this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2024
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But you can't have one without the other. Putting a cost on software is adding a restriction, thus making it less free (as in freedom).
Free software should be available to everyone, even to people who don't have money to pay for it (poor third world countries, students, kids).
I personally believe, that you should pay for software that helps you earn money. For everything else - it's everyone's own decision to donate or not, based on a financial situation, beliefs, political position and what not.
You definitely can. "Free" refers to the freedom of the users, not the freedom of people who might want to be users (that doesn't even really make sense, how can you provide the freedoms to people who don't even use the program?).
I meant that free software is inherently can't have a price. Even if you provide source code only to your users, they are free to share that source code for free.
Thus there can't be piracy because piracy of free software is inherently allowed.
And if you try to prevent your users from sharing the source either legally or with drm - you add restrictions to software, making it less free for your users.
The recent situation with RedHat provides good demonstration and example of this.
Yes, the users can redistribute however they like. That doesn't stop you charging an initial fee (and most people would probably rather get software from the official source)