<story><title>Microsoft&apos;s Software Is Malware</title><url>https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-microsoft.en.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>didgetmaster</author><text>&amp;gt;Nonfree software is controlled by its developers, which puts them in a position of power over the users...&lt;p&gt;The implication is that FOSS developers have no control over their users. Sure, you COULD fork your favorite tool&amp;#x27;s repository and spend many hours trying to figure out how to make it do &amp;#x27;what you want instead of what the developers wanted&amp;#x27;; but very few people are really willing and&amp;#x2F;or able to do that.&lt;p&gt;Nearly all software (open source or proprietary) except trivial programs, are controlled by the developers who build it and maintain it. They are given that power by the mere fact that most programs are sufficiently complex that few others can and will assume control instead. If someone does (and that someone isn&amp;#x27;t you) then the new boss is same as the old boss (to quote a line from a song by The Who).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>EvanAnderson</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Sure, you COULD fork your favorite tool&amp;#x27;s repository ... to make it do &amp;#x27;what you want ...’ few people are really willing and&amp;#x2F;or able to do that.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Free software makes it possible for me (my business, etc) to pay someone other than the original developer to make the software do what I want. No proprietary license gets me that.&lt;p&gt;In the context of personal use software by an individual it may not make sense to pay, but in the context of groups of individuals or a business it becomes viable.</text></comment>
<story><title>Microsoft&apos;s Software Is Malware</title><url>https://www.gnu.org/proprietary/malware-microsoft.en.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>didgetmaster</author><text>&amp;gt;Nonfree software is controlled by its developers, which puts them in a position of power over the users...&lt;p&gt;The implication is that FOSS developers have no control over their users. Sure, you COULD fork your favorite tool&amp;#x27;s repository and spend many hours trying to figure out how to make it do &amp;#x27;what you want instead of what the developers wanted&amp;#x27;; but very few people are really willing and&amp;#x2F;or able to do that.&lt;p&gt;Nearly all software (open source or proprietary) except trivial programs, are controlled by the developers who build it and maintain it. They are given that power by the mere fact that most programs are sufficiently complex that few others can and will assume control instead. If someone does (and that someone isn&amp;#x27;t you) then the new boss is same as the old boss (to quote a line from a song by The Who).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ben0x539</author><text>While it&amp;#x27;d take many hours to figure out how to make some random FOSS code to do what I want if what I want is anything particularly interesting, finding out where to comment out the code that eg phones home, or makes annoying noises, and then sharing that patch with everybody else is much easier and more realistic. Sure, it doesn&amp;#x27;t entirely remove the power of the developers and particularly the people who control the official releases page, but it feels like a real, meaningful check on their power. It becomes even more meaningful if you&amp;#x27;re not just some rando but maybe the &amp;quot;user&amp;quot; in question is an org who can actually devote resources to maintain changes to some FOSS code, saving you from having to enter into some sort of partnership with the developer.</text></comment>