Before discussing about the approach of “Free Software”, I want to give a brief analysis of the nature of software. Basing on the “ware” part of the word “software”, soft ware is in the general category of men made tool, same as hard ware. Software is produced or created by programmers, similarly that computers are made in factories. Therefore programmers naturally take the ownership of software, and moreover that they also have the right to decide to give up the ownership, and allow it to be “free”. An analogy I thought of is that, if I build a house, then I own it. I may decide to protect all properties in it by locking the door, or may choose to be careless and even leave the door wide open for strangers’ visit.
“Free Software” is an approach that originated from a belief advocated by Richard Stallman, who immediately gained many followers hold on to the same belief. And if these “Free Software” believers choose to share their intellectual properties such as software with the society, who have the right to stop them? At the same time, there are also programmers rather invest their intellectual property in businesses, for example, allow companies to promote and publish their work. And according to their choice, those programmers would simply need to find ways of protection of their copyright.
And basing on the analysis above, Free Software approach would not necessarily reduce the quantity and quality of software that would be produced, since most programmers who believe “Free Software” approach are naturally passionate about programming and willing to produce big amount of new software. And even the funding methods for free software are not for us to decide because programmers are the only people to worry about how to bring their work to completion financially. However, I do think our society should provide sufficient legislative protections for the copyright of software, for example, widely using software licensing. So that programmers who want to protect their intellectual properties could find legitimate ways to do so. And if in the U.S. Constitution, copyright is for promote progress in arts and sciences like what Stallman argued, then music should be grouped into the category of art, and to be protected. An example from the book, a supporter of free software said that free software is like a listener-supported radio, however there are also proprietary ones that have the right to keep themselves private. And even though personally I am a programmer who would protect the copyright of my software, and support software being copyrightable, we just cannot control the decisions of all individuals of this society.