www/philosophy philosophy.html

[Richard M. Stallman]

CVSROOT:        /webcvs/www
Module name:    www
Changes by:     Richard M. Stallman <rms>       12/02/26 14:57:59

Modified files:
        philosophy     : philosophy.html 

Log message:
        Rewrite introductory text.

CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/philosophy/philosophy.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.343&r2=1.344

Patches:
Index: philosophy.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /webcvs/www/www/philosophy/philosophy.html,v
retrieving revision 1.343
retrieving revision 1.344
diff -u -b -r1.343 -r1.344
--- philosophy.html     19 Dec 2011 20:04:16 -0000      1.343
+++ philosophy.html     26 Feb 2012 14:57:38 -0000      1.344
@@ -12,16 +12,22 @@
 
 </div> <!-- id="education-content" -->
 
-<p>Our development of the GNU free software operating system is motivated
-by the philosophy of the free software movement.  This page provides an
-introduction to that philosophy.</p>
-
-<p>Free software is a matter of freedom: people should be free to use
-software in all the ways that are socially useful.  Software differs
-from material objects&mdash;such as chairs, sandwiches, and
-gasoline&mdash;in that it can be copied and changed much more easily.
-These possibilities make software as useful as it is; we believe
-software users should be able to make use of them.</p>
+<p><em>Free software</em> means that the software's users have
+freedom.  (The issue is not about price.)  We developed the GNU
+operating system so that users can have freedom in their
+computing.</p>
+
+<p>Specifically, free software means users have
+the <a href="/philosophy/free-sw.html">four essential freedoms</a>:
+(0) to run the program, (1) to study and change the program in source
+code form, (2) to redistribute exact copies, and (3) to distribute
+modified versions.</p>
+
+<p>Software differs from material objects&mdash;such as chairs,
+sandwiches, and gasoline&mdash;in that it can be copied and changed
+much more easily.  These facilities are why software is useful; we
+believe a program's users should be free to take advantage of them,
+not solely its developer.</p>
 
 <p>For further reading, please select a section
 from the menu above.</p>
@@ -100,7 +106,7 @@
 <p>
 Updated:
 <!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2011/12/19 20:04:16 $
+$Date: 2012/02/26 14:57:38 $
 <!-- timestamp end -->
 </p>
 </div>