It has to be understood by the young software developers that for the open source movement, the issue of whether software should be open source is a practical question, not an ethical one. As rms says, “Open source is a development methodology, free software is a social movement.” For the open source movement, non-free software is a suboptimal solution. For the free software movement, non-free software is a social problem and free software is the solution.
Free software is an ‘ideology’ above everything. Issues like user-friendliness hardly matter. I know men who have stuck to the free software movement since 1996. There was no or little GUI back then, still these men ‘believed’ in their ideology- the ideology of empowering the masses in the digital world. One document that makes all the difference between free software and open source is the GPL. I recommend every young software engineer to read this.
Now the ultimate question comes. If you decide to join in the free software movement, what should be your entry point? It has to be understood here that foss is not about software developers only. It is about users also, who spread the idea. The free software movement needs men and women to voluntarily take up the documentation and beta testing of the softwares they develop. There are multiple entry points. It all boils down to one’s belief and thickness of the skin!
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