“Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did.”

—  James Baldwin, book Sonny's Blues

Source: Sonny's Blues

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Do you have more details about the quote "Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us be free if we would listen, that he would nev…" by James Baldwin?
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James Baldwin163
(1924-1987) writer from the United States 1924–1987

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Context: While free software by any other name would give you the same freedom, it makes a big difference which name we use: different words convey different ideas.
In 1998, some of the people in the free software community began using the term "open source software" instead of "free software" to describe what they do. The term "open source" quickly became associated with a different approach, a different philosophy, different values, and even a different criterion for which licenses are acceptable. The Free Software movement and the Open Source movement are today separate movements with different views and goals, although we can and do work together on some practical projects.
The fundamental difference between the two movements is in their values, their ways of looking at the world. For the Open Source movement, the issue of whether software should be open source is a practical question, not an ethical one. As one person put it, "Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement." For the Open Source movement, non-free software is a suboptimal solution. For the Free Software movement, non-free software is a social problem and free software is the solution.

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