The Freedom Hater

Among linux users, a freedom hater is generally a person who uses some bit of software on his linux system that is not in accord with the concept of free software. This includes various pieces of software and codecs which are free in a monetary sense, but are owned by some company somewhere, and you usually can't get the source code for it, which is kind of the main freedom free software advocates are interested in. They want to be able to view and modify any software on their hardware and to do so, they've developed an interesting system of licensing of their own.

Interesting, but ultimately not the final answer, which is why the term freedom hater was laughingly created. These are linux users who want to listen to mp3, watch flash, have video and wifi drivers that work. To run a pure 'free' software system would limit our options considerably- clearly placing us into a less free situation in human terms. I suppose we just get used to it after a while, and don't think about it, but it should be glaringly obvious that true freedom can't come from a licensing system.

Under Apple and Microsoft, all of this stuff is paid for and included in the price, so most people never run in to it. It does inflate the price and stagnate innovation though. The companies who seek to put out new stuff have to go and find out who may have a claim. They can easily end up paying licensing fees to several different companies- no doubt there are often products that just don't get made simply because the expected profit isn't higher than the cost from all the licensing deals that must be made.

Ultimately, true freedom will come about when we have the right to ignore these things and just go about building the systems we like.