Freeware Python editor

[Oleg Broytmann]

On Fri, Nov 02, 2001 at 08:25:04AM -0600, Kemp Randy-W18971 wrote:
> I think of the whole concept of free having many facets.  Imagine a cake was
> baked and I was free to eat it.  Now the cake can be made according to the
> following methods:
> 1.  The cook makes the cake, gives it to us to eat, and doesn't share the
> recipe.
> 2.  The cooks makes the cake, gives it to us to eat, and hands out copies of
> the recipe.
> 3.  Several cooks try a variation of the cake, based on the original recipe,
> and give it to us to eat.
> Now there are probably other variations above, but from the philosophy of
> pragmatism, I can have my cake, and eat it to. 

   Unfortunately, no. Information is completely different beast. Think
about...hm...TV component (TiVo? ReplayTV?) that you got for free. But it
has some unknow (to you) capabilities. It silently reports your TV habits
to its producer, e.g. You'd want to stop these reports, but you need to
know that these reports are taking place. And if you catch the device by
sending reports - how do you stop it without having access to source code
and without rights to modify it? And after you've modified it - do you have
rights to distribute it to your friends?
   Information have to be free. Without it we are all but slaves of our
governments and megacorporations. Information have to be available,
modifiable and redistributable. Especially source code of programs, because
programs and microchips are now everywhere.

Oleg.
-- 
     Oleg Broytmann            http://phd.pp.ru/            phd at phd.pp.ru
           Programmers don't die, they just GOSUB without RETURN.