On Wed, 2011-03-16 at 13:36 +0000, Sam Liddicott wrote: > Do we need to hi-jack the ghastly mis-used term "commercial software", > and always use it when we also refer to free software?
I wouldn't go that far. If people ask me about commercialism, I generally say that "Yes, it's commercial, anyone can use it and anyone who wishes to can sell it" (or along those lines). This gets across some important concepts: * that free software doesn't have to be sold; * that were it is sold, the money doesn't always accrue to the author; * that even where it isn't sold it can be used in commercial contexts. It also differentiates it from non-commercial software (which at least I believe exists; e.g. CC: BY-NC licensed software) in both copying and use restrictions. I also think the pro-commercial aspects are one of the strongest arguments for free software. It's a mistake to ignore them imho. But equally, if you say it's commercial, you can imply restrictions which are not present. Cheers Alex. -- This message was scanned by Better Hosted and is believed to be clean. http://www.betterhosted.com _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list [email protected] https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
