Software freedom

I've chosen to use the term "software freedom" (when grammatically possible) to refer to the ?free software movement in the ciwiki when possible because it is remarkably unambiguous, and makes it easier to write and think directly about the ways that liberty is experienced and promoted by through software and technology (or not, as the case may be.) The issue of freedom is perhaps the most important consideration in the context of cyborg experience and development.

The field of software freedom is tightly associated with the area OpenSource software development. The OpenSource page contains a working definition and rational for the distinction between these two connected subjects. Simply put, for the purposes of the ciwiki, OpenSource refers to a technology development methodology, where as software freedom refers to the ideological and moral practices of software developers and users who are concerned with technological and digital liberty.

The Free Software Foundation posits four tenets of free software, which are effective as a definition of software freedom itself:

• Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program for any purpose.

• Freedom 1: The freedom to study and modify the program.

• Freedom 2: The freedom to copy the program so you can help your neighbor.

• Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.

I've begun a project in this area called Sygn which aims to create a distributed/aggregated database and social networking tool with the aim of furthering the proliferation of free software.

The central questions regarding software freedom in the context of cyborg awareness are (to my mind):

• How do ?UsersOfFreeSoftware benefit from SoftwareFreedom?

• How does the ?UseOfFreeSoftware impact the ?UsersOfFreeSoftware?

• How does the ?UseOfFreeSoftware affect other cyborg ?practices and ?technology, and domains such as ?information management?