On 2019-03-13 11:39 a.m., Dmitry Alexandrov wrote: > Aaron Wolf <[email protected]> wrote: >> There's a bunch of confusion going on here. <…> >> >> As far as trying to talk about these topics in general, I suggest the use of >> FLO (Free/Libre/Open), as discussed at >> https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/about/free-libre-open > > Argh! That’s a perfect idea to get some more bunches of confusion, if you > ask me. > > When Raymond & Co. decided to coin a new word to hijack the essence of free > software to promote their own idea, they cared and succeed not to repeat Dr. > Stallman’s mistake of using an ambiguous word, so they didn’t not call it > ‘open’, which would be even more overloaded than ‘free’ is¹, but ‘open > _source_’. >
I'm not suggesting "open" on its own be accepted as anything precise, it's far too overused and abused. "Open Source" is a recognized term. But FLO as a full term is not overloaded but is specifically NOT an overused overloaded term. So, it is exclusively used to talk about free/libre/open-source etc. "Open" isn't used only for "Open Source" in this context though as there are "Open Access" journals and "Open" as in https://okfn.org/ "Open Knowledge" "Open" on its own is nearly useless. But FLO is more specific, it refers to meeting all the core freedoms while having some tie-in to the mostly-synonymous cases of "Open" as in "Open Source". It's not Free *or* Libre *or* Open, but Free AND Libre AND Open (not to suggest that those terms mean different things, but something that clearly meets *all* of them is clearly FLO). > Another reason, more apparent then than today, was in the fact, that ‘open > software’ have been already _taken_ to mean something entirely different: > (mostly nonfree) software based on open standards (keywords: SUS, CDE, Motif). > > _ > ¹ Well, I by no means an expert in English, but any dictionary in my > possession says so. Moreover, after verbatim translation to another language > ‘free software’ tends to rid itself from ambiguity, while ‘open’ does not — > at best. At worst, it acquires further meanings, like that of ‘opened > programs’ (= ‘running programs’), for instance. >
signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
_______________________________________________ libreplanet-discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
