Week 7 Lecture

Week 7 lecture
In today’s lecture Adam introduced me to an idea I had never heard of before – the free software movement.
In a world dominated by technology, consumers often find themselves being ‘forced’ into purchasing software – you cannot buy a computer without also buying an expensive operating system. This put software proprietors in a very powerful position to create and distribute software the way they chose, at a price they dictate. Alot of people didn’t, and still don’t like this. One of these people was richard m Stallman, and he decided to do something about it.
In 1981 Richard created the Free software foundation. Allowing people to use, manipulate and share software for free. Consumers can buy and use proprietary software, such a internet explorer, but unlike the free program firefox, the consumer has not rights to change or fix problem with the program. These free programs support the 3 C’s Adam spoke about at the start of the lecture – Community , collaboration and choice.

Richard Stallman’s free software movement has resulted in many great free programs that allow greater freedom for the users such as Linux, Openoffice, Firefox and VLC. This opened the doors for the Creative Commons . Creative Commons (CC) is based on ‘the idea that we can voluntarily relax copyrights in the interest of sharing’.

CC allows creators to utilise flexible and relaxed licenses so that information can be shared freely. Instead of rigid ‘all rights reserved’ a creator can chose to have ‘some rights reserved’, their work can be shared and manipulated freely while the creator still receives acknowledgement. Personally, I believe this make a lot more sense. There are many examples online of people ignoring copy right laws and omitting acknowledgement of the original source or creator. If the licenses are relaxed then at least the creator recives acknowledgment.
https://learning.secure.griffith.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_87375_1&content_id=_1376244_1