Computers, I've loved them since 
I've been able to afford to have my own,

back in the beginning of the
modern home computer era - in the 1980s.

And I've owned a large number
of different kinds of computers

and I've expressed, publicly, loyalty
to this kind or that kind,

but recently my mind has turned,
as many people's have,

to this whole business of free software.

If you have, I don't know,
plumbing in your house,

it may be, that you 
don't understand it.

But you may have a friend
who does and they may suggest

you move a pipe here, or
a stopcock there

or a valve somewhere else

and you're not breaking the law
by doing that, are you?

Because it's your house
and you own the plumbing.

You can't do that 
with your computer.

You can't actually really fiddle 
with your operating system,

And you certainly can't share any ideas 
you have about your operating system

with other people.

Because Apple and Microsoft, who run the 
two most popular operating systems,

are very firm about the fact that they 
own that.

And no one else can have anything to do 
with it.

Now this may seem natural to you, 
why shouldn't they?

But actually,

why can't you do with it what you like?

And why can't the community, at large,

alter, and improve, and share?

That's how science works, after all.

All knowledge is free and all knowledge 
is shared in good science

If it isn't, it's bad science and it's a 
kind of tyranny

And I'm here, as it were, simply to 
remind you

that GNU and Linux are the twin pillars
of the free software community

People who believe -and this is the 
important part-

that software should be free, that 
the using community should be allowed

to adapt it and adopt it, to change it,
to improve it,

to spread those improvements around 
the community

like science.
That's basically what it's saying

In the same way that good scientists 
share everything, and all knowledge is

open and free, so it should be with 
an operating system.

[Trade-free means good practice]