كيف يساء فهم البرمجيات الحرة

Misconceptions about free software, corrected.

The software industry can't keep going if programmers don't get paid

Worried woman

لنبدأ بحقيقة بسيطة: مبرمجو البرامج الحرّة يحبون تلقي الأجور، وكلهم يحتاجون لشراء غذائهم في وقت ما.

When we mention free software, we refer to liberty not price. You may actually pay to get free software (or "open source" software 1), which you can then study, change and copy at will.

كيف تعمل؟ يمكنك أن تفكر بها كالتالي: البرمجيات هي شفرة فقط، والشفرة هي رياضيات فقط. بمجرد أن ترى أن' البرمجيات هي رياضيات مفيدة، لغة مفصلة وليست كالممتلكات العادية، فلن يكون هناك سبب لمنع الأخرين من إستخدامها.

Just like math (where nobody would claim property on an equation), software requires advanced knowledge to be adapted, improved, applied correctly. This is where programmers generally generate an income: many customers, especially companies, are willing to pay for regular security updates and improvements on software.

تستفيد شركات البرمجيات الحرّة من نظام تطوير لامركزي بعدد هائل من المشاركين المتطوعيم. قد تكون المكاسب في صناعة البرمجيات الحرّة أقل من نظيرها في البرمجيات الاحتكارية، لكنها ليست مهملة بأي شكل. في النهاية، ينتهي المستخدمون الفرديون عمومًا باستخدام البرمجيات الحرّة بدون تكلفة.

لا تتعلق البرامج الحرة بقتل حوافز للمبرمجين. إنها تتعلق بالنظر إلى الشفرة البرمجية بوصفها علمًا لا يجب كتمه عن المستخدم ، و هو ينفع في نماذج تجارية مختلفة. حيث يقوم حاليًا بتطوير البرامج الحرة العديد من الشركات.

Innovation is killed in free software

الفهم الشائع هو أنّه إذا أمكن كل شخص نسخ الأفكار ، فسيكون الإبداع مكبوتًا.

ولكن ، الحرية غالبًا هي المفتاح للإبداع و البرامج الناجحة.

  • يسمح للجميع ويُشْجُّعون على أن يبنوا عليه ،
  • ويرغب كثيرون في المشاركة ،
  • ليس ثَمَّ حاجة لاختراع كل شيء مجددًا ، يمكن أن تُطور الأفكار مباشرة.

توجد البرامج الحرة في عدد من الأماكن ، و هذه بعضها:

Software should Just Work

يجب على الجميع الإهتمام بكون برمجياتهم حرة أو لا.

تخيل شراء سيارة من الممنوع عليك فتح غطاء محركها. لايهم إذا كنت تعلم كيف تعمل السيارة أو لا المهم أنه لا أحد يستطيع أن ينظر إلى المحرك. كيف يمكنك أن تثق بسيارتك، إذا لم يكون مسموحاً لأحد أن يتأكد اذا كان بالإمكان الإعتماد عليهاوأن ليس بها أي تسربات وأنها لاتضر المجتمع أو البيئة؟

الفكرة هي نفسها مع البرمجيات – بإستثناء أن الشفرة المصدرية تفعل أكثر بكثير من مجرد تحريك السيارة. البرمجيات تحرك حاسباتنا وهواتفنا وتلفزيونا تنا ومشغلات الوسائط واكثر تحمل المعلومات وحضارتنا.

البرامج الحرة مهمة كأهمية حرية الكلام ، و كأهمية السوق الحرة . إذا كانت البرامج حرة ، فإنّ لدى المستخدمين الحرية و التحكم عليها.

The good news are: free software also Just Works. And in fact, it often Just Works Better. Pop in a GNU/Linux live USB stick in your computer at start-up, to try a full-featured, well-organised system, without installation, so you can judge by yourself.

Free software doesn't respect authors' copyrighted and patented software

To answer this correctly, we must first make a clear distinction between copyright and patents. Copyright is a right granted to the author over his/her creation (for example, the text of a book, or the source code of a program). A patent, on the other hand, is a purchased, registered exclusive control over a process, the application of an idea.

Copyright is very important in free software. It is the very mechanism, central to the GNU General Public License, which ensures that free software remains free, and that authors are credited for their work. Programs are copyrighted, whether they are free or proprietary.

Any proprietary software author can easily check that his copyright is not violated in a free software application, since its source code is readily available.

Patents in software, on the other hand, are a very controversial concept. To put it shortly: there is no such thing as a "patented software". By registering for a patent, however, someone can claim ownership over a process. The patent then applies to all software that use this process, whether proprietary or free.

براءات اختراع البرمجيات:

  • هل هي مكلفة، وهي تمنح فقط عدة سنوات من التطبيق؛
  • هل هي محدودة جغرافيا (لا تتضمن براءة اختراع الممنوحة في الولايات المتحدة في أوروبا)؛
  • تمتع بحياة طويلة غالباً (أكثر من20 عاماً) في الحركة السريعة للصناعة؛
  • Often apply entirely trivial processes.

As such, they are seldom used to benefit innovators (and in fact, rarely used by the innovators themselves).

It's safe to say that any medium-size piece of software violates patents, in several countries, whether it's free or not.

Depending on the holding company's ability to cover very large legal costs, or to retaliate with other patent threats, royalties and restrictions can be applied over these patents.

اقرأ المزيد:

Free software is like communism

Supporters of this idea argue that there can be no private ownership with free (or "open source" 1) software. Let's answer this with an example.

دعونا نتصور أنك تستخدم تطبيق واحد من البرمجيات الحرة، في منزلك وداخل شركتك. ستجد وسيلة رائعة لتحسينه، مع إصدارك المعدل الآن، جهاز الكمبيوتر الخاص بك سيعمل بشكل أفضل وأيضا المصانع الخاصة بك سيتم العمل أسرع بمرتين!

This modified version is your own version. You are not required to tell anyone about it, nor must you share any of the profits you made using it. You are simply exerting your freedom to use and modify free software.

What the free software license requires is that if you redistribute this software, then you must keep it free. Namely, if you sell CDs with your software on them, or start letting people outside your home or company use it, then you must:

  • Either give everyone the same rights you had when you obtained the original software, that is, the freedom to inspect, modify and redistribute your modified version;
  • Or, make the original software and your secret addition to it clearly separate (that is, your addition should contain none of the original work).

So in fact, you have more "ownership" over free software than over proprietary software – where the programmer decides everything you can and can't do with the software.

Free software has nothing to do with a political system. You can run free software on top of proprietary software, just as well as the opposite. The free software license is simply a legal, ethical contract between the programmer and the end-user.

Free software can't be secure

The argument generally goes that since the source code of free software is available, it is less likely to be secure.

Short answer: The majority of servers run free software. They are the major networked computers holding sensitive or confidential information such as your bank details or trade secrets.

A more precise answer is that availability of source code is a warrant of security, not a weakness. The freedom of the software ensures it can be inspected, tested and improved by a very wide community. A good lock is secure because the technology used to design it is open, though only the key holder can open it. The same goes for software.

Need examples? Have a look at the Firefox web browser, the Apache HTTP Server, the Nginx web server, the Dovecot email server, the Exim mail transfer agent, the OpenPGP encryption system, or the OpenBSD operating system. And there are no spyware or viruses under GNU/Linux.

I'm on my own with free software

إطلاقا.

  • If you are looking for good documentation and support forums to assist you, there is plenty available for free ("open source") software.
    Each GNU/Linux distribution has its own community (for example, Ask Ubuntu or Ask Fedora), but there are also general GNU/Linux help communities, like Unix & Linux Stack Exchange.
  • There are many real-time discussion channels for the free software community. IRC, or Internet Relay Chat, is a real-time, text-based form of communication. You can have conversations with multiple people in an open channel or chat with someone privately one-on-one. Major GNU/Linux distributions have their own dedicated IRC channels where you'll find users and developers that are happy to answer your questions. Here you can find the IRC channels for the distributions we recommend:
  • All major GNU/Linux distributions offer help – free of charge – through mailing lists:
  • If you need someone you can reach on the phone anytime to assist you, the companies behind most distributions provide commercial support: see Debian consultants, Ubuntu Commercial Support, or Red Hat Enterprise Linux for example.


  1. ^ a b What we call "Free Software" here is also often called "Open Source Software". In practice the requirements are identical, although because the term "open" doesn't call to mind freedom, it misses the point. Read our FAQ entry: Are "Open Source" and "Free Software" the same thing?.