De Facto

   De facto is [1]Latin for "in fact" or "by facts", it means that something
   holds in practice; it is contrasted with [2]de jure ("by law"). We use the
   term to say whether something is actually true in reality as opposed to
   "just on paper".

   For example in [3]technology a so called [4]de facto standard is something
   that, without it being officially formalized or forced by law in prior,
   most developers naturally come to adopt so as to keep [5]compatibility;
   for example the [6]Markdown format has become the de facto standard for
   [7]READMEs in [8]FOSS development. Of course it happens often that de
   facto standards are later made into official standards. On the other hand
   there may be standards that are created by official standardizing
   authorities, such as the state, which however fail to gain wide adoption
   in practice -- these are official standards but not de facto one. TODO:
   example? :)

   Regarding politics and society, we often talk about de facto [9]freedom vs
   de jure freedom. For example in the context of [10]free (as in freedom)
   software it is stressed that software ought to bear a free [11]license --
   this is to ensure de jure freedom, i.e. legal rights to being able to use,
   study, modify and share such software. However in these talks the de facto
   freedom of software is often forgotten; the legal (de jure) freedom is
   worth nothing if it doesn't imply real and practical (de facto) freedom to
   exercise the rights given by the license; for example if a piece of "free"
   (having a free license) software is extremely [12]bloated, our practical
   ability to study and modify it gets limited because doing so gets
   considerably expensive and therefore limits the number of people who can
   truly exercise those rights in practice. This issue of diminishing de
   facto freedom of free software is addressed e.g. by the [13]suckless
   movement, and of course our [14]LRS movement.

   There is also a similar situation regarding [15]free speech: if speech is
   free only de jure, i.e. we can "in theory" legally speek relatively
   freely, BUT if then in reality we also CANNOT speek freely because e.g. of
   fear of being [16]cancelled, our speech is de facto not free.

See Also

     * [17]freedom distance

Links:
1. latin.md
2. de_jure.md
3. tech.md
4. de_facto_standard.md
5. compatibility.md
6. md.md
7. readme.md
8. foss.md
9. freedom.md
10. free_software.md
11. license.md
12. bloat.md
13. suckless.md
14. lrs.md
15. free_speech.md
16. cancel_culture.md
17. freedom_distance.md