Software Wars: Free software, software sharing and software freedom

The current state of the free software movement by comparing it with Hackers' Ethic

1. Always yield the Hands-On Imperative! Access to computers - and anything else which might teach you about the way the world works - should be unlimited and total.
2. All information should be free.
3. Mistrust Authority - Promote Decentralization.
4. Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.
5. You can create art and beauty on a computer.
6. Computers can change your life for the better.
(Levy, 1984)

The Free Software Foundation was founded by Richard Stallman of the MIT AI labs. He was also responsible for the GNU project. The GNU tools liberate people from dependence on proprietary software/development tools.

The picture above, shows the original vision before software went proprietary, a world where Software is by the people, Of the People and For the People. (click for a larger copy of the picture)