"Jeremy T. Bouse" <jbo...@debian.org> writes: > I'll start off by saying I haven't read the whole thread and only > caught this because of the subject line change.
I direct you to Russ's message in this thread that explains exactly why “customer” is a misleading term for the relationship being discussed, and: > I'd have to ask how many of you actually have worked in large > enterprise environments? I've been working in both public and private > sector enterprise environments and the term "customer" is quite often > used to describe those whom we serve. Whether they are internal or > external customers and whether or not there is any payment involved. > The term merely means the consumer of the service we provide. and please read Russ's message for why that *is* a reasonable implication of “customer”, and is exactly why that's *not* the relationship the Debian project has with Debian recipients. > Having a long winded debate over the use of a term takes away from > the ability of actually accomplishing anything so it is better served > to move on and address the issue rather than be pedantic about > definitions. If the distinction were inconsequential I would agree. It's not inconsequential, though, so that's why this is so valuable: it draws attention to the false and misleading idea that the Debian Project has a “customer” relationship with anyone. -- \ “I don't want to live peacefully with difficult realities, and | `\ I see no virtue in savoring excuses for avoiding a search for | _o__) real answers.” —Paul Z. Myers, 2009-09-12 | Ben Finney
