Philosophy

Using, adapting and disseminating tools as part of a community is a fundamentally human characteristic. So there are essential freedoms we should have with software, as far as software is a tool:

The freedom to use the software as we wish
The freedom to study and adapt the software to our needs
The freedom to redistribute exact copies of the software
The freedom to distribute our modified versions of the software

No good software proprietor would deny users of these freedoms, because it would be denying them an essential part of their humanity.

A truly great person would not allow others to mistreat them in this way.

We empower users so they can reject this harmful proprietary software, and embrace libre software that respects their freedom. We do this for the good of users and software developers alike, and the solidarity of our community.

Common Objections/Concerns

How will software developers make money?

Here's how libre software programers can and do make money.

Some of these methods are not good enough.

Help us innovate on better ways to deliver and receive value with software. We think this makes more sense than restricting current technology to fit outdated business models.

Won't this stunt innovation?

Many of the greatest innovations in software of our time are libre (the modern web, the concept of app stores, android). Further, not having to continuously reinvent the wheel leaves developers with more time to work on what's actually important.

Other schools of thought

For all you philosophy/rhetoric nerds interested in other approaches to the subject.

The oldschool GNU philosophy

This is the philisophical work done by Richard Stallman since he started the free software movement in the 80s. It's a fairly deontological approach. It's been refined over decades, along with the corresponding rhetoric. This philosophy drove all initial work in developing a 100% free operating system, and later a 100% free boot firmware, among many other programs. All later school of thoughts take some ideas from here. This is also the official philosophy of the Free Software Foundation and the GNU project.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/