Z:gnu-www-ja-digital-inclusion-in-freedom--d30e20-The works that people use to d/en

The works that people use to do practical jobs, such as software, recipes, text fonts, educational works and reference works, must be free/libre so that the users can control (individually and collectively) the jobs that they do with these works. That argument does not apply to other kinds of works, such as those which state what certain people thought, and artistic works, so it is not ethically obligatory for them to be free/libre. But there is a minimum freedom that the public must have for all published works: the freedom to share exact copies noncommercially. Sharing is good; sharing creates the bonds of society. When copying and sharing a book was so difficult that one would hardly ask such a large favor, the issue of freedom to share was moot. Today, the Internet makes sharing easy, and thus makes the freedom to share essential.