<posted & mailed>
Harald Geyer wrote:
>> 1) 'free' means gratis, as related to 'software'. That is the natural
>> association people do. I do not see any good reasons to 'educate' people
>> to attach a different meaning to a commonly used expression. On the
>> contrary, the attribute 'open' naturally evokes and pinpoints the
>> concrete meaning.
> I disagree. Perhaps that's the situation in Italy, but the situation
> in Austria is very different: We have "Freie Software" meaning
> 'free software' but we don't even have a commonly used word for
> open source software.
I was referring to the english expression: 'free software' means 'software
you do not pay for', no doubt.
In german and latin languages, we have two different words to tell between
gratis and freedom. Yet I find 'freedom software' (as you might roughly
translate the austrian or the italian expression) is meaningless, recalling
a triple infinite of meanings (freedom from what? Freedom from who? freedom
to do what?). 'Freedom' is a messy word, without a proper context; that is
the reason why it is overused by some politicians. In italy, the worst (in
my opinion), barbaric, unethical political party is called 'the house of
freedom'.
>> 2) 'free software' is idelologically connotated, thus probably driving
>> back
>> many users. I do not like that to happen.
> Actually I like this connotion: The history of maxima (as I have learned
> it from posts on this ML) and especially Schelters effort to put
> it under a free license are much more a fight for freedom than
> an open colaboration of a bunch of nerds.
I am sure that was Schelters' motivation, although i have never known him.
Yet we shoudl not guess the same motivation, the same balance between ideals
and self interest for every user or developer. Give people the freedom to
use and improve Maxima, whatever motivation they are driven by.
More to this, I do not want to imply no negative ethical judgment on people
not using or developing open source software. That is the ideological
position that i cannot share.
best regards
--
Pol