On 16/03/11 14:32, Alex Hudson wrote: > 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.
In my natural mind I agree with what you say. But... by not letting the word commercial imply or stand-for those restrictions, then the restrictions get brought out into the open: 2 pieces of commercial software - one has restrictions, and folk re-learn what what proprietary really means Closed-source software then becomes wrong footed because they can't use the respectable word commercial to cover their deficiencies. Sam _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list [email protected] https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
