> Unfortunately he can ring this bell for the next 100 years and people will not get it.
This is true and this quote from the article is why:
“users have to have control to run the program as they wish and to study the program’s source code and change it,” Stallman said. “This is based on two essential freedoms: to make exact copies and to copy and distribute your modified versions as you wish.”
The vast majority of users don't care about the ability to study and modify the programs they use. They are concerned with one thing, whether or not the damn thing works. For most people a computer and the software on it is simply a tool, not some lifestyle or ideological statement. If the FSF wanted to be effective, they'd focus on providing working, usable software first, and then the message second.
>they'd focus on providing working, usable software first, and then the message second
This compromise is the exact reason why the 'open source' movement broke off from the Free Software movement. For proponents of free software, all software is political, and upholds one ideology or another. Refusing to acknowledge this, or downplaying it in favor of making software "usable" fails to address the fundamental problems of non-free software.
The freedom to modify should be compared to the freedom to ask anyone to repair it. You may not be personally capable of modifying the software to suit your needs, but if the software is free, you can hire anyone to do it for you without having to beg the original author to do so for you.
Only now is this argument starting to come to other things such as cars and farm equipment as they get ever more software in them. People are finally starting to want this freedom to modify but phrase it as right to repair.
This is true and this quote from the article is why:
“users have to have control to run the program as they wish and to study the program’s source code and change it,” Stallman said. “This is based on two essential freedoms: to make exact copies and to copy and distribute your modified versions as you wish.”
The vast majority of users don't care about the ability to study and modify the programs they use. They are concerned with one thing, whether or not the damn thing works. For most people a computer and the software on it is simply a tool, not some lifestyle or ideological statement. If the FSF wanted to be effective, they'd focus on providing working, usable software first, and then the message second.