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]