About the four freedom count numbers on the About page

[nukaga]

I am wondering why the count for the "4 freedoms" on the About page is 0123. I'm more comfortable with the number 1234. The first design seemed to have 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. https://wordpress.org/about/

Screenshot of the relevant section:

Screenshot from Figma design file:

[dd32]

0123 is intentional from the GNU freedoms.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html#f1

The reason they are numbered 0, 1, 2 and 3 is historical. Around 1990 there were three freedoms, numbered 1, 2 and 3. Then we realized that the freedom to run the program needed to be mentioned explicitly. It was clearly more basic than the other three, so it properly should precede them. Rather than renumber the others, we made it freedom 0.

[renintw]

Perhaps additional explanations provided by @dd32 can be added somewhere on the page. Educational and clearing up confusion.

[nukaga]

@dd32 Thank you very much! I did not know that. Thanks for letting me know. And as @renintw wrote, if an explanation could be added I think there would be no confusion.

[renintw]

@WordPress/meta-design Any thoughts on adding an explanation to the page? Where is the best place to add it?

[jasmussen]

One of the things that got me contributing to WordPress was Mark Pilgrim's Freedom 0. Turns out I wasn't the only one, and that particular article is mentioned in the WordPress book for the same reason. I wonder if we should reference that piece?

That said, the fact that it starts at zero is because array indexes start at zero, that's how we count in programming. We shouldn't explain it in too much depth, I'd worry that would be akin to ruining the joke by explaining it. So my instincs would be to weave any explanation into the existing prose in as seamless as possible a fashion. Perhaps instead of this:

WordPress is licensed under the General Public License (GPLv2 or later) which provides four core freedoms:

it could be this:

WordPress is licensed under the General Public License (GPLv2 or later) which provides four core freedoms starting at zero:

[jasmussen]

Forgot to mention before I posted, I would defer to @thetinyl for any copy!

[thetinyl]

No issues with @jasmussen's suggestion of adding "starting at zero" from a copy perspective. I'm wary of linking folks to a long chapter vs. simple explanation, though. My suggestion would be to link to the GNU footnote instead.

An alternate route, that allows for more clarity directly on the page without needing to send people away, would be to add a footnote:

The freedom to run the program for any purpose.*

The actual text for the footnote could be underneath freedom 3 and could read:

*The freedoms start at "0" instead of "1" because the first is considered the foundation for the others. It’s also a reference to the GPL’s history.