Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-marketing (324 mails)
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Re: [opensuse-marketing] GNU/Linux
- From: Abhradip mukherjee <abhradip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:17:30 +0530
- Message-id: <cd8d020a0906222147i27f342afi8af35877c4198891@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 4:38 AM, Kevin "Yeaux"
Dupuy<kevin.dupuy@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
and
It's not that way. If you are an open source enthusiast, you are not
our enemy but a person close to free software movement. Because
"Nearly all open source software is free software; the two terms
describe almost the same category of software. But they stand for
views based on fundamentally different values. Open source is a
development methodology; free software is a social movement. For the
free software movement, free software is an ethical imperative,
because only free software respects the users' freedom. By contrast,
the philosophy of open source considers issues in terms of how to make
software “better”—in a practical sense only. It says that non-free
software is a suboptimal solution. For the free software movement,
however, non-free software is a social problem, and moving to free
software is the solution."(RMS). It is just that you do not understand
the ideology behind the software you use. You know why we prefer
openoffice over other non-free software even if it is technically
might not be superior? That's because they value the philosophy of
free software and open source. So you see without the strength of
philosophy, both free software and open source movement is bound to
fail. It's not all that technical, my friend. And we do not tell you
to sell philosophy but we ask you to develop software maintaing the
philosophy of free software and sell it as any other product if you
like. Making users aware of their rights is a different issue and that
must be done through conferences, news paper articles, working with
human rights groups etc. making your potential buyer aware of free
software philosophy is a welcome thing but it is more important for
developers to be aware of it first.
It's sad that you don't care about it like many people don't care
about pollution, global warming, hunting of animals etc.
and
"It's pollution everywhere, it's going to be that way. Trying to make
the world pollution free has never worked. And there's no reason in
wasting time to make people aware about the ill effects of polution
and encourage them to use things that dont pollute. Especially when we
still lack industrial growths in so many countries."
and
"It's not about scaring people with speeches against pollution but
it's about wasting time worrying about this"
It looks similar to me.
Why I say it is as bad as pollution?
"The main argument for the term “open source software” is that “free
software” makes some people uneasy. That's true: talking about
freedom, about ethical issues, about responsibilities as well as
convenience, is asking people to think about things they might rather
ignore. This can trigger discomfort, and some people may reject the
idea for that. It does not follow that society would be better off if
we stop talking about these things.
Years ago, free software developers noticed this discomfort reaction,
and some started exploring an approach for avoiding it. They figured
that by keeping quiet about ethics and freedom, and talking only about
the immediate practical benefits of certain free software, they might
be able to “sell” the software more effectively to certain users,
especially business. The term “open source” is offered as a way of
doing more of this—a way to be “more acceptable to business.” The
views and values of the Open Source movement stem from this decision.
This approach has proved effective, in its own terms. Today many
people are switching to free software for purely practical reasons.
That is good, as far as it goes, but that isn't all we need to do!
Attracting users to free software is not the whole job, just the first
step.
Sooner or later these users will be invited to switch back to
proprietary software for some practical advantage. Countless companies
seek to offer such temptation, and why would users decline? Only if
they have learned to value the freedom free software gives them, for
its own sake. It is up to us to spread this idea—and in order to do
that, we have to talk about freedom. A certain amount of the “keep
quiet” approach to business can be useful for the community, but we
must have plenty of freedom talk too.
At present, we have plenty of “keep quiet”, but not enough freedom
talk. Most people involved with free software say little about
freedom—usually because they seek to be “more acceptable to business.”
Software distributors especially show this pattern. Some GNU/Linux
operating system distributions add proprietary packages to the basic
free system, and they invite users to consider this an advantage,
rather than a step backwards from freedom.
We are failing to keep up with the influx of free software users,
failing to teach people about freedom and our community as fast as
they enter it. This is why non-free software (which Qt was when it
first became popular), and partially non-free operating system
distributions, find such fertile ground. To stop using the word “free”
now would be a mistake; we need more, not less, talk about freedom.
If those using the term “open source” draw more users into our
community, that is a contribution, but the rest of us will have to
work even harder to bring the issue of freedom to those users'
attention. We have to say, “It's free software and it gives you
freedom!”—more and louder than ever before."(RMS)
read the full article at
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html
-ADM
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Dupuy<kevin.dupuy@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It's a waste of time. Who cares? Seriously. Who cares? A few people who
are extremely radical for "free software" may, but they are outnumbered
by the amount of people, even community members who really don't care.
and
First: the only difference that I can tell between "free software" and
"open source" is that "free software" is a philosophy and "open source"
is a technical description. And I don't know about the rest of you, but
I'm not into selling people into philosophies when it comes to computer
software. I save that for my other job at a political organization.
It's not that way. If you are an open source enthusiast, you are not
our enemy but a person close to free software movement. Because
"Nearly all open source software is free software; the two terms
describe almost the same category of software. But they stand for
views based on fundamentally different values. Open source is a
development methodology; free software is a social movement. For the
free software movement, free software is an ethical imperative,
because only free software respects the users' freedom. By contrast,
the philosophy of open source considers issues in terms of how to make
software “better”—in a practical sense only. It says that non-free
software is a suboptimal solution. For the free software movement,
however, non-free software is a social problem, and moving to free
software is the solution."(RMS). It is just that you do not understand
the ideology behind the software you use. You know why we prefer
openoffice over other non-free software even if it is technically
might not be superior? That's because they value the philosophy of
free software and open source. So you see without the strength of
philosophy, both free software and open source movement is bound to
fail. It's not all that technical, my friend. And we do not tell you
to sell philosophy but we ask you to develop software maintaing the
philosophy of free software and sell it as any other product if you
like. Making users aware of their rights is a different issue and that
must be done through conferences, news paper articles, working with
human rights groups etc. making your potential buyer aware of free
software philosophy is a welcome thing but it is more important for
developers to be aware of it first.
It's sad that you don't care about it like many people don't care
about pollution, global warming, hunting of animals etc.
It's Linux. It's going to be that way, changing it to GNU/Linux has
never worked, and there's no reason in wasting time correcting people
about GNU/Linux, especially when we've got so many people spelling
"openSUSE" wrong.
and
Second: it's not about scaring people away because of the name, it's
about wasting time worrying about this.
--
"It's pollution everywhere, it's going to be that way. Trying to make
the world pollution free has never worked. And there's no reason in
wasting time to make people aware about the ill effects of polution
and encourage them to use things that dont pollute. Especially when we
still lack industrial growths in so many countries."
and
"It's not about scaring people with speeches against pollution but
it's about wasting time worrying about this"
It looks similar to me.
Why I say it is as bad as pollution?
"The main argument for the term “open source software” is that “free
software” makes some people uneasy. That's true: talking about
freedom, about ethical issues, about responsibilities as well as
convenience, is asking people to think about things they might rather
ignore. This can trigger discomfort, and some people may reject the
idea for that. It does not follow that society would be better off if
we stop talking about these things.
Years ago, free software developers noticed this discomfort reaction,
and some started exploring an approach for avoiding it. They figured
that by keeping quiet about ethics and freedom, and talking only about
the immediate practical benefits of certain free software, they might
be able to “sell” the software more effectively to certain users,
especially business. The term “open source” is offered as a way of
doing more of this—a way to be “more acceptable to business.” The
views and values of the Open Source movement stem from this decision.
This approach has proved effective, in its own terms. Today many
people are switching to free software for purely practical reasons.
That is good, as far as it goes, but that isn't all we need to do!
Attracting users to free software is not the whole job, just the first
step.
Sooner or later these users will be invited to switch back to
proprietary software for some practical advantage. Countless companies
seek to offer such temptation, and why would users decline? Only if
they have learned to value the freedom free software gives them, for
its own sake. It is up to us to spread this idea—and in order to do
that, we have to talk about freedom. A certain amount of the “keep
quiet” approach to business can be useful for the community, but we
must have plenty of freedom talk too.
At present, we have plenty of “keep quiet”, but not enough freedom
talk. Most people involved with free software say little about
freedom—usually because they seek to be “more acceptable to business.”
Software distributors especially show this pattern. Some GNU/Linux
operating system distributions add proprietary packages to the basic
free system, and they invite users to consider this an advantage,
rather than a step backwards from freedom.
We are failing to keep up with the influx of free software users,
failing to teach people about freedom and our community as fast as
they enter it. This is why non-free software (which Qt was when it
first became popular), and partially non-free operating system
distributions, find such fertile ground. To stop using the word “free”
now would be a mistake; we need more, not less, talk about freedom.
If those using the term “open source” draw more users into our
community, that is a contribution, but the rest of us will have to
work even harder to bring the issue of freedom to those users'
attention. We have to say, “It's free software and it gives you
freedom!”—more and louder than ever before."(RMS)
read the full article at
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html
-ADM
--
To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxx
For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+help@xxxxxxxxxxxx
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