"This societal shift is letting users take back control
of their futures," Leibovitch writes. "Just as the
Magna Carta gave rights to British subjects, the GPL
enforces consumer rights and freedoms on behalf of the
users of computer software."See Evan Leibovitch, "Who's Afraid of Big Bad
Wolves,"
ZDNet Tech Update (December 15, 2000).
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0Y/A
The tribal aspect of the free software community also
helps explain why 40-odd programmers, who might
otherwise be working on physics projects or surfing the
Web for windsurfing buoy reports, have packed into a
conference room to hear Stallman speak.
Unlike the New York speech, Stallman gets no
introduction. He also offers no self-introduction. When
the FreeBSD people finally get their equipment up and
running, Stallman simply steps forward, starts
speaking, and steamrolls over every other voice in the room.
"Most of the time when people consider the question of
what rules society should have for using software, the
people considering it are from software companies, and
they consider the question from a self-serving
perspective," says Stallman, opening his speech.
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