Hi Leah, my talk from Saturday focused a lot on the question of
terminology, though I didn't get into this specific topic more than a
little.
Freedom as a noun is good, "software freedom"
But for adjective, I like FLO for Free/Libre/Open. It's not just a junk
term, it writes and pronounces nicely. The sound being like "flow" is
fine, that connotation fits.
More on that at
https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/about/free-libre-open
It's definitely not about being ideologically neutral, it's about strong
care about all the political principles.
I also agree that "proprietary" is ineffective in a lot of ways. But
your critique is a bit off. Proprietary *does* mean property. It's an
adjective for property. And I'd argue that we don't "own" free software
copies, we own computer devices, and those devices can have whatever
patterns of bits. What non-free licenses do is they tell us that we are
legally blocked from freely using our own computing devices. I think we
would do well to focus on that type of ownership and not ownership of
software.
Ownership of software really means ownership of copyright. And when we
have a free software license, we are legally licensed under the owner's
copyright, and the license grants us all the freedoms.
But this doesn't resolve how to better talk about proprietary software.
If we go with FLO, then we can say non-FLO. And one thing I like about
that is that it makes FLO the default. But I'd prefer a stronger term.
In my talk, I focused on the economics of abundant vs scarce and open vs
exclusive. And within the four types of goods, proprietary software is
"club goods" which means abundant but exclusive. And it makes sense to
use that language maybe.
Proprietary software is "exclusive club-goods software" or maybe
"exclusive software". And if people ask, "what do you mean it's
exclusive, anyone can get it", the answer is, "it's exclusive to those
who accept the ads, the terms and restrictions, and/or pay the license
fee; that's how you join the exclusive club!" Or in some cases, it's
"access and use of the software isn't exclusive, but the rights to share
and to adapt the software is exclusively reserved, so you don't have
those freedoms. That's why it's still a form of exclusive software."
Some people won't mind that software is exclusive, but there's no simple
word that can explain what's wrong without explaining why software
freedom matters.
And as long as we talk about the exclusive club, we can also emphasize
that there are certain people who set and change the rules for the club,
that it's not democratic.
With this language, we are making it clear to people how to think about
their RELATIONSHIP to the software and the software providers and the
economics of it.
All that said, I think "restricted software" is FINE, that's a good
option and superior to "proprietary" for most cases.
My inclination at this point is actually to prefer "restricted software".
So, I think it's good to have two terms that can be presented as
opposing. "FLO software" and "restricted software" works well IMO.
Best,
Aaron Wolf
On 2022-03-20 17:06, Leah Rowe via libreplanet-discuss wrote:
On Mon, 21 Mar 2022 00:58:35 +0100
Valentino Giudice <[email protected]> wrote:
I've heard "freedom software" too, but it's slightly weird. Surely
"freedom-respecting software" conveys the idea, but it is longer and,
I believe, less prone to being treated as a "technical" term with an
objective definition and a common understanding (which is useful when
the term ends up in the law).
Why not "libre software"? It's already common, it's easily understood
by any English-speaking person (because they will know "liberty") and
better translates to other languages.
Well, "libre" is great too, but I get the impression that not all
English speakers understand its meaning when they first see it. It's
largely a translation of words from other languages.
The term "freedom" is well-understood by English speakers, and it is
mostly unambiguous. Also, many people know English as a second or third
language and in such cases, the word is still well-understood.
I'm sceptical about the term "libre", just because it's not the default
word in English-speaking countries (freedom is the default word, for
the intended meaning we wish to convey).
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