Knowledge, Power and free Beer

The author was not able to attend this event and thus in fact Florian Möllers was holding this talk using the slides which were prepared by Andreas Tille. Thanks to Florian to volunteer for this job.

DebianDay @ LinuxTag, Karlsruhe, 24. June 2005

Abstract

What is Free Software? What is a distribution of Free Software? Why do I have to pay something if people tell me it is free? What exactly do I get for my money? How can I find the things I really need in the jungle of Free Software?

These questions might be asked by people who heard something in the news about Linux, Firebird etc. but do not have a concept about the ideas behind it. The talk tries to give reasonable answers while beeing careful with the usual polemic about this topic.

The talk might be interesting for two types of people:

  1. People who are asking the questions above.
  2. People who tried to answer the questions above but failed.