Is there anyone who agrees with me that RMS's insistence on "Free" versus "Open Source" will only continue to hurt both of the community's chances of being correctly understood by the public ?
The concepts introduced by the different licenses in BOTH of these communities is so vastly different from the traditional licensing/philosophy, that it has been quite difficult for the general (i.e. "old") public to understand them.
Does the "open source" community have things in common with "free software" ? yes, they do. RMS considers everyone not with him to be explicitly against him. While I do believe that it's important to make the distinction between RMS's (FSF's) philosophy and that of the OpenSource philosophy as a matter of semantics, I also firmly believe that sticking on that point so passionately changes the focus. Both communities need to expand and grow, and awareness needs to be spread.
We will NOT know which paradigm/philosophy is better or worse without a long term acceptance and use of BOTH.
And that acceptance, awareness, and use will not happen if people like RMS continues to decline on speaking engagements where his voice could educate a great many people, without standing on ceremony.
What if the eGovOS people were to put a big banner on all literature and their site that says "The Free Software Movement is different from the OpenSource Movement in many ways...blah, blah, etc." ?? Will you speak *then* ? And finally get down to the business of educating people why the FSF is so important ?
I believe that it's MUCH more important to get the word out and explain the differences in traditional/FSF/OpenSource paradigms than to reject the chance to do that on the basis of details in those differences.
Many organizations do not know the difference between FSF and OSS movements.
Richard, if you don't explain it to them correctly, then they might not ever really know it, and figure it's too much effort, might as well stick with what we know: Microsoft.
Please consider that your choice to decline speaking engagements is hurting your own community, not helping it.
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how long will this go on ?
Posted by: biera13 on March 18, 2003 01:35 AMThe concepts introduced by the different licenses in BOTH of these communities is so vastly different from the traditional licensing/philosophy, that it has been quite difficult for the general (i.e. "old") public to understand them.
Does the "open source" community have things in common with "free software" ? yes, they do. RMS considers everyone not with him to be explicitly against him. While I do believe that it's important to make the distinction between RMS's (FSF's) philosophy and that of the OpenSource philosophy as a matter of semantics, I also firmly believe that sticking on that point so passionately changes the focus. Both communities need to expand and grow, and awareness needs to be spread.
We will NOT know which paradigm/philosophy is better or worse without a long term acceptance and use of BOTH.
And that acceptance, awareness, and use will not happen if people like RMS continues to decline on speaking engagements where his voice could educate a great many people, without standing on ceremony.
What if the eGovOS people were to put a big banner on all literature and their site that says "The Free Software Movement is different from the OpenSource Movement in many ways...blah, blah, etc." ?? Will you speak *then* ? And finally get down to the business of educating people why the FSF is so important ?
I believe that it's MUCH more important to get the word out and explain the differences in traditional/FSF/OpenSource paradigms than to reject the chance to do that on the basis of details in those differences.
Many organizations do not know the difference between FSF and OSS movements.
Richard, if you don't explain it to them correctly, then they might not ever really know it, and figure it's too much effort, might as well stick with what we know: Microsoft.
Please consider that your choice to decline speaking engagements is hurting your own community, not helping it.
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