[wellylug] The Movie of the Month

[Bret Comstock Waldow]

On Wed, 01 Mar 2006 18:11, Benjamin Cooney wrote:

> Dont mind at all. The reason I ended up thinking less of some people was
> mainly the GNU dude. (sorry I am aweful with names) His campagin to change
> the name of Linux to GNU/Linux seems in my opinion to contradict some of
> the founding philosophies of the open source software movement. Its just my
> opinions and others might disagree entirely, thats all good.

Do not make the mistake of confusing or conflating the Open Source and Free 
Software movements - they are distinct, of different origin, and while many 
people relate them, they are not related themselves.

Free Software is a social movement based on the premise that locking up code 
is locking up thought, so that people can't share it.  Currently there is 
great disgust in the United States (I was born there) about the Bush 
administration's attempts to limit academic freedom - which is based on the 
free sharing of knowledge, exposing it to evaluation and offering it's 
benefit to all.

By releasing code under the GPL, the body of code that cannot be taken away 
from people increases, so that people can share all the code/thought they 
wish.  Free Software works against proprietary code.  Proprietary code is 
used to control people (DCMA, anyone?), and this is part of the argument for 
building up a body of Free Software.

When I say you're free, I don't mean I can take you for nothing.  Rather it 
means I can't take you - YOU are free of my control.

Open Source accommodates proprietary code - this is the main difference 
between them that I know of.  There are various arguments about which is 
better and why - it depends on the goals any individual chooses to pursue, 
allow, or resist.

But they are not the same - very much not so.  Conflating them leads to value 
judgments that might apply to one being applied to the other, and then to 
personal opinions about the people involved which aren't in fact, applicable.

'Free' isn't about money.  Personally I think it's a shame that many people 
think of that first.  Or only.  I'd wish people set their sights higher by 
default.  Personally I would find it difficult to imagine I could put a 
dollar value on you - that doesn't really have anything to do with you, does 
it?

Cheers,
Bret
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