Group 9 discusses the potential adoption of the free software approach. Richard stallman was a hacker from MIT during the late 1970's. He advocated for the free software approach which would distribute all programs for free
This came from the "hacker ethic" started at MIT and shared all programs with eachother, with the idea that other hackers would use the free software to modify and improve the coding. Although Richard advocated strongly for the free
software model, we do not beleive this approach to software is sustainable. We do not beleive this method should be adopted due to the lack of sustainability. The free software model will affect both the quantity and qualtity but in different ways.
The quantity of software available will be increased but that does not correlate with the quality of each piece software. We believe the quality of the software will be reduced because those who are creating the software. The current method,
employs proffesional programmers by large corporations to produce complex and high quality software for the public use. This method requires the high capital and funding efforts to remain sustainable. Thus the free software model would not be sustainable
because of the weak funding model. The majority of free software is funded by donations by users of the software; the programmers may not be able to spend the neccesary time to create quality software.
If the free software model was adopted, there would be a number of changes needed for the software licensing, but as we do not believe that the free software system wil be effective, we will consider changes to the current system.
The first change to be
considered should be way at which licensing is acquired. Another potential change could be levels of copyrighting tha could allow some uses but restrict others. The majority of the free software arguments do not agree witht he music industry. The Music industry
believes theier works should copyright protected and not free to copy, while the free software believes all software and multimedia should be free to share and copy. Software should be copyrightable because the large amount of resources and time to create professional quality software.