuntu) said it was free- > then they all look puzzled because they have never paid for it ...it comes > free with a new computer.....so then what is my answer? Caroline >
"Free" has two meanings. "Free of monetary cost" or "free and in 'beer'", and "Freedom of use" or "free as in 'speech'". Windows is neither. It is not free of monetary cost, small companies pay around $100 for their Windows license they bundle with the computer you buy, larger companies such as Dell pay around $50 for the Windows license. You pay nothing for Ubuntu - it is free of monetary cost. The freedoms that the GPL and other licenses give you allows you to use the software, copy the software, modify the software and make derivative versions of the software. You can't do any of that with Windows. They also have further issues with Windows in that it controls the way in which they can use their computer. These limitations may restrict what media they are able to play, and how they can manage their media (photos, movies, music etc). Personally when I talk to people about Linux/Ubunu I stay clear of the Free/Libre argument initially because it can become a very long complex and political discussion. It is one that needs to be had, but you can easily get dragged into length semantic arguments that do not help your cause. Instead I often use the simple "I use Linux because it does what I want", or "I dont use Windows because it doesn't do what I want". I blogged about this a while ago. http://popey.com/Helping_Windows_Users which you may find interesting/useful. Cheers, Al. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
