* <<FCS.0842>> Why Free Software? Because there is no governance. There is no domestic legislation and there are no international treaties that limit what software vendors and online service providers can do with private information. *None*. And our *lives* are lived through internetworked software – our business lives, our family lives, public lives and private lives, everything we read, write, buy, sell, watch, record, speak, or sing – it's *all* transmuted through software, and transmissible to anyone, anywhere, invisibly. So, who do you trust? Do you trust corporations, whose only honest motive is generating investor profit, and whose software is a "black box" which no one is allowed to analyse? Or a bunch of hackers, whose code is all out in the open, available for scrutiny by any interested party? You might prefer a third option, but this is what you've got. So choose. -- Excerpted from: PUBLIC NOTES (F) http://alph.laemeur.com/txt/PUBNOTES-F ©2015 Adam C. Moore (LÆMEUR) <adam@laemeur.com>