The winter holidays are coming. Here's a free software fairy tale
for you to watch, enjoy, and share with your loved ones in front of a
cozy fireplace while roasting s'mores. For those not acquainted with
the tradition of roasting s'mores: it's a very popular thing to do in
the US. All it takes are honey graham crackers, a chocolate bar,
marshmallows, a stick, and a fire. Try it out, you'll love it. But
back to the fairy tale.
The ShoeTool fairy tale is about Wendell the Elf, a shoemaker
who thought he bought a machine to help him make shoes, only to find
out that the machine proprietor heavily restricts what kind of shoes
Wendell may make with the machine he just bought.
The story of Wendell the Elf is the same story millions of software
users worldwide have experienced in their daily lives. Maybe they
don't want to make shoes but they do want to buy an iPhone, iPad, or
Apple Watch and find out that Apple controls what apps can be
installed on their device Or they buy an Amazon Kindle ebook
reader only to realize that Amazon makes it impossible for them to
read ebooks that aren't purchased on Amazon. These proprietary
restrictions limit real-world user freedom, creativity, and
opportunity, just like Wendell the Elf experienced with his
shoe-making machine.
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) believes that everyone deserves
full control over their devices, and that no one should be able to
tell you how to do your computing, how to play games, watch videos,
listen to music, or be creative! We hope this video helps you explain
the importance of free software to your friends and family.
You can use the short URL https://u.fsf.org/shoetool to share the
ShoeTool video on social media and combine it with the
#shoetool hashtag and some of these ShoeTool images.
We have subtitles of the video in Arabic, Basque, Dutch, Esperanto,
French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian,
Spanish, Tamil, Turkish, and Ukrainian so you can share the video with
friends and family members who don't speak English as well. You can
also embed the video on your website or blog with this code:
We hope you enjoy watching the video and share it with others! Got
inspired by the video and came up with your own free software fairy
tale? Email it to us at [email protected] or share it on social
media with the hashtag #FreeSoftwareTales.
