On Tue, 06 Sep 2011 11:36:23 -0500 Quiliro Ordóñez <[email protected]> wrote:
> I suggest you regard official FSFE's positions from their website in: > https://fsfe.org/about/basics/freesoftware > https://fsfe.org/documents/whyfs-howto > And disregard previous statements from FSFE officers that present very > different positions from those. I don't see different positions between those documents and the previous statements. The FSFE says (from https://fsfe.org/about/basics/freesoftware.en.html) "The goal was to seek fast commercialisation of Free Software and acceptance of Free Software by the companies and venture capitalists of the booming new economy. As a means to this end, they made a conscious decision to leave aside all long-term issues (such as philosophy, ethics and social effects) related to Free Software, feeling these posed obstacles in the way of rapid acceptance by economy. They proposed to focus on technical advantages only Often used in good faith by people who refer to what Free Software stands for, the term "Open Source" - originally defined to mean the same thing as Free Software in terms of licenses and implementation - has seen inflationary usage. " This is exactly what FSFE representatives are telling. Now the "FSF version" from http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html "In 1998, a part of the free software community splintered off and began campaigning in the name of “open source.” The term was originally proposed to avoid a possible misunderstanding of the term “free software,” but it soon became associated with philosophical views quite different from those of the free software movement. Some of the supporters of open source considered the term a “marketing campaign for free software,” which would appeal to business executives by highlighting the software's practical benefits, while not raising issues of right and wrong that they might not like to hear. Other supporters flatly rejected the free software movement's ethical and social values." I hope you notice the difference between those views. FSFE says, open source supporters made a tactical decision to leave aside ethical values. FSF says they rejected the ethical values. There is a difference between "leaving aside" (meaning: you don't say, but you still agree silently with a view) and "reject" (meaning: you are opposed to a view). Additionally FSFE says that "open Source" is "often used in good faith(!) by people who refer to what Free Software stands for". As a consequence FSFE says: We think, that people who use the term "open source" are most likely can be "converted" to be free software supporters, because they are just using the wrong term and don't know enough about the ethical values. FSF says: We gave up on "open source" supporters, because they reject our ideas and have very different ideas.
