中国DOS联盟

An Initial Exploration of the Free Software Movement and Free Software Ideas

The impact of free software on the IT industry constitutes the free software movement and the open source movement, which is quite vigorous. The term "movement" is deeply imprinted in the minds of people in our country. When I first saw the phrases "free software movement" and "source code open movement" with Chinese characteristics in the media, I thought they were invented by ourselves. Later, after circling on the Internet, I realized that foreigners also have "movements". The English phrases they invented are: Free Software Movement and Open Source Movement.

The "free software movement" or "source code open movement" has a global impact and is not comparable to previous movements in our country. This global movement is also targeted, and the targets of the movement are software giants like Microsoft and industry monopolists; the initiators of the movement are Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation in the United States, and Linus Torvalds, the author of Linux in Finland, etc., who are spiritual leaders of free software; the participants in the movement are software elites and programmers from all over the world; the supporters of the movement are many software and hardware manufacturers; the supporters and beneficiaries of the movement are all computer users.

The term "free software" has long been famous in the industry and is naturally beyond dispute. However, the free ideas, development prospects, and future positioning of free software are topics that the industry has been arguing about. The basic ideas and concepts of free software, such as knowledge sharing, source code openness, free use and free dissemination, joint maintenance with the capable as teachers, and no monopoly for personal gain, can be said to be the highest realm of human thinking and an important source of spiritual sustenance for the IT industry. It is not strange that the communist thought in the IT industry comes from the developed capitalist society, because the communist thought in history was originally founded by Marx who lived in the capitalist society more than a hundred years ago. Then great revolutionary mentors such as Lenin and Mao Zedong and other outstanding thinkers developed Marxism and enriched communist thought.

The invention and application of computers can also be said to have produced a group of thinkers. The most typical one is naturally Richard Stallman, the founder of free software ideas. As for the advocates of free software, they are not considered thinkers, but can be called followers of free software thinkers. Of course, if there are innovations and developments in free software ideas, they can also be upgraded to "assistants to thinkers" or "assistant thinkers" until they become real free software thinkers. Thinkers are really great. As an eminent person once pointed out: The creation of a "thought" that can be recognized by people is far more difficult and important than the invention of a scientific and technological achievement. Therefore, in the process of thousands of years of human social development, there are few thinkers who have had a certain impact on society and are recognized by people, while there are many outstanding scientists.

Free software emphasizes "freedom", which is in line with the characteristics of human nature. The thought on which free software depends for survival is "freedom", and the motivation for its development and becoming the driving force of the free software movement is also people's longing for freedom. Human nature is free, and human knowledge wealth should serve more people. The freedom in the software industry is also the hope and dream of every person in the industry. The freedom of human nature inspires people's inspiration and continuously climbs new heights. The freedom of software allows us to better absorb the essence of human beings and create a better software living environment.

Free software advocates "openness", and there is no free software without openness. The thousands of years of human social civilization history is also a history of openness. Science and technology, literature and art have all progressed and developed only through openness. The opposite of openness is closure. Social closure has no way out, and software closure will be abandoned by the industry.

Free software advocates "exchange", which is fundamentally different from the exchange of commodities. After a physical product is transferred, you no longer have it; thoughts and software are logical products, which can be transferred and copied infinitely, and the original version is always your own. The significance of the exchange of logical products is far more significant and far-reaching than the exchange of any physical product.

The contribution of free software to the industry is beyond dispute. The greatest contribution of free software to the progress and development of human society is its free ideas, open ideas, and exchange ideas. Advocating freedom and exploring human nature are eternal topics in society.

The author is optimistic about the development of free software. In addition to the reasons that there is no need to worry about, the author thinks that going with the flow is the wisest choice. In the年代 when even eating was a problem, wasn't it unnecessary for us to worry about the restoration of capitalism? In fact, the development of human society should also follow the objective laws that do not depend on people's will. The emergence and development of free software is just a symbol of human social progress and a reflection of the laws. Unless society retrogresses, free software will not perish.

Richard Stallman, the god of free software, is extremely firm in his belief in free software and proclaims: No secular power can be imposed between human beings and the CPU. Monopolizing the way for human beings to access the CPU and transforming it into a huge economic power. Software not only opens source code but also encourages users to copy each other, paving a free path between users and the CPU.

Of course, free software is not without problems. Although protected by GPL, GPL is not law, but only a moral criterion in the industry. According to Mr. Hume's "rogue principle" in the 18th century, combined with the weaknesses of human nature and the cruelty of business competition, morality often becomes powerless. The industry needs to fully consider that some "shady businessmen" who are only interested in making money will take advantage of the "incompetence" weakness of professional ethics criteria to take advantage of loopholes in the industry and lead free software astray. Therefore, increasing the publicity of free software, making the majority of users understand and know free software, and better using free software to serve all mankind is an unshirkable obligation and responsibility of the industry.

Those who are determined to be engaged in software development should note that simply making money will never produce good software. Software is the fun of life and the incarnation of dreams. The software industry does not judge heroes by the amount of money. The most classic example is two doctoral students from Stanford University who made a search website named YAHOO just for fun and achieved great success all over the world and naturally earned a lot of money. There are many such examples. First make good software and put making money in the second place, and you will definitely succeed. If you do the opposite, most of the time you will fail. Programmers who open source code are not very concerned about the rewards they get, but are more concerned about repairing bugs in the program as soon as possible and dealing with failures quickly. This kind of collaborative method is exactly what Microsoft is afraid of.

Between ideal and reality, the无奈 is reality, and the pursuit is ideal. Under the education of great ambitions and lofty ideals, I hope that the Chinese software industry will also have a few idealists like Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds.